I do like directness. Artful obfuscation and deliberate obscurity can be entertaining in their own way, but there\u2019s something deeply refreshing\u2014courageous, even, under certain circumstances\u2014about discarding all artifice and stating your case plainly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the street,\u201d declares Johnny J. Blair at the very beginning of the kickoff title tune, and the rest of the urban travelogue of characters and situations he unspools in the course of this track all serve as verbal props in support of that simple statement.<\/p>\n
Case thus made, Blair moves directly into a cover of one of his biggest influences, delivering an upbeat, almost celebratory take on the Velvet Underground\u2019s \u201cWhat Goes On.\u201d The arrangement features garage-rock drive decorated with exuberant harmonies, hitting the sweet spot between glam and British Invasion power pop. A third highlight arrives swiftly as Blair imagines what life might be like \u201cIf I Could Dress Like Clive Owen,\u201d layering the British Invasion vibe with a post-modern satirical bent with results both twisted and delicious.<\/p>\n
From there the album becomes more and more experimental and diverse, dipping into Bond soundtrack patische (the instrumental \u201cSpring In Barcelona\u201d), rather Roxy Music-ish hipster crooning (\u201cKept On Walkin\u2019\u201d and \u201cEven In The Night\u201d), Lou Reed-style urban folk (the atmospheric spoken-word \u201cBig Town Winding Down,\u201d and the raw, garage-y \u201cLove That\u2019s Here To Stay\u201d), and world music-influenced jazz-funk (\u201cNight Garden\u201d and the first half of closer \u201cIt\u2019s In Your Hands \/ Variations On Satie\u201d).<\/p>\n
I Like The Street<\/i> hangs together thematically as an exploration of the lives of a city, full of characters and attitudes that are both distinctive and distinctively urban. What really holds it together, though, is vibe. It\u2019s cinematic in scope, yet often raw and immediate in execution; both ambitious in stylistic vision and direct in stating its intentions. Blair\u2019s gift for applying a postmodern feel to classic rock idioms makes him a perfect fit for Wampus, as he joins their stable of artists twisting familiar sounds in something fresh and unexpected. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8778],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42506","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-johnny-j-blair","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42506","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42506"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42506"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}