ARTIST: Loudon Wainwright III
TITLE: Here Come The Choppers!
LABEL: Sovereign Artists
GENRE: Folk
BITRATE: 189kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 56min total
RELEASE DATE: 19 Apr 2005
RIP DATE: 30 Apr 2005
Track List
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01. My Biggest Fan 6:02
02. No Sure Way 5:29
03. Had To Be Her 5:02
04. Hank And Fred 4:55
05. Half Fist 4:13
06. To Be On TV 4:03
07. God's Country 3:14
08. Make Your Mother Mad 4:06
09. When You Leave 5:22
10. Nanny 3:12
11. Here Come The Choppers 6:42
12. Things 4:06
Release Notes:
Like some neo-folky version of the Von Trapps, the Wainwright dynasty are
everywhere at the moment. Young Rufus populates the style mags, sister Martha
has just released her solo debut and mother Kate McGarrigle is back with Auntie
Anna, singing Quebecois folk songs.
But, literally and metaphorically, Loudon's still the daddy, and his 21st album
finds him on typically acerbic and wittily literate form. Throughout, he's ably
abetted by a crack team of session musicians, including ace jazzer Bill Frisell
on guitar and Jim Keltner on drums. For the most part, the backing is
understated, tastefully fleshing out Wainwright's minimalist acoustics,
Frisell's guitar chiming like a bell in all the right places.
I'm pleased to report that Wainwright's songwriting is on fine form, whether
it's a wry look at fandom ("My Biggest Fan") or the sideways look at
relationships in "It Had To Be Her". Would any other writer, for instance,
describe love as a lesion, as Loudon does on the latter?
Greg Leisz's swooning steel guitar enhances "No Sure Way", one of the most
affecting responses to 9/11 yet written as Wainwright recasts the New York
subway as the classical underworld, his train journeying through the closed down
stations around the World Trade Centre. As ever with Wainwright, the song is
telling in its detail, the East River reconfigured as the Styx.
But the finest moment comes on the title track, in which Wainwright imagines Los
Angeles coming under attack from the air, smart bombs raining down on his newly
adopted hometown as scared Los Angelinos scurry for shelter through the garbage
cans and Miracle Mile disintegrates beneath the onslaught. It's a startling
transposition of the horrors of Falluja to mainland USA, and a blackly comic
highlight from one of America's finest songwriters.