DecoyMusic.com

Sign Up | Login Forgot your password?

Tim Barry - 28th & Stonewall

Rating

RIYL

Lucero
Austin Lucas
Langhorne Slim

Release Date

01/26/2010

Label

Suburban Home Records

Tracklist

1. Thing of the Past
2. Bozeman
3. Gabriel Intro
4. Prosser’s Gabriel
5. Walk 500 Miles
6. NO BS Warm Up
7. Will Travel
8. Moving on Blue
9. Downtown VCU
10. Short G’Bye
11. 11/7
12. With Ease I Leave
13. (Memento Mori)
14. Bus Driver

Users Rating 1 rating	Your Rating Create an account or log in to rate this album
Recent Ratings
Timothy Golden

In the mid 1960s country western singers like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings struck a chord with a brand new crowd. More and more their concerts were filling up with younger, hipper crowds – hippies, artists, proto-punks, college students, etc. Musically their sound was similar to the other popular country of the day – but stylistically there was a big difference. While Tammy Wynette was singing about keeping her man happy, Johnny Cash was singing about a boy with a girl’s name that fought everybody he came into contact with. Rather than drinking bourbon backstage, these guys were popping pills and smoking grass – something unheard of to the “square”, small-town folk that Merle Haggard mocked in “Okie form Muskogee.”

Flash forward to the first decade of the twenty-first century. A similar brand of outlaw country music is resurgent in today’s punk rock crowd. With influences ranging from Americana, country, rockabilly and folk, bands like Lucero, Drag the River, and Drive by Truckers are playing country for the least likely crowds. Meanwhile, the front men of some of today’s biggest punk rock bands are going solo and stripping down to their routes with varied results. On his third solo album, 28th and Stonewall, Tim Barry, front man of 90s punk rock stalwarts Avail, comes through with a solid album of cigarette and whiskey fueled country that may be worth checking out but is probably not worth much more than that.

Earlier this year the Dodgers announced the signing of outfielder Reed Johnson. Of the many statistics and anecdotes provided by the multiple sources reporting the signing, the most prominent was that Johnson was one of only four players in the history of the major leagues to have hit a leadoff homerun and a walkoff homerun in a single game. These reports never mention what he did in between those two at bats. This aptly mirrors the problem with 28th and Stonewall. The album kicks off with a swinging country rocker in “Thing of the Past” – a declaration of independence of sorts in which Barry seemingly comes to terms with the life of a drifting rock and roll singer, and it later closes with the rambunctious “Bus Driver,” a more literal declaration in which Barry fires his bus driver, merch girl, and tour manager claiming over and over again that he’s “long gone.”

Yet, like Johnson, whose middle seven innings are never really discussed, Barry loses his touch throughout most of the record. While “Prossier’s Gabriel” tells a story that needs to be told, it does so in a less than captivating way. Similarly the emotions conveyed on “Moving on Blue” may be real, and they may be strong, but they won’t be noticed if listeners can’t get through more than 20 seconds of the track. Truth be told, if it weren’t for the ragtime horns on “Will Travel” or the acoustic-Avail in “Short G’Bye,” “Bus Driver” might not ever get noticed.

28th and Stonewall is a disappointing output from an incredibly hardworking guy who has a history of great songwriting both on his own and as a member of Avail. If you don’t pick this up, make sure to check him out live as he is always on the road, and you will not be disappointed by his live performances.

--Scott Barrett