| Andrew Kerr sings songs of strip mall
culture, of a suburban adulthood that few would find imagine the source of poetry:
"I’ve been hanging at Kinko’s again." "Last night I played inside
a mall in a town called Chester. I was the food court jester." "I was here to
talk investment to a group of guys who were running out of time. Thought maybe I’d
skip the life expectancy slides."
The lines are amusing enough, and are written
with an admirable honesty about his unglamorous origins. But most of his acoustic-based
pop production drips with an unlistenable sort of saccharine sensibility, and Kerr is at
his modest best when he’s playing to the stand-up comedy crowds, not to the art-pop
audience.
Much of the music is so stylistically syrupy (or
sophomorically imitative) that I found myself wanting to hit the skip button after just a
few seconds of each song, like a man tip-toeing through muddy puddles trying not to stain
his pant cuffs with unxious goo.
But I was good, and I sat through the whole CD,
which does reap a few rewards. One of the more amusing songs is a novelty number based on
a true story (as Kerr confided to WXRT’s Richard Milne on his local music show) about
a letter Kerr found in his PO Box addressed to Brittany Spears. "Don’t forget
your fans, Britney," the letter pleads.
The album is fully produced with drums and
glossy guitars and synthesizers and all the notes in their places (even if some of the
notes are in places I would never wish to go.)
Kerr, whose vocals are reminiscent of the robust
drama-and-yuks of the Barenaked Ladies’ Steven Page, also includes some lightweight
jazz pop about dancing in a kitchen and a wholesome attempt at sexed up Barry White soul.
Then there are the painfully sincere moments,
like the embarrassingly overwrought "Everything is Everything." On one track,
Kerr says his audiences seem to be thinking, "’It’s great to hear your
pain. We’d rather hear Fire & Rain.’" Who can blame them? (…if not
for their taste in rock and roll, then at least for their impatience with Kerr’s
confessions?)
But at least Kerr has a real sense of humor
about himself. He sings of his evenings playing Borders and small towns, in the same
breath pronouncing with bald-faced absurdity: "I do it for the glory. I do it cause
they all adore me. Living out the life of the Rock Star."
Finally, on the last track, "East Kentucky
in My Mind," the faux sentiment of the pop production disappears, