Bobby Bare, Jr. has a huge monkey to shake from his back –
\nnamely, the musical history of his father.<\/p>\n
His band, Bare Jr., tries to cut its own unique musical path on
\ntheir album
\nBoo-Tay<\/i>, but those who aren’t fond of Bare’s father’s music
\n(or who are easily scared away by the fact that Bobby Bare was a
\nsuccessful artist in an entirely different musical vein) don’t
\nquite know what they’re missing on this disc. There is a slight
\ncountry vein to the music, but for the most part,
\nBoo-Tay<\/i> is alternative all the way through – and, for the
\nmost part, is good.<\/p>\n
Instead of running from his musical heritage, Bare, Jr. chooses
\nto melt it into his own style of music – even to the point of using
\nhis father as a backup vocalist on “Love-Less”. (The track also
\nfeatures Goodness’s Carrie Akre.) The sound that this track, as
\nwell as many others on
\nBoo-Tay<\/i>, have is similar to that of The Bottle Rockets,
\nalmost like a Southern-fried alternative that one doesn’t hear a
\nlot of. Too bad, ’cause it’s quite good – though I’m willing to
\nconcede that it’s an acquired taste.<\/p>\n
After the operatic 29-second title track,
\nBoo-Tay<\/i> kicks things into overdrive with tracks like
\n“Nothin’ Better To Do,” “You Blew Me Off,” “Faker” and “Patty
\nMcBride”. All the tracks seem to flow naturally, and Bare Jr.
\n(vocalist\/guitarist Bare, Jr., drummer Keith Brogdon, lead
\nguitarist Michael Grimes, dulcimerist – is that a word? – Tracy
\nHackney and bassist Dean Tomasek) know how to get their message
\nacross musically without overstaying their welcome.<\/p>\n
There are a few areas, though, where
\nBoo-Tay<\/i> lags a bit – and I’ll write that off to the band’s
\nyouth. Tracks like “Give Nothing” and “Naked Albino” just don’t
\nlight any fires under me – nor does the hidden track at the end,
\ncomplete with an ex-girlfriend’s answering machine breakup – but
\nthese moments aren’t often on this album.<\/p>\n
For his part, Bare, Jr. is an adequate vocalist; I don’t think
\nhe’d pretend to be one of the better in the market. But his style
\ndoes fit the music very well, especially on tracks like “Faker,”
\nwhere the slight warble to his voice adds a touch of intensity to
\nthe message.<\/p>\n
There’s one other little problem with Bare Jr. – chances are
\nyou’ve never heard of them. Even I hadn’t heard of the band until
\nBoo-Tay<\/i> arrived in the mail. Here is where even a little
\nradio play would be beneficial for the up-and-coming band. While I
\ndon’t think stations like WXRT-FM or WKQX-FM in Chicago’s spinning
\na song like “Faker” would make this album go multi-platinum, a
\nlittle attention would let people know that this band – and
\ncountless others out there – are around, and are worth a little
\nlistening time.<\/p>\n
\nBoo-Tay<\/i> is not going to be the album that kicks Bare Jr.
\ninto the superstar levels a la Pearl Jam. But if enough people take
\nthe time to listen to it, then this band will have a fighting
\nchance. That, and a little more road experience, makes me eager to
\nhear what they have planned for album number two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6098],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36198","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bare-jr","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36198"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36198"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}