SO MANY ALBUMS, SO LITTLE TIME

Tony Peyser
Mirror contributing writer

   If Texas roots music is a bowl of chips, then accordion whiz Ponty Bone is the salsa that spices it up. Just ask Lone Star bright lights like Joe Ely, Terry Allen and Jimmie Dale Gilmore who’ve all used Bone on various projects.
   On his third album, Fantasize, he serves up some serious funk with “Now’s The Time (Do What You Do Best”) that wouldn’t be out of place on an album by The Meters or The Neville Brothers. And on “Me, Myself & I,” Bone’s accordion sizzles as he fesses up to rather liking the vagabond musical life.
   A terrifically politically incorrect life is on display in Andre Williams’ Bait and Switch. If The Ramones, James Brown, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Redd Foxx went into a recording studio, they’d come out sounding like Williams who co-wrote the r&b classic, “Shake A Tail Feather.” When he sings “Get This Love Off My Mind,” the vocal is so impassioned that you hope paramedics are nearby. The insanely rude “Sling It Bang It And Give It Cab Fare Home” is The Player’s official theme song. “Your Stuff Ain’t The Same” could have been a punk era hit and it’s easy to imagine the two-fisted Williams opening for Iggy Pop at some Detroit dive and stealing the whole damn show. My friend Bill Bentley at Warner Bros. insists Williams makes Ike Turner look like Billy Graham.
   Bentley, as it happens, wrote the liner notes for Labour Of Love: The Music Of Nick Lowe. Lowe is the de facto Pop of power pop. Graham Parker does a splendid version of “The Rose Of England” where the mandolin and accordion give it a Cajun feel. Dar Williams has a field day with a song about how men are a quart low in the honesty department: “All men all liars, their words ain’t worth no more than worn out tires/Hey girls, bring rusty pliers to pull this tooth/all men are liars and that’s the truth.” Joe Louis Walker finds the gospel underbelly of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” and transforms it from a New Wave anthem into something Al Green could use as a concert closer. Lowe, who’s produced albums by Parker, Costello and The Pretenders, is no pretender —- he is simply one of the great music talents of our time.
   Parker, whose new CD Deepcut To Nowhere I recently went gaga about, has had singer-songwriter Tom Freund opening for him at some recent gigs. I love these lines from the “Old And In The Way,” the opening track of his latest album, Sympatico: “I knew a girl, her name was Hallelujah/She used to say, ‘I can see right through you.’” Freund is from New York, has recorded in Austin and now resides here in Venice. Wherever he hangs his hat, he’s a droll and talented hipster who already has his own voice when many of his peers are just imitating their famous elders.
   You can get Fantasize, Bait And Switch and Labour Of Love at CDNow for $14.49 and Sympatico at www.milesofmusic.com for $12.50.
   #On September 12, Tom Freund will be at Genghis Cohen and alternative popsters Vegas DeMilo will be at The Whiskey. And if you need a blues fix, Peach will be back at Lunaria on September 15. And local comers Moe Jones will open for Celtic rockers Seven Nations at The Hard Rock Cafe in The Beverly Center on September 15..
   The Goofy Band Name Of The Week is … Shut Up Marie.