What
happens when one of pop music's more eccentric artists runs across a small book
of poetry at a store in Olympia, Washington. The answer is found in Chris von
Sneidern's lastest blast called 'London Payne'. CvS found John R. Dykes's book
"Searching the Muse: Memoirs Across America - A Book of Poems by London
Pain" - a collection short works about nature and cross country travel.
von Sneidern first wrote a song about the book as a whole but found himself
consumed by the muse. So much so that he continued until he had used every
poem. A week later...'London Payne'!
You've
never heard anything quite like CvS becoming Tom Waits on 'Kay Sera Sera' (sic)
followed by 'Continental Divide' - a tune direct from the blitzkrieg dance
halls of 'Cabaret'. The 'Got to Get You Into My Life'-era Beatles are reborn on
'Bringing It Home'. Every minute here, and there aren"t many of them, is
fun. Rocky Horror, Kinks, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Moody Blues, The Crazy
World of Arthur Brown, The Who...they're all there. You'll hear more influences
in less than 20 minutes than you'll hear in the entire NOW series of discs.
This
kind of creative outburst wasn't possible before the era of home recording
studios and
CD-Rs.
Let"s hope that more artists take advantage of the available technology if
the output is anything like "London Payne".
But
hurry - this is a limited edition. My copy was 13 of 20.