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Adrian Belew
Salad Days Thirsty Ear Records When I first saw the track listing for Salad Days, I thought I was looking at some sort of "greatest hits" compilation. I recognized almost all of the song titles from other albums, including a few Belew did with King Crimson. Upon further investigation the truth is revealed: Salad Days is a collection of completely new, acoustic versions of Adrian Belew songs. Don't know anything about Adrian Belew? You're not alone. You've probably heard him on something, though. He's played guitar and sung for Frank Zappa, David Bowie, and King Crimson. He's been a guest player for the Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Crash Test Dummies, Jean-Michel Jarre, Paul Simon, and even Nine Inch Nails. He's everywhere. His guitar playing ranges from progressive rock to pop to blues to general strangeness. Guitar isn't the only thing you'll find on Salad Days. Belew handles everything here, including piano, drums, and his wonderful singing voice (everything, that is, except the string quartet on "Men in Helicopters.") His songwriting is excellent - one thing that really shines through on this album. The songs deal with the environment, animal activism, the decline of trains as transportation, strange relationships, and life in the 90s. It's interesting to hear the acoustic versions of these songs. For example, the original version of Crimson's "Three of a Perfect Pair" is almost industrial-sounding. Repetitive, mechanical guitar arpeggiations interlock over electronic drums. In this version, one acoustic guitar is doing the arpeggios, and there's no percussion. It's a good deal quieter, but the feel and mood of the original is remarkably present here. Another amazing thing here is that this one's performed live! Two songs on Salad Days don't fit this mold. "Return of the Chicken" is an odd conglomeration of various tone-producing instruments making noises in seemingly random order, while "Things You Hit with a Stick" is exactly what it says - the same idea, but with percussion instruments. It's interesting, but not as good as the more conventional songs. Belew's done this before. Mr. Music Head's "Cruelty to Animals" is a similar experiment done with Belew's trademark guitar-made animal noises. You won't be hearing any of those on this album, though. I don't think even Belew could pull off grunts, whistles, or roars with acoustic instruments. Salad Days is a recommended purchase for anyone. Longtime Belew fans will enjoy hearing the reworked versions of songs they already know. For people looking to try Belew's music for the first time, this is a good way to be exposed to a good cross-section of his career... and it avoids the usual problem of buying greatest-hits packages - getting the rest of Belew's albums won't make this one redundant. And I predict that you'll want to get them all. -Bill |
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