So
you're new in town and don't understand the beat on the street, right?
What's the best place to go to find out whatcha need? Simple. Catch a
cab. The guy'll know where you wanna go without asking any more
questions and the chances are he'll know everything from where the
junkies are scoring to where you can get keys cut at midnight or find a
place to crash when all the hotels are full.
And there's a good chance that if you're new in Sydney, Australia, you
may well have ridden in the taxi of one PERRY KEYES. By day, cabbie for
hire with a mine of information stored in his sharp mind, but by night
a talented singer/ songwriter with a knack for turning the minutiae of
everyday life into some of the most poignant and memorable songs you'll
have heard in many a blue moon.
There are 18 such seething, vivid beauties spread liberally across the
2 CDS making up Keyes' debut album "Meter" and the quality of the
playing, the emotional content of the songs and dynamite producer
Michael Carpenter's skills behind the desk all conspire to ensure it'll
end up arguably the most affecting album to run you down all year.
Keyes' turf is the tough, raw inner city areas of Sydney - Redfern,
Alexandria and Waterloo amongst others - and his writing is always
vivid, descriptive and economic, whether he's dealing predominantly in
characterisations (for example, "Sandra's On Her Way" and its' rounded
portrait of a relationship going down the tubes) or allowing us a
lengthy, voyeuristic peek inside his own life and psyche (too many
songs to easily pick one out, though the closing "Matraville Trees" is
devastatingly good). Whatever the deal, though, these songs live and
breathe and take the often vicious blows meted out by their
environment, and by the time the generous 80 minutes comes to a halt
you simply want to immerse yourself some more.
CD1 alone leaves you in no doubt that Perry Keyes is as adept at
drawing upon his landscape as Bruce Springsteen is with his native New
Jersey and Lou Reed and Jesse Malin are where New York's mean streets
are concerned. Songs like the opening 1-2 of the no-nonsense power
popper "Sweaty Sneakers" and "2nd Time I Saw You"s Stones-y groove
instantly prove Keyes and his band "Give My Love To Rose" are damn good
where gritty anthems are concerned, while Springsteen's spirit also
hovers benignly over songs like the battered, witty love song "Vicious
Left Hook" (dig Edmond Kairouz's Billy Zoom intro licks) and the
brilliant "Wide Streets", which is the source of the album's 'fried
chicken' cover concept.
But Keyes are co can do much more than rock, as tunes like "Service
City" and the heart-rending "Some Aches" demonstrate. Musically,
"Service City" is slow, plaintive and borderline folksy with drifting
accordion supplied by the talented Kairouz, but Keyes' lyrics pull no
punches whatsoever, and indeed the image of "this city's cut off at the
legs/ Stoned boys beg, washing windscreens in the driving rain" only
too perfectly captures the sheer hopelessness of many peoples'
reality. "Some Aches", meanwhile, is a starker than stark portrait
of doomed youth and drug dependency ("She met a boy named David, they'd
shoot up in the park/ He'd meet her by the locked gates, they'd slip
through the broken fence") framed by hauntingly lonely piano and that
beyond-poignant chorus of "some aches never leave, but yours are all
gone now...all gone now." It smashes into your heart like a demolition
ball.
Actually, one of "Meter"s recurring themes is that of the expectation
of youth going sour, and it returns to it with two more of CD1's best
moments: "Growin' Up In The Dark Is Wrong" and the closing "NYE". Stark
contrasts stylistically, "Growin' Up..." is a full-pelt rocker which
still captures the abject awkwardness of lurching towards the adult
world to a T, while "NYE" visits New Year's Eve celebrations through
the eyes of a kid keen to grow up ("All the punks are lightin' fires,
drinking long necks in the park/ Some girl's swimming in the fountain,
singin' Buzzcocks in the dark") though he's sure to be disappointed
when he gets there. It's disillusioned, yet warm all at once and coaxed
along brilliantly by Perry's imploring voice.
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So far, so magnificent, but the outstanding news is that CD2 is
actually every bit as potent once again. It hurtles off the blocks with
one of the album's best pop moments thanks to the corking "Bonfires Of
June", which has a chorus that whacks you in the heart and gut and a
melody motif that would sound the biz on the radio. It's a great start,
but the quality control is easily maintained by the pretty, aching
guitar and keyboards of "Just Like A Steam Train" which shivers to
perfection while Perry bemoans his latest infatuation with one of his
best beaten'n'numbed-out vocals.
The band continue to prove their versatility with songs like "Have Some
Fun" and "Where's My Darlin' Tonight?". Both of these dip their toes
convincingly into Americana of sorts, with the first providing an
aching, ballad-style backdrop for Keyes' story of losers, liars and
conmen, while "Where's My Darlin...." takes it at a country-ish canter
with our hero falling for some classic she-devil charms ("I was never
one of the world's smartest guys and I often fell for other people's
lies/ But I never saw them shinin' in your eyes") while Kairouz
embroiders with some spidery, James Burton-style guitar.
At a push, though, "Meter" saves its' finest hat-trick for the last
stretch and the killer trio of "Fairfield Girl", "When Things Wear Out"
and "Matraville Trees". The first once again finds country shadowing
Perry as a potent tale of soured romance, deception and violence is
spun out to devastating effect. It's not half as dark as "When Things
Wear Out", though, where a dummy-selling acoustic intro gives way to
the kind of brooding, ominous rocker concerning domestic disharmony and
murder that John Doe has done so well in the past.
So it's fitting that we should leave "Meter" in the cemetery and
"Matraville Trees": Perry alone with his memories, feelings of love and
loss and the inevitable sound of traffic still playing in his ears.
Drummer Bek-Jean Stewart adds the throaty Emmy Lou Harris/ Patty
Scialfa answering voice, and it's only right the last word should be
allowed to this gorgeous, but terminally sorrowful song. It's one of
the most emotional things this jaded hack has ever heard and if you
don't well up yourself....well, then you must be made of solid granite.
Yet somehow you know Perry Keyes will get back up again, walk back to
that old taxi, click on the "Meter" and rejoin the line of cars back to
the tough, tender and addictive city. And do what he has to do to
survive. If you're the lost soul who should happen to flag him down
with your suitcase and a head full of hope, make sure to listen
attentively to his advice and tip him copiously.
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