ALCHEMY OSMOSIS 

“I’ve seen the faces of the linemen / the little black boxes of the shine men / your train’s delayed again it seems / broken down in alchemy.” – Alchemy, Jeff Finlin.

The Thieves album escaped on Capitol but Jeff dipped into a rich gene pool with fellow band members Gwil Owen and long-time Steve Earle bassist Kelly Looney.   It prepared Finlin for the ill-fated unreleased MCA project that preceded his 1994 indie disc, Highway Diaries, picked up by Pete Anderson’s Little Dog Records.    Equally importantly, it helped him land roles on Earle’s European tours and sell suffice to prompt two more albums.

Somewhere South Of Wonder is the debut for Williamstown label Blue Wren.   Finlin won’t escape Dylanesque comparisons but his vocal style owes far more to fellow Kerouac disciple Bob Martin.   And, like Martin, who used a huge pig as illustration for debut disc Mid West Farming Disaster, Jeff evokes a bizarre imagery on his third with his crashed car collage.

You know Jeff is a finny fellow by calling second disc Original Fin, recording part of it at the Finny Farm and depicting an artistically challenging car graveyard on this.   Finlin scored airplay on Nu Country with stream of consciousness narratives scoring for their imagery.

The singer kicks off with I Am The King – maybe a sibling of John Hiatt’s Riding With The King.

“Had a bird in every pot / held the land between your legs / killed the cough, then stored the fat / that fed us in our salad days.” Yes, definitely more Hiatt and Zevon than Prine.

Finlin plays drums, guitar, piano, accordion, percussion and vocals with harmonies from guitarist and co-producer Pat Buchanan and bassist Dave Jacques

“He walked alone on a desert floor / lost my vote, kneeled and prayed / killed the cop and lost the world / while the credits rolled and a river hymn played.”   Now it’s fine to have a nice line in absurdity but you must be able to carry it off vocally.   The good news is Finlin can.

Sugar Blue, with Will Kimbrough on slide guitar, and Sugar Blue Too are kinfolk.   “Hobo songs and railroad gin / alcohol evaporates through skin” is the intro for the former.   The latter is much more complex from entrée – “Ulysses pulls his sword / for Cleopatra’s Muse / he thinks he’s won the war / but that gal gonna break his ass in two.”   Just don’t settle for a literal analysis.   “My cowboy friend he sings his song / on east 4th Street without his hat / his cattle’s all some spicy dish / on the menu written from a map.” 

It’s clear Finlin doesn’t seek soft options for his hard times in Miracle Along The Way.   “The Madonna rides a motor bike / talks to me of sordid bliss / loves the nothing in enough / and the emptiness inside a kiss.” 

Finlin takes his album title from a line in small town murder tale Good Time.   “Trailers flying across the prairie / cars with doors of many colours / conviction, yeah – we're beating up the fairies / it ain't nothing but a good time".

He frocks up lost love lava and lust in surrealistic cloaks in Delta Down, with Buchanan on harmonica, Which Way? Summertime and Where Do We Go?   “Now I’m standing on this bridge in the Mississippi night / asking you to show me the way.” 

So how will Finlin fare in the unlucky radio country?   Maybe an acoustic tour would be an ideal entrée for ABC & community radio – it worked for peers diverse as Kieran Kane, Kevin Welch, Steve Young, Guy Clark, Iris De Ment, Kate Campbell and Tom Russell. 

DAVID DAWSON rolls back the stone to watch Nu Country TV, Saturday 8pm, C 31 – info www.nucountry.com.au - and is reached at saddle@alphalink.com.au

http://www.beat.com.au/columns.shtml#high

On this, his third solo album, Finlin presents a collection of grizzled, rootsy musical tales that evoke timeless Americana - the dusty feel of a Western desert expanse, the inescapable hot of a delta town in a Southern summer, cotton fields, prairies, everywhere and nowhere. These are the settings for the everyman/woman plain folk that populate the poignant tracks of Somewhere South of Wonder. 

The sounds here are simple and direct, presenting an immediacy and intimacy akin to the sounds of a T. Bone Burnett or Gary Myrick. Finlin's voice is unique and rough, yet similar in tone at times to many others, from Bob Dylan to Tom Petty to Greg Brown to Steve Earle to Tom Waits. 

