Todd Adelman – Another Bloody Mary Morning
We pay good money for our rock stars to be better than ourselves. We want to see confident people on stage who are able to do and say the things that we cannot. And, we’d prefer them to lead the kinds of lives of which we can only dream.
We pay a lot of good money, also, to hear stories. Not just any stories. We want tales that, no matter how old they happen to be, are really about ourselves. We’ve been doing it ever since we began walking this Earth, and we’ll need people like Todd Adelman telling us about who we really are forever.
But for a story to be believable, it needs to include conflict and a good description of the shortcomings of those involved. It’s ironic, but the rockstars we love the most are the ones who are able to tell us stories about them that, just like ours, don’t always paint them in the best light.
It’s not just Todd Adelman’s country singing that might make you a believer. “Another Bloody Mary Morning” is a tale as old as time. It’s a retelling of a night spent escaping reality and a morning spent regretting those actions. This isn’t a country-rock song praising the bottle, but one that dares to ask what’s hiding behind it. Adelman’s have a real poignancy to them and will resonate, especially with people putting off making those difficult decisions.
Star Moles – Key Change
It was the great restless songwriters of rock n’ roll music that created a market for lo-fi recordings. Before any of that, there was nobody who trusted any music that wasn’t delivered to their ears in a sound that resembled what could be played on the radio.
But with great obsessions comes a desire to learn more about those that we’re obsessed with. Random rock fans of the late ‘60s traded Beatles and Bob Dylan’s badly recorded cassettes as if they were entrusting each other with the kinds of secrets usually saved up in the Vatican. The music of Star Moles has a similar quality to it.
What if you could be there? What if you could listen to a great song being made before the producers, record execs, or the regular public have a chance to give their approval? That’d be fantastic. But would we have our ears tuned in the right way so as to recognise this fantastic music?
There’s a great song in there, alright. But you’ll have to listen closely and ever surrender a bit of yourself when you’re listening to “Key Change” by Star Moles for the first time. Indeed, the music brings to mind Dylan and The Band’s “The Basement Tapes.” It’s a carefully written tune, played with a lot of soul, and, one would assume, is purposely delivered in raw, unfiltered, lo-fi form. Enjoy it! This is what good songs sound like before the music biz has a chance to get at them.
