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THE SKEWER CANADA'S ONLINE GUIDE TO THINKS ASKEW FRONT ...................... NATIONAL ....................... SPORTS ......................... COMMENT ....................... ENTERTAINMENT
ENTERTAINMENT 5440 STAKES THEIR CLAIM AMONG CANADA'S ROCK N' ROLL ELITE WITH THE RELEASE OF HEAVY MELLOW
For a number of years,it has been this writers great pleasure to have crossed the path of 5440 at a wide range of venues across the country.Although I had had ,an awareness of the band since it's 1979 inception,it was not until 1984 that I managed to catch their act live at the ramshackle National Hotel in Calgary, a two room bar, replete with drunken down and outs on one side, and a band room on the other side.Or as Tom Waits says,"anyone who walked in here must have started out with bad directions".You know,terry cloth table covers and repeat offenders,the whole shmere. I think that they had Baby Ran in their repetoire back then,but that is the only thread that I can grasp across the wanderings of my time addled mind,and wanderings are rarely accurate.I do recall that my mother and stepfather came along to say hello to bassist Brad Merrit,who has been a friend of my brothers since when.They said hello, left early because it was "smokey" and slipped me ten bucks for a cab home,fearing for my safety,given the clubs unsavoury locale..And like any young man given ten bucks in a bar I used the ten spot to buy as much cheap draft as possible,choosing the moment over the plan.The club even had railroad tracks running nearby that I used as an urban compass in my post show staggerings.The whole backdrop was very "Tom Waits". But how times have changed.Over the years I have born witness to the evolution of creativity and watched the seeds planted all those years ago bear increasingly voluptuous fruit. And let us make no mistake about it,this band has worked for every inch of ground captured, and it seems that they are still hungry for more.The band still maintains an astonishingly gruelling tour schedule, and are working hard to reinvent ways to play older material, a fact made apparent by the "Mellow" aspect of "heavy mellow". The double CD release is the harvest of the band's 1998 Canadian Fall Tour,which they embarked upon with the notion of creating a live album."Heavy Mellow".The first of the two CD 's presents the "Heavy" aspect of the album,which features mostly "classic" renditions of the bands tunes,although,those in the know will recogonize changes in Baby Ran,among others,and an astonishing version of Music Man,augmented by the addition of Coco Love Alcorn on the tour.Her addition to the band is an important part of the widening and elasticity of the bands performance and this writer hopes that she continues to have an association with 5440. But it's on the "Mellow " leg of our journey that things get interesting.Most of the second CD is comitted to presenting familiar tunes in a brand new light,with delightful new renditions of many of the bands classics,highlighted by One Day In Your Life,Radio Luv Song ,Crossing A Canyon and Ocean Pearl.The delight in this album, is a willingness on the part of the band to have the courage and ability to reinvent some of their material and in the case of some tunes,changing the entire mood of the song by altering it's style.The album is a testament to an immense amount of hard work, talent, and patience. One ominous note,though, and call me crazy,but the album finishes with the band doing a kickass version of Ocean Pearl that was obviously recorded at one of the smaller dates on the tour.The crowd on the last track is so small t "Let It Be" quality and I was just waiting for someone to say "I'd like you thank you on behalf of the groupand ourselves and I hope we passed the audition".Indeed they have, and let us hope that the band will continue to grow,widen and work for years to come..It is without hesitation that The Skewer gives this album five kabobs out of five.
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