ARTIST: Imaginary Johnny
TITLE: Painting Over the Dirt
LABEL: Unfinished Side Productions
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 193kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 40m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-02-00
RIP DATE: 2006-02-25
Track List
----------
1. Work Related 3:40
2. Sad Girl 3:20
3. Punch Drunk 4:25
4. Anytime Minutes 3:03
5. Rat Race 3:46
6. First Time To New Orleans 4:16
7. She's Dug 4:27
8. Missouri Sky 3:22
9. Little Dimes 4:26
10. Spatula 5:54
Release Notes:
http://www.unfinishedside.com/imaginary_johnny/
http://www.unfinishedside.com
I first met Imaginary Johnny in the early '80s. He was wearing his sister's
belt -- the green and blue one with the spouting whales. He consumed a steady
diet of Knight Rider and Greatest American Hero. He sang The Replacements'
"Within Your Reach" the way French debutantes smoke cigarettes. Those were
formative years.
It's hard to believe it's been twenty years now. We've experienced a lot
together -- we set fire to the men's room trash can in Vegas, got kicked out of
the Voodoo Lounge in New Orleans, sweated and reminisced on the tarmac that
partly cloudy day in Oakland, got stoned in some liberal arts dorm room,
listening plaintively to Leonard Cohen. Imaginary Johnny wrote those letters to
the John Cusack fan club and signed them with my trademark
smiley-face-exclamation-point. Imaginary Johnny stole the booze and put it in my
backpack. I swear.
Imaginary Johnny also stole my first girlfriend. The loss was palpable; I swore
I'd never love again. That night I tasted my first sip of tequila and
consequently swore off that, too, from Imaginary Johnny's bathroom. That's the
kind of friend he is. And that's why I gave up my girlfriend the way an aged
chess champion bows to his successor. I knew Imaginary Johnny to be more worthy
than I in every possible way.
Which somehow brings us to the present. Imaginary Johnny doesn't write songs,
he breathes them. His life and music are interchangeable, and the poetry of his
words introduces us all to the transcendent art in the most trivial details.
The instrumentation is deceptively intricate; the rhythms commingle and
intersperse without losing identity -- a marriage of the organic and the
synthetic that reflects latter day living. The more we listen, the more we
realize that Imaginary Johnny is our Imaginary Johnny, singing the songs of our
lives, turning the mundane into a masterpiece.
And that's a nice thing to realize.