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| Blazing Unbroken Honest Heat |
| band: Kelly's Lot |
| Album: The Light |
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"I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action."
~ Blanche Dubois from Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire
Just like a blind man I wandered along
Worries and fears I claimed for my own
Then like the blind man that God gave back his sight
Praise the lord I saw the light.
~ Hank Williams from his hymn I Saw The Light
"For nowadays the world is lit by lightning!"
~ Tom from Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie
Kelly's Lot has pulled out all the stops and turned the blues up to 11 on their amps for an assault on the darkness aimed at shooting off the lampshades. This album breaks on through to the other side of midnight. At first listen to Kelly Zirbes' blast above the tower of power I say, "We've had this date from the beginning!" Hang on to your illusions if you can, all that ambition that's been driving you may find a little focus in this Lot's blast furnace to knock right off the road to nowhere. That's hyperbole. I know it. I'm trying to find a clever way to say it. This album moves me. A great album should not be a guilty pleasure, it should be worthy of your heart. This album will damn straight get somebody through a month they might not make it any other way. This band did what music is supposed to do. It makes me want to be a better man. They did it the old fashioned way with great songs, inventive powerful music, and something honest to sing.
The road to The Light begins with rejecting the lies, denial and half empty promises on the road to love. There's plenty of rejection in the blues on this album. Kelly Zirbes has the focus to see the truth. Kelly's Lot is a damn fine blues band, with tricks up it's sleeve to take it where it needs to go. The combination of polish and power is heard to find, and positive messages fail in the drool of hearts and flowers half the time. Not so this album. There's plenty of darkness on the road to The Light. Kelly has spent eight years or more spreading the word about Hep C, and giving hope to people who came near the brink of dying. (There's a link to a Hep C site below. Kelly's word on the eight years, "I'd rather save a life than get famous singing the blues.") She's not whistling Dixie when she says, "Say yes to life." This music comes from the deep waters of a half full glass from a band whose seen the dehydrated world gasping for love in clubs and bars, and wasting away in front of their TVs. Kelly Z isn't a poser.
I've seen an abbreviated Kelly's Lot sing a couple of songs at a benefit. They were damn good! I've heard the previous album, and it was a fine thing. This new CD makes good on the promise and exceeds expectations. There's something hard to describe makes an album great. Every song has to connect. The musicians have to have the chops and they have to play the song like they mean it. The combination of skill, heart and love of life and music kicks out the doubt and makes a statement of every song. This album rocks. There's pop power where it's needed, and the still beating heart of the front porch folk song when nothing else will do.
Kelly's vocals have never been better. I think she nails it from the heart. Guitarist and frequent co-writer Perry Robertson is Stevie Ray and Ryan Adams by turns as clean and powerful as I've heard. Bill Johnston makes some of these songs possible with his inventive sax and clarinet. He extends the color and range of the band. Rob Zucca offers that alternative voice on guitar that fits and fills out the meaning of the song. Mark Drews on bass is one of the great supportive electric players on this album. Sebastian Sheehan's drums nail each song. Kelly's harmonica players are a cut above in Linda Moss and Gary Seagrove. Here's the kicker. There's not a hint of studio musician slick in the bunch. Kelly's Lot is a band from Los Angeles. That's a rare thing. Bands play together with one voice and know the song. They did that on this album, and they do it live.
This album is a gift. It rocks. It moves me.
THE SONGS
1. DRIVE (Zirbes/Robertson) opens the album in a joyride down the freeway of off the map ambition on the run. A blistering "Can't Drive 55" guitar and horns so tight they melt the Savoy Truffle in your mouth take peddle to the metal going nowhere. "How far you gonna drive that car?" The drive to excel is shown as the rabbit run of escape to isolation of ambition rolling with the fear. "All your life you drive alone / Leave behind every home. You run away from all things deep." Why can't you drive 55? "The fear is stronger than you know. That is why you always go faster, faster than you should." The music burns down the road, but Kelly's wiser than a road map. "You got no place to go? How far you gonna drive that car?" How can you be the best when you don't have a clue who you are? Slow down, young man! Live a little. Stop running and feel something. It's lonely on the road. Or you can blast reckless going nowhere fast. You choose!
2. STRONG GIRL (Zirbes) cuts through the chords like Billy Zoom from X playing dark in a sequined suit through the surf where the scum meets the sea. "The rumor has it. The rumor is right." There's a thrill in the break free spirit of "Something is wrong, and I'll be moving on. It's been tough. I've had enough." This song gets what Pat Benatar was after, Helen Reddy guessed at, and nails the door open with authority. "The rumor has it I've seen the light." Kelly is ready to "walk out in this world a strong girl." This song is an emancipation dance for the strong woman read to "walk away from all the things you say." This is the forceful, focused statement song of an honest to God strong woman. Accept no substitutes.