Finlin has been in the music biz for over twenty years now, and has a well-traveled career that dates back to Boston's post-punk scene in the '80s.   After a relatively brief career drumming for the Thieves, Finlin took his guitar and piano skills and turned solo with 1997's Highway Diaries, followed by 1999's Original Fin.   On this third collection, he's teamed up with musician friend Pat Buchanan (The Idle Jets) on several tracks (and with Laron Pendergrass on others) to produce a sometimes stark, often beautiful soundscape. 

The CD opens with the plaintive confession/lament of "I Am the King", with Finlin handling drums, guitar, piano, accordion, percussion and vocals (with help from Buchanan and bass player Dave Jacques).   This haunting tale from the much-celebrated king charts a long circuit of progress:  "Walked alone on a desert floor / Lost my vote and knelt and prayed / Killed the cop and lost the world / while the credits rolled and a river hymn played / Died alone up upon that hill / Rose again through the rusty clay / Sat dead still in your open arms till I found myself in another man's face". 

The bittersweet "Sugar Blue" (featuring Will Kimbrough on slide guitar), examines a failed past relationship by "holding darkness up to the light" in order to find out what went wrong, aided by railroad gin and the lonely raven's song at night. 

Not all is woeful for our man Finlin's characters.   The singer of "Summertime" is drunk on love, feeling good and right and an integral part of the season, laying low with his desired one in their respective underwear. 

"Good Time" may sound like an upbeat John Hiatt tune, yet it plants tongue firmly in cheek as it offers an acerbic view of narrow-minded, small-town American life:  "We got souls somewhere south of wonder / Trailers flying across the prairie / Cars with doors of many colors / Conviction, yeah - we're beating up the fairies / It ain't nothing but a good time". 

We're back to the emptiness of love's hollow goodbyes with the soft strains of "Delta Down". Home is just a heartache in this hapless reminisce: "Just when I think I'm there / Smiles turn into despair / Thorns where there used to be a crown". There are some fine solos here on harmonica (by Pat Buchanan) and piano (Finlin).

The short but repetitious blues romp of "Which Way?" is a lighthearted toss of a song, examining rough and ready Southern love:  "She got grits and gravy, clay and greens / Sweet potatoes and Vaseline / She got the monkey touch / So squeaky clean / I say come here baby, she says what do you mean". 

My contention about what makes Jeff Finlin so special is the way he matches his insight into the depths of human feeling to a sweet melody. He achieves this well in the beautiful and poetic "Alchemy", wherein "a plain man beyond repair" lives an ordinary life, but for the dream of an embrace and to see the face of his love next to him:  "We're just a movement and not to prove it / To face the love, to move on through it / A simple choice for you and me / Broken down in Alchemy". 

Another song that quietly contemplates the small miracles and wisdom of everyday life's events is the dulcet "Miracle Along the Way".   Here Moses parts the seas before his eyes in the bottom of his paper coffee cup "...and says everything there is to get / You've had inside you all along".

A man stuck at a bleak dead-end is the subject of the deceptively upbeat-sounding "Where Do We Go".   The words reveal that he's standing on a bridge in the Mississippi night, asking to be shown the way, wondering "Where we gonna go from here?". 

Jeff Finlin never seems at a loss for words.   But while his lyrics stretch longer than most, there's no sacrificing quality for quantity - each word evokes a crafty picture in telling the full tale.   "Sugar Blue Too" is chock full of stories within stories as our loner man walks the dark streets, whispering love talk to his sugar blue:  "In a tragedy so blue, so black / The hole it's big, it's dark, it's round / And you can't fill it up with what you lack / I've lived outside so long / I've got no clue for looking in / I've got the key right to the door / But all I know how to do is kick it in". 

The closing title track is a bluesy exploration of contentment (yes, contentment) in a world Finlin's singer can call his own, heat countered by cool drinks in hand and a love that survives troubles:  "Kiss me once again dear / our golden rings have turned to steel / good thing we chose the love hon / And found that smiles can grow from tears."   It's a fitting summary piece to bookend all that's come before it. 

While Finlin's vocals might remain an acquired taste, his skill for marrying smart-yet-simple, honest narrative to fresh, intimate melodies elevates him far above the average musical fray.   Somewhere South of Wonder is an earthy mix of heartfelt blues from everyday folks coping with life and love, joy and despair, expressed through the raspy filter of Finlin's compelling voice. 

Right now, Finlin has his largest following in the UK (where he tours regularly).   Perhaps this latest release will win him the larger acclaim this veteran troubadour deserves.   These haunting musical tales weave an aural tapestry that bears closer examination on lazy afternoons and in the wee hours of the night, where its powerful sounds best fill the lonely empty spaces of an oft-moody, quietly unpredictable universe. 

