#alan anton

[spilladabalia]

Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane

[kellymagovern]

Cowboy Junkies - “Sweet Jane” [x]

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Cowboy Junkies - Songs of the Recollection

Cowboy Junkies moseyed on to the scene in 1988 with their almost-stuporous remake of “Sweet Jane.” Thirty-four years later, they’re still doing covers - an entire LP in fact - but Songs of the Recollection ain’t the 20th-century Junkies.

Having moved toward a more hard-edged sound on 2018’s All that Reckoning and 2020’s Ghost, the band of Timmins siblings - singer Margo, guitarist Michael, drummer Peter and bassist Alan Anton - fall somewhere in between the two on this LP, where they set songs by David Bowie, Gram Parsons, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, Vic Chesnutt and the Cure, in dim, slightly muddy arrangements with acoustic underpinnings and electric overtones.

As such, and with Margo Timmins’ sleepy-yet-beguiling voice serving as the sonic glue, they sound like Junkies songs.

Bowie’s “Five Years” is toned down, while Young’s “Don’t Let it Bring You Down” is amped up. The Junkies then turn around and plant a Youngsian electric-guitar solo in the middle of Lightfoot’s “The Way I Feel,” and close the record with the Cure’s “Seventeen Seconds,” which lumbers along like a funeral procession with guitar piercing the melancholy with amplified anger.

“We didn’t grow up sitting around the kitchen table playing instruments and harmonizing,” the band said in a statement. “We grew up sitting around the record player listening to each other’s record collections and having our minds blown by what we were listening to.”

Somewhere, someone is doing the same - with newer technology - with these Songs.

Grade card: Cowboy Junkies - Songs of the Recollection - B

4/13/22

[rainingmusic]

Cowboy Junkies - A Common Disaster

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Cowboy Junkies - “Hard to Build. Easy to Break.”

With bass up front and some snarling electric guitars behind her, Margo Timmins could be singing about the environment - or a marriage - on “Hard to Build. Easy to Break.”

Hard to build/easy to break/cradle it in your arms/oh, for your children’s sake, is how Timmins opens the track.

The followup to “What I Lost” continues the build up to the June 2 release of Such Ferocious Beauty as the Cowboy Junkies continue on the aggressive musical path they’ve charted of late.

It’s an unexpected turn from the band. And it suits them well as Timmins’ still-slow-to-unfold vocal delivery contrasts beautifully with the relative barrage of amplified music.

Grade card: Cowboy Junkies - “Hard to Build. Easy to Break.” - B+

5/9/23

[jamieroxxartist]

Happy Birthday. Today, June 22, 1959 Alan Anton (bassist for Cowboy Junkies) is born in Montreal, Canada.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Junkies) *another Fantastic Cover!

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Cowboy Junkies - Ghosts

Picking up at All that Reckoning’s run-out groove, Cowboy Junkies return with Ghosts - a more-personal, less-universal, but just-as-existential collection of musical musings written and recorded in response to the death of Margo, Michael and Peter Timmins’ mother, to whom the LP is dedicated.

We traced these desire lines from our hearts to her home/search for redemption or to cast the first stone/was it peace that drew us in?/was it peace that she’d impart?/all is hope is that these ghosts are dragging me to a richer, stronger start, Margo sings on the opening title track.

Songwriting guitarist Michael soaks Ghosts in lyrics such as these and his sister delivers them in a voice dripping with empathy - there’s no self-pity here - as the songs drift from the atmospheric spiral of “Grace Descends” to the percussion-propelled “(You Don’t Get To) Do it Again” to “This Dog Barks,” on which the core band is accompanied by fiddle and blends folksy verses with a grinding chorus.

He did not change, he was revealed ... she did not change, she was concealed ... if you look forward all you love will disappear, Margo sings on the latter.

Despite the occasional quietude, much of Ghosts, like its 2018 predecessor, is a wash of ’90s-learning, alt-rock infused with power chords; a sound that suits the contemporary Junkies quite nicely.

Now available digitally, Ghosts will eventually be released on vinyl with a remastered version of All that Reckoning. But jump in now; Ghosts is another unexpected, not-so-low-key gem from the band.

Grade card: Cowboy Junkies - Ghosts - B+

5/5/20

[in-the-morning-dew-blog]

Cowboy Junkies - Crescent Moon

The moon looks upon many night flowers; the night flowers see but one moon.

The Cowboy Junkies entered the music scene at the perfect time. The 1990s were fast approaching, and musical experimentation reached new heights. It was something different than the indulgence of the 70s and the cliques and hairspray of the 80s. In the 90s, it was cool to be weird. The Cowboy Junkies were just that: blues, rock, folk, country, and jazz whipped up and served with the cooing vocals of one Margo Timmins. Michael Timmins would reflect that the band found its niche by playing “down underneath Margo”, a quiet sound that they would become known for. 

Pale Sun, Crescent Moon is the fifth studio album from the Cowboy Junkies, released in 1993. It runs for exactly 45 minutes and, from start to finish, was one of the quickest albums the band ever created. Although the signature country roots and mystical hush remained, the band began to branch out. They introduced power chords to their song structure, Margo took an edgier direction with lyrics and their delivery, and Richard Bell added a classic rock flavor with piano and organ work.

The album is about male-female relationships and all their different faces. “Crescent Moon” makes a haunting and ambiguous use of this theme. Two lovers are separated by distance, and as the moon wanes in the sky, the distance takes its toll on their emotional connection. Both are a little lost in life and searching for something that will stay. The man longs for his home. The woman acknowledges that they were not supposed to meet, they were not planned to enter each other’s lives, but the passion (implied to be sexual) between them draws them together. 

The bridge finds one or both of these lovers asking a series of questions that aim to determine just how much they can fix the other into their lives. Do they reach out to one another? Or should they continue to fumble in the dark, of their relationship and of their lives? Margo’s voice is as soft and seductive as ever. Michael’s guitar work is dreamy and airy, perfect for the imagery of the open night skies. “Crescent Moon” not only opened the album it appeared on, it also opened a new reflective side to the band: one with a little more grit and sex. This is the phantasmagorical power of the Cowboy Junkies, the beautiful offspring of the weirdest decade of the 20th century.