About Me
On their debut album, David Baerwald and David Ricketts have come out of nowhere to write and perform a fearless, loose suite about victory and loss; friends, lovers and family; work and Los Angeles. "Welcome to the Boomtown" opens side one with an image of a fated woman high behind the wheel of her Porsche; Baerwald sings, deadpan, "Pick a habit/We got plenty/To go around." That side ends with "Being Alone Together," in which a man who's "just a little bit tattered" wakes up and imagines that his lost girlfriend is still around; he later consoles himself with his little sister's advice that he's "better off."These are intelligent tracks, long on rhythm and mood. Produced by Davitt Sigerson – with unobtrusive bits of dobro, lap steel, mandolin, harmonica and Paulinho da Costa's percussion worked into the superbly balanced mix of bass, guitar and drums – the album proves that involving arrangements can enrich even the most literate and melodic of songs. On "Swallowed by the Cracks," Baerwald speaks about a previous generation's creative ambitions fading into aimlessness. Singing his heart out in a lively guitar-led setting, talking as much to himself as to anyone else, he decides, "You're only out when you stay out/You stay out when you don't believe." On "Ain't So Easy," an adult love song, the narrator sings, "I'm sorry about your eye/I'll find a way to make amends," and then offers a transcendent chorus that stands as good a chance of winning back the woman he wronged as any chorus might. This is exemplary Eighties rock & roll, generous and unblinking.On side two, "River's Gonna Rise" points out cruelty and repression among today's South African "church bells" and "thieves," though it doesn't build musically to the frenzy it narrates. But on "A Rock for the Forgotten," a bartender effortlessly describes L.A. characters ("When I pour they smile") to a spry groove. Then David and David go for their grand statement. On "Heroes," a jangling country rocker (even in a boomtown like L.A., where "all that money makes such a succulent sound," roots survive), they're all there – "the punks and the drunks and the bad guitar players." On this song, David and David realize that all their stories and sobs and fantasies are, well, part of their job, too. Their often extraordinary record is about how not to be swallowed by the cracks. (RS 484)