3. UNSURE (Zirbes) has a soprano saxophone laughing at the pain of uncertainty of the man who "told me you loved me from the start." That pleasing theatrical quality gives this song the charm of Theodore Bikel's folk song arrangements incorporating Klezmer in the mix with blues. It's touches like this make this album so special. The question "How can I be sure of you?" hits home for anyone in a relationship with a man or woman coming home late or taking the frequent "business trip." An instrument break double times the pain in a stomp rock 'n' roll angst. The blues never let's dirty dogs lie without a fight.
4. GREEN TOADS (Zirbes/Robertson) suspends time with sustain on that masterful guitar over an acoustic guitar for an old school accusation song hoping for change. "What you got there you need to hide? ... Is it love?" Before the shout chorus guitar solo, Kelly settles down to talk a little sense to the man on probation: "I like to say the glass is half full. You like to say it's empty. That's bull!" There are monsters in the soul of some of these toady boys out there. "Black eyed monsters, green toads and such." Men are builders in relationships, but this one builds walls. This song kicks the wayward butt as hard as Joan Jett so this boy probably feels the shoe leather all the way to his blackened heart. "Is it love?"
5. REDBONE (Zirbes/Robertson) finds Kelly's Lot in remarkable territory playing something close to Leon Redbone, which turns out to sound at big like Klezmer with a touch of Kurt Weill. This song is a favorite in concert with its sax and licorice stick glissando and shuffle. Kelly's asking questions this album. "Was it just a dream or was it you?" She's waiting "for her man... that you used to be." Kelly's hollow jaundiced laugh could curdle a wayward heart. "I'm standing here in the pouring rain. I'm doing all I can." There's a man out there -- a good man -- looks a lot like you.
6. THE LIGHT (Zirbes) is the blazing rocker to raise a blister on the Casanovas, Rasputins and Ladies Man tricksters two timing through the night before they shuffle off to Buffalo. She gave you what you didn't deserve, but that was yesterday. "I see the light!" is supported by a pounding "Born To Be Bad" bass and the shining rock God's Eye of a blast furnace "Stevie Ray Vaughn": style guitar. This song lays waste to the useless love left by lying lovers on a break from their wives. Not this time, Coyote!
7. TIRED (Zirbes/Robertson) opens up a scene setting wail on the guitar that cuts where it bleeds. Kelly's patented decaying blues free fall voice opens with the dark truth, "I'm so tired." This is a blues dammit! "I'm tired, I'm lost, and Baby I'm blue." Kelly's secret weapon blues harpist weighs in on this one in the very soul of deep blue. The blues will never die. Kelly's voice slides through the meaning of the pain with authority. She's that tall glass of clear water seems to get hit regularly with the rocks. Her songs sing the glass half full, but she won't take a dose of Kool Aid if it's riddled with that lie of denial. She's better than that. She wants love neat, or you'll be in deep water.
8. NOBODY HERE BUT ME (Zirbes) is vintage Kelly doing what she does best. How many singers you know can get your blood pressure up singing about accepting responsibility for your own damn blues? "Only I can make it go away. But I've tried and tried and I must confide it's so much easier to run away. Ain't nobody here but me." Then there's a line that sets it right where it hurts. "I got my friends and family, but there's nobody here but me." This isn't "Up With People." Kelly sings the pain and offers the hope with grace and absolutely authority. Without the dark, the light wouldn't mean a thing. Damn that guitar is just about perfect!
9. FAIR (Zirbes) is tired of listening to the excuses. The message is positive set against a past. "I know that you never cared for me. So I'm going to fly away from you as far and as fast as my wings can go. Let's go!" And then there's a perfect pop solo on guitar matched perfectly by an ensemble of reedy brass tight and bright like the wrapping of The Beatles "Savoy Truffle." This is a folk song in the chorus, and bluesy pop setting up the good news. "I'm gonna find my truth again." The ensemble chorus takes me back to the days of the Mamas and the Papas.
10. SAY YES TO LIFE (Zirbes) set in the context of this album, and the extraordinary life of Kelly Zirbes, is hope itself. I don't like songs that wallow in the positive, but this is the right song with the voice that matters. "You may feel weak but you're stronger than you know. If you reach out for life, that's where you'll go." I can't help but see this song in context of Kelly's heartful campaign to bring Hep C to light. The subject here is universal. It's not a crusaders song on an issue. All of you can say yes to life, whether you feel the punk, Goth, hip hop or death metal, life is all you got if you have a thing to say. "Say yes to a brighter day, yes to an open heart." I'm moved by this song and this album. I don't want to buy anything, join anything or go door to door. I just want to live more. Kelly's Lot makes me feel that. Accept no substitute. Live.
CLICK THE HEP C LINK ABOVE TO FIND OUT IF YOU ARE AT RISK!
The following comments were made on myspace where the review was originally placed:
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