Jimmy Winchell - Gives You the Business EP
(Priapus)
Oh, he gives you the business, for damn sure. 7 songs’ worth. All covers. All
performed on chintzy synthesizers. All recorded on a 4-track machine someone
probably salvaged from the bottom of some crusty, rusted out dumpster. All
essayed by a nasal atonal singer. Said singer gets as close to hitting the
proper notes as a mute karaoke singer with a cold would. If this description
whets your appetite, then you’re made of sterner stuff than my namby-pamby ass.
Four of these songs are staples on Classic Rock radio. In Connecticut, this
radio niche is an inescapable part of the social landscape, a lonely eyesore
stuck in the horizon like a spinach leaf dangling between the stained teeth of a
chronic smoker with gingivitis. If you’re like me, hearing the actual versions
of “Have a Cigar” or “Jet Airliner” or “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” (which I
hadn’t actually heard until this disc, and Lord, thank you for keeping me
ignorant for so long) is enough of an earache. Why someone thought folks would
want to listen to ratty lo-fi versions of such songs done horribly wrong--so
wrong that they’re not even enjoyable as funny jokes, ha ha, we’re mocking the
songs with wit and panache by making them sound really bad--is beyond my meager
understandings of social mores and the serendipitous ways of the world.
For “My Story” (a Bo Diddley song), Jimmy gives up on singing to interpret the
lyrics in a spoken-word fashion. The song’s so simple that the low-budget
aesthetic stinking up this disc actually does the song some service. Except
that it’s nearly incomprehensible. And then that song’s smacking lips with
Billy Joel’s “Entertainer." On acoustic guitar. And Jimmy’s singing (or
whinging, if you prefer). Sounds like a broken-down country song. If Neil
Young were struck dumb, slipped a mickey, choked, slapped around, kicked in the
groin, and THEN handed a guitar and this song, it would still outshine this
sucker by a wide country mile, with enough room for a 50-acre farm.
And then there are two more songs, by Joni Mitchell (“Free Man In Paris”) and
Joe Walsh (“Life’s Been Good”). There’s a brief glimmer in the final track,
where Jimmy tosses in a Big Star quote right at the end, and the melody is
plinked out xylophone-style on a synth. And, hell, Jimmy’s voice almost sounds
like Joe Walsh’s. But then, they throw in some cheesy crescendo with canned
trumpets. And it just falls flat, like the rest of this disc. It’s dull. It’s
mediocre.
That’s the thing irking me about this disc. It’s bland and boring. That’s a
worse crime than being outright terrible. I have plenty of records that sound
more inept, with singers that can’t carry a tune in a shopping cart, and
musicians playing instruments with the curly hairs dangling from their ass. If
Jimmy & Co. were performing original songs, I’d probably feel a bit more empathy
for the endeavor. (Something tells me Jimmy’s a member of Home, given this
record’s association with Screw Music Forever, the musical home of Home, a fine
group of musicians whose idea of fucking around is much more enjoyable.) But if
you’re going to bother recording and releasing half-assed cover songs like these,
and you’re going to spend money printing out glossy CD insert sheets and liner
notes and producing CDs, then you should fuck them up in spectacular fashion.
This is nothing more than an aural whoopie cushion. Making this a coaster would
be an insult to the glass, the table, the beverage in the glass, and other
reputable coasters all around the world.
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