Named after the Jerry Lee Lewis beer song “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me)” this Austin bands influences are plentiful and obvious. Why, there’s a song for each of the bands that they like. Sometimes they even get a couple of them in a song at a time. My descriptions of their songs reads like, well, the Influences on their Myspace page. It’s like that episode of “Seinfeld” – Not that that’s a bad thing:
Title track “Trying To Never Catch Up” is their Radiohead and Jeff Buckley song. “Curtains” is their Alternative To Love Brendan Benson and Cars song. “Hopelist” is their Wilco song.
“Sweet Lady” is their Lapalco Brendan Benson song. (Gotta mix it up, see...) “Almost Always Never” is their Beatles and Jeff Buckley song. Don’t get excited it’s not as awesome as it sounds.
“Bldg. A Boat From The Boards In Your Eyes” is their ‘We Heart Ringo’ Beatles song. “Selling Yourself Short” is their Spoon with Elvis Costello song. (What Made Milwaukee Famous is the big Spoon.)
With a mishmash of styles, whispers of mall Elmo (Emo) (that are so disturbingly ubiquitous these days), band members that are overextended elsewhere, and looking like Jason from “The Hills” (singer/songwriter Michael Kingcaid on his personal Myspace page) doesn’t exactly help with the artistic authenticity factor here.
The highlights and lowlights of Trying To Never Catch Up are intertwined - Kingcaid’s Neil Finn-ish vocals, his interesting and thoughtful lyrics, The circle chant that is “Judas”, “The Jeopardy Of Contentment” - a song reminiscent of Crowded House, but not the good Crowded House. “Idecide” seems promising – all Grandaddy circa Sophtware Slump with its poor grammar title, whirly synths and plaintive verse that unexpectedly ascends to Zeppelin crunch. Then things take a turn for the worse “Mercy, Me” – mercy me indeed.
Once proudly Unsigned, the band is now (very recently) owned by Barsuk Records. Trying To Never Catch Up is the reissue of their 2004 self-released, self-produced first album. It’s so easy to hear why people got on board early for this band, and yet this album is a disappointment - more potentially good than actually good. They probably could have, should have, would have benefited from an understanding producer’s input here. Why not shell out a few bucks and do it right? Oh well, next time.
(Note: Jerry Lee Lewis’s father’s name was Elmo. Coincidence? I think not. |