No Strings Album

The Title, "No Strings" was reccommended by Matt Bacon of COCK ESP, both for obvious reasons, and something that happened while we were on tour, in Missouri.  After playing a show with Eugenics Council in downtown Columbus, a man approached me at the merch table, and invited us to stay over at his place.  He explained that I could come over and stay at his place, that he made a mean western omlet, and of course, there were, "No Strings."Being a skeptical and touring savvy person, I knew a fishy story when I heard one.  This story evidently didn't seem fishy at all, and I said "Sure!  Sounds great!  I'll tell the rest of the guys."  After an hour and a half drive into rural Missouri, we came to his small farmhouse.  COCK ESP had driven seperately, and my conversation with our host had started to give me second thoughts, as he kept chuckling to himself and saying "I never do stuff like this."  All six of us entered to find it was unheated in January, had almost no furniture, a tiny couch in the livingroom, and of course, only one bed.  I went to the bathroom, and while I was going, our host walked right in, unzipped his pants and started peeing with me.  I retreated, and begged a female member of COCK ESP, Elyse Perez, to sleep with him and I, as I had agreed that we could share beds on the way there, I thought he meant all of us...  She said okay, but, "I don't want to sleep in the middle!  Whaaa!""You have to!"In the morning I woke up to find his arms half around me... reaching over Elyse.  But you know what?  He made a mean Western Omlette, and didn't push anymore, he even complimented me, saying, "So, you work out?"  Nope.  So all in all, it was a good call, staying with him, and I got an album title out of the deal.Here are the Liner Notes:
My wife and I first heard U Can Unlearn Guitar at a
Phi-Phenomena concert up here in our little New Hampshire town, on the
top
floor of a small community art collective. The group far outnumbered
the
audience (actually, it's entirely possible that my wife, myself and my
young
daughter were the audience).
UCLG opened
with the wonderful "She Didn't Know about Art". My wife and I looked at
each
other in the happy and almost simultaneous realization that the
singer-songwriter form, a tradition that has seemed to me to become so
moribund
over the past 15 years or so that its rigor mortis had become its main
argument for existence, had, in fact, a pulse.
 
Self-effacing, biting, all over the map, UCLG is
who and
where songwriting needs to be. Alternately  funny,
terriffying, from some other dimension, or just plain
dissassociative, he  sings with
extraordinary versatility, aplomb, and yes, skill, without ever
congratulating himself.
What I like so much about this music, and so little about "contemporary
singer-songwriters" in general, is that this music admits, with a
smile, how
simple the art form is, and how blatantly idiotic it is at this point
in time
for yet another bonehead with a few guitar chords to emote all over us.
This
honesty is just the right invitation to the
loneliness, depression, sense of humor, wonder and
absurdity. For all itÕs noise, agressivity, it's some of the
most welcoming
music I've heard in a long time.
 
Also, though I hate to say this, because it will
no doubt embarrass
UCLG: these are great songs in the most ordinary of ways. Some are
quirky/funny
in the Negativeland-Trubee tradition ("It's Just Chicken" is the
current #1
favorite around our house, having supplanted "Man with Four Fingers").
On the
other hand, "Tell Me Sumthin" and "58 Days on the Road" are strong,
nasty and
well-wrought; "Monkey Never Die" and "Busy Business" psychotic in the
nicest
way. "Mayonaisse" ...  well, you figure that one out.
 
But others, like "Porcelain Eyes" and "Concrete
Cast" are
just downright beautiful (how can this be?)  -- isn't this guy too
scuzzy too
write a verse as magnificent  as:
 
"I
broke every
bone in my body, /  fallin' fallin'
in love with you. 
All
the doctors
and all of their steel, / couldn't set these twisted limbs of mine,
with
a hundred
cords of twine/ and a full acre of pine,
couldn't
set
these limbs of mine"
 
Maybe other, more commercial, 
performers will discover the treasure trove of these songs,
perhaps
in their Òsinger-songwriterÓ imitations  smoothing
over UCLG's knee-jerk performances. Our loss. The
songs and performances on this CD describe a unique, heartfelt,
intriguing,
carefully constructed world. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll go "huh"?
But
most of all this CD will leave you singing these songs, and wishing
more "singer-songwriters" (the wonderful appropriate name of one of his
previous
CDs) had this kind of intelligence. Let's hope he never learns.
 
Larry Polansky
Hanover, NH
11/4/02

Andy Alper / Emil Hagstrom

Emil Hagstrom