"Alchemy" is definitely in the Tom Waits mode while "Delta Down" reminded me of Leon Russell, and not just because Russell once recorded a song called "Delta Lady".   There's a below the Mason-Dixon Line sound in Finlin's songs but somehow more baked than fried.   His lyrics are smart and surprising: "I`ve got the key right to the door/But all I know how to do is kick it in".   All these tracks are from his studio effort, Somewhere South Of Wonder, a dark carnival and a soulful sideshow. 

Live From Nowhere, a seven-song EP, also proves he can also deliver  the goods in concert. 

Bobness abounds, but Finlin's individuality shines from the start when I Am The King portrays all human life as the constantly reincarnated agony of Christ.   Imagine!   Well, Finlin did.   This second solo venture seethes with ideas, pithy choruses, hard guitars and a voice that's always ready to go feral. 

Rating:   Three stars

This new album, though, really is the business, a tough but tender, sprightly but thoroughly adult record of the kind that seeps into your head and hangs around there a lot, whispering its hard-won wisdom at you. 

"Somewhere South Of Wonder is a story of the everyman", says Jeff.   "It's about joy and discovery through pain, love and despair.   It's about what I had hoped to become and what I actually am."   Jeff sings his songs in an apparently-old-as-the-hills voice that wouldn't have been out of place on the more recent Bob Dylan albums although it's a comparison that the humble Jeff doesn't relish. 

The album opens with the ironic energy of I Am The King and long before the closing title track rolls around, you should have been seduced by his tales.   Jeff's been touring over here recently in the company of his pal Pat Buchanan, who plays on Jeff's album and who, again, some of you may have seen with Kevin Montgomery. 

Rating:  four stars

It was always odd how Tom Waits' more romantic ballads never sounded prettier than when he delivered them himself.   Something about sandpaper rubbing smooth and satisfying maybe?   Finlin, Ohio-born but Nashville-based, can also turn that trick.   When he emerges with such beauties as the delicious Sugar Blue and the enigmatic Sugar Blue Too ("Ulysses pulls his sword for Cleopatra's muse - he thinks he's won the war") he does damage to heartstrings.   But he can move anywhere he pleases.

The blues come easy - as the title track proves in spades.   That dragged-through-the-mud vocal gives the lie to any foolish "blues are all the same" dissent.   Good solid rock?   Finlin, with the help of guitar-totin' sidekick Pat Buchanan, can nail that too.  All bases covered.   No reason not to indulge.

Finlin has been playing in bands and solo for 20 years.  But here he's mined a rich vein of classic American songwriting which marks a considerable advance on his British debut release, 'Original Fin'.

'Good Time' brings to mind Bruce Springsteen, and Steve Earle could have written 'Sugar Blue Too' (as featured on last month's free Uncut CD).   But Finlin has a nice line in Southern soul, too.  If he'd made this album in the 1970s, he'd have been bracketed with all those other 'new Dylans'.  And he'd have knocked spots off most of them.   Rating:   Three stars

The models are sometimes easy to spot:  the title track bears a marked resemblance to Dylan's Meet Me In The Morning, Which Way shadows Yazoo Street Scandal by The Band and Alchemy threatens to turn into Tom Traubert's Blues by Tom Waits at any moment.

It's a mighty work, distinguished by its single-minded intensity of vision and wild exaltation.  Finlin alternates between giddy euphoria and withering, dark scorn.  Plainly he isn't worried about being loved:  his edgy, spiky songs are free of narcissism. 

The album features a credit for Finlin's friend and co-songwriter Pat Buchanan, who supports.  Formerly of the Idle Jets, a Nashville-based, Anglophile pop combo, Pat is promoting his self-titled solo album on Indiscreet Records.  Tuneful and likeable, the release has echoes of everyone from The Beatles to Elvis Costello.  It may be that similarly expansive musical tastes cemented the bond between the pair.

Already acclaimed by some to be one of the albums of the year, it features Finlin's cleverly compiled roots material.   Available now to coincide with his ten-date UK tour. 

HMV Choice
September/October 2002

Weaving compelling tales of discovery in a sparse and soulful musical environment, Somewhere South of Wonder is a novella about the story of the everyman.  A rich musical tapestry about what we are all given and what we receive.  Don’t expect to find Jeff to be courting complacency.  Vocally, he has developed a subtle rasp that gives his material an earthy, emphatic texture.  Listening to him, you can almost smell the smoke from the barrooms and hear the crunch of gravel under bus wheels.

Summertime is a forceful piece that shows him striving more for emotional punch than punchlines.  Alchemy, sung to somewhat plodding keyboards, is worth the listen due to the lyrical expertise, while Miracle Along The Way is also highly effective, this time stronger on melody, but just as powerful in the lyrics.   Place him somewhere midway between Randy Newman and Bob Dylan, and you won’t be too far off the mark. 
Rating:   Four stars

A collection of songs for everyman which cover the emotional waterfront of joy, pain, love and despair, it's easily his best yet, as you can hear on the lovely "Sugar Blue Too".

From certain angles Jeff Finlin bears a resemblance to the actor Kevin Kline, and his voice is of a distinctive quality shot through with traces of Dylan, Waits and Newman.   He is based in Nashville, but to label this album alternative country would be both lazy and stupid. 

From the sardonic opener ‘I Am The King’ to the sprawling, drawling title track, Finlin is no slave to a particular genre.   It is earthy, grounded music, with Jeff doing laid-back radio friendly on songs like ‘Summertime’, sounding like a stoned jazzer with tongue firmly in cheek, or kicking back the heels of the cowboy boots and rocking out over the horn section on ‘Goodtime’.   Then there is the psychobilly of ‘Which Way’ which could give you a mild dose of The Cramps, or the precisely picked ‘Delta Down’, which would make for ideal listening when hitching a railroad ride through a clammy swamp. 

Finlin’s music is never confined to one particular landscape but links them all into one big sonic panorama.   This record is like spending the best part of an hour with a gifted storyteller, and for the stripped-down proof of his songwriting skills, look no further than the stunning simplicity of ‘Alchemy’.

Arguably, you can see influences of his whole history in his new record, the first for Gravity too, with the Nashville country sound present only in very measured and abstract quantities, and coupled with an intensity of post-punk and the drive of a good rock band.

Most of all though, Finlin really does sound like a modern-day Dylan – not just because his voice is eerily similar (and depending on your preference, eerily awful – but only in a Dylan way) on tracks like “Sugar Blue” and “Miracle Along the Way”, but because the songs feel every bit as fleshed out and unstrained as the best by Dylan.  Tracks like “Goodtime” and “Where Do We Go” feel exuberant without feeling synthetic and the multi-layered arrangements make sure that there isn’t a feeling of retreading old ground as the album goes on. 

Finlin’s always had the potential to be great, but if you were one of the few unmoved by “Original Fin", he’s worth coming back to again for this one – it’s a much better collection of songs and stands out after just one listen.  As Uncut rightly points out, a real find.   Rating:  Four stars

Things like the Tom Waits sings Creedence Which Way? are a bit of an acquired taste, but balance that against the wonderful aching beauty of Alchemy, Sugar Blue and companion piece Sugar Blue Too on which he recalls the best of Graham Parker, and the mid 70s Dylanesque double Miracle Along The Way and title track plus, of course, his evocative narrative style that filters the ghosts of Kerouac and Carver through tales of pain, love and despair, make any temporary aural discomfort worth the while. 

The songs travel from ragged blues to murky swamp-funk, I Am the King kicking off the disc in a burst of irony, and Somewhere South of Wonder closing it with a rolling, bluesy swagger reminiscent of Dylan and Randy Newman.  Every track bears its own sound signature, like the drum machine and plopping organ on Summertime or the freakishly distorted harmonica on Delta Down.    Rating:  four stars 

His dry vocal rasps through settings from the Steve Earle-styled rock of Good Time to the jangly I Am The King, which recalls Counting Crows at their best.   Elsewhere there are hints of Dr John, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Fun Lovin' Criminals and Bob Dylan, although Finlin remains very much more than just the sum of his influences. 

Sugar Blue is one of the best songs you'll hear this summer and could propel the album into the annual pundit polls.

Lyrically, the singer-songwriter-guitarist's songs suggest a hard-earned wisdom without the typical decline into all-too-easy cynicism.   His voice is compelling, possessing an edgy, reed-like quality that cuts through the density of the backing tracks like a scythe - imagine Randy Newman channeled through David Bowie. 

Opening for Amy Rigby at 12th & Porter, he'll be accompanied by the spot-on six-string work of Pat Buchanan.