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| NEW CLIP FOR GARY LUCAS'S "ONE MAN'S MEAT" FEATURING DAVID JOHANSEN / New clip for Gary Lucas & Gods and Monsters's "ONE MAN"S MEAT" featuring David Johansen: https://bit.ly/3f9ZhtK As featured on Gary Lucas's new retrospective double album THE ESSENTIAL GARY LUCAS, spanning 40 years of music over 160 minutes with 12 rare and unreleased tracks, which continues to receive excellent reviews and airplay internationally. Just in: New album review from Un Disco Al Dia.com (Spain): https://bit.ly/3vfxOwI English translation: Some may find his name diffusely familiar, and many may only identify him as the first great mentor of that dazzling and ephemeral genius that was the unfortunate Jeff Buckley, but Gary Lucas' career already totals four decades of guitar mastery and polyhedral and incisive gaze. The Essential is the usual motley double anthology, which takes advantage of almost every square centimeter of the CD to provide more information and reach its good two and a half hours of fascinating review, also for the premium connoisseurs of this New York master. Because along with the greatest hits, if such a nomenclature were applicable to our man in the hat, the collection is rich in succulent and rare rarities, and the occasional completely unreleased recording. In this chapter of treasures, the opening gift of the second CD is unbeatable: a meeting between Lucas and the brilliant Asian pop star Feifei Yang to give us a (fantastic) version of All Along the Watchtower... in Mandarin Chinese. But first we have witnessed the fascinating unfolding of the first disc, 17 tracks of a very broad spectrum, as happily unruly as Gary himself. Focused on the work of our protagonist together with his referential backing band, Gods and Monsters, the collection includes acoustic and electric, instrumental or sung, a lot of art-rock, digressions of avant-garde folk (the brilliant Skin the Rabbit), outbursts of the most untamed New York (One Man's Meat, with David Johansen, from New York Dolls), the serene repose of the beautiful Follow, the pinch of accelerated rock with brass (Climb the Highest Mountain) and, in between, the original demo of Grace, Buckley's great emblem, stratospheric already in that first take. Lucas is co-author of that masterpiece and another of Jeff's first and only complete LP songs, Mojo Pin. It's hard to find similarities or parallels, because (almost) nobody covers so much and so naturally. The background is reminiscent of Captain Beefheart, the band from which this New Yorker from Syracuse emerged, and the troubadour-like acidity is reminiscent of bands like The Auteurs. But there is no uniformity, nor is there any need for it: Lady of Shalott, for example, departs from the parameters by referring to British folk, while Skin Diving intermingles the energetic guitar playing and the lazily sensual whispers of French Elli Medeiros. To the fan's delight, Lucas takes the trouble to comment on the 36 songs one by one in the booklet. The criteria of omnivorous diversity multiply even more spectacularly, as expected, in the second half: Solo, Rarities and Collaborations. There are incursions into soundtracks, avant-garde encounters with the Metropole Orchestra and, of course, a Cuban incursion, Out from Under, with Haydée Milanés and Los Van Van (you read that right). Also, one of Lucas and Jeff Buckley's lost songs, Story Without Words, is taken on by Dutch vocalist Jolene Grunberg. There is so much that Lucas has been telling and has yet to tell the world, but this Essential provides an unbeatable first panoramic view. And it inevitably induces, irremediably, to multiply our initial curiosity. —Fernando Sampedro write your comments about the article :: © 2021 Jazz News :: home page |