Jim O’Rourke--

(Drag City)

Alright, now I get it. Don. In the future, keep me away from the press packages.

All they do is either a) lie, or b) tell me something I didn’t want to know. Because it seems that Jim is doing a grand experiment, and that kind of intellectual mumbo-jumbo makes me try to get intellectual, and before you know it I’m writing notes about albums, or rather, about what they mean. Whoops. And here I am, a rock critic. Obstensibly.

I had been perfectly happy to dig O’Rourke’s last album, Bad Timing, for what it seemed to be: a heartfelt tribute to the twin ideals of John Fahey and driving across the beautiful state of Virginia with my top down. Now I’m not so sure. His true purpose was deeper: to try to create something like the prototypical (generic?) guitar-overtone pop album, all the while shoving every cliché in our faces. It’s a testament to his ability as a musician and composer that it doesn’t come out sounding like a cliché. I mean, I went out and bought the damn thing for other people! At least two or three of ‘em!

So, with Eureka, he’s trying to do the same thing with this year’s big trend amongst the intelligentsia-- mood music of the seventies. And once again, the guy is so good, and so perverse (album art being testament enough on the face of it, said art being a pastel drawing of a middle-aged infantilist geting fellated by a stuffed rabbit) that he almost pulls it off. A mellow plaint called "Ghost Ship in a Storm" with pedal steel and discrete ‘ba-ba-bada’s works particularly well. In the end, however, it’s the clichés that finish this album off: vegas-style schmaltz on "Happy Holidays", jerkwad Sat. Night Live sax on "Please Patronize Our Sponsors", an ultra-lounge cover of "Something Big" by Burt Bacharach. That last one really mystifies me. Does he really like the song? The publicist had a field day with it. "Have I mentioned the Bacharach cover?" Look, the prepared-guitar genius is doing a Bacharach cover! Look, the genius is making a really big cheeseball!

The guy is a genius, so maybe he’s having a laugh and I’m too dense to figure it out. His next album is reputed to be covers of song everybody hates ("The Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby among them, so the man has been doing his research), so the grand experiment will continue as he tries to figure out every pop trend that’s come down the pike actually means. Maybe this is just part two of his own personal Anthology of American Pop. On the intellectual side, I say bravo, but screw my brain, I’ve hated that son-of-a-bitch for the last ten years. Does my soul like it? Not as much as it wanted to.

—T.Magill