Talented Crap

Gary Louris
Vagabonds






I listen to a lot of new music. perhaps by long established artist but new none the less in that most of it is previously unreleased. If you look at the Diner Review for these reviews you would see for the most part that the reviews are favorable.
This is for two reasons:

1. I tend to buy things from artists I already know and like; and
2. It is hard to review crap because i listen to it once and never again, filijng it in the rack of shame in my basement, never to see the light of day again. I do not even attempt to re-sell these CD’s used because it seems wrong to put them back into circulation. Someone else might buy them.

Gary Louris is an extremely talented guy. With Mark Olsen in the 90s they fronted one of my favorite all time bands “The Jayhawks” whose CD “Hollywood Town Hall” is likely on my desert island list of the the CD’s I would have with me under that ever increasingly likely circumstance brought about by global warming. Even after Olsen left the band to record awful, truly awful music by himself and to marry and divorce the open wound known as singer/songwriter Victoria Williams, Louris kept the Jayhawks going and put out some great pop and alt-country CD’s.

The Jayhawks were his band and it puzzled my why he would want to release solo. Was the band limiting him? Did he want the fame? The answers were all too obvious when I played the solo CD. It is pretentious, wan, smug, pretty, pretentious, effeminate, preachy, trite and pretentious. This si the worst CD of 2008. He put together a very competent little band highlighted by bassist/multi instrumentalist Jonathan Wilson and steel guitar guru Josh Grange and a band of his L.A. pals “The Laurel Canyon Family Choir” (me making gagging sound). A lot of people and recording artists have been ruined by California. Add him to the list.

I went to his website after listening to this piece of shit 10 times because I was so dumbfounded by how bad it is. And it is consistently bad. There is not one song on here that you would remember for anything other then utter insipdness. The website fortunately explains it all and I urge you to check it out.

www.garylourismusic.com. I did not have the heart or the stomach to look at his My Space page.
Seriously? This is a guy who has written a lot of fun music and been in a lot of fun situations with the Jayhawks and tghe alt country super band Golden Smog. And he gives us this Connor Oberst (without the talent) mope? My life is too short.

“Strip it down to what you can rescue.
Pass it on, what is right and true blue”.

Seriously? That line is from the cleverly named “True Blue” and is emblematic of the simple truths he so annoyingly conveys. We get it Gary. You reached middle life. You find life confusing but beautiful. You have absolutely nothing interesting to say about it but want to anyway.

Sample of annoying song titles:

“Meandering”
“We’ll Get By”
“To Die A Happhy Man”
From the epochal “Meandering”:
Laying Down Among The Dogwood
In The Corners of my mind
Seems the faster I’m running
The further I get behind”

I honestly started to make me angry to listen to this bad, recycled Dan Fogelberg album. If i were a moody, misguided, introspective, unhappy 13 year old boy I might be deluded enough to think that sensitive songs like this would make girls find me attractive and get me laid. I would be missing the point that they would also be vomiting and/or laughing at me and the music. It is at best a cyst upon the music scene and if he makes another solo album it could blossom into a cancer. Avoid it like you would a leper. You have been warned. lets hope he either records no more or goes back with the Jayhawks and views this as a learning experience. And for God’s sake, move back to Minneapolis Gary...SAVE YOURSELF!
0 Sliders (for the first time ever) on a ten scale.

Other Views:

Paste Magazine:

Former Jayhawks frontman releases first-ever solo album
Gary Louris is one of the unsung heroes of contemporary roots music. His band The Jayhawks made one of alt.country’s landmark albums, 1992’s stately Hollywood Town Hall, and since then he has collaborated with a range of artists including Jeff Tweedy, Rhett Miller, The Sadies and the Dixie Chicks. Strangely, Vagabonds is his first solo album, shuffling onto shelves some 20 years into his career and three years since the (permanent?) dissolution of The Jayhawks. All of the Louris hallmarks are present: the low-key choruses on “Omaha Nights” and “D.C. Blues”; the dusty harmonies of “True Blue” and “Meandering”; the country-rock hooks of “She Only Calls Me On Sundays” and the title track. Certainly, Vagabonds sounds warmly familiar, but over 10 tracks, the album settles into a genial lull that even the punchy “I Wanna Get High” can’t rouse. Too low-key to rival his best work, the album nevertheless serves as a reminder of Louris’ continued relevance.
See the Slant Review at:
http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/music_review.asp?ID=1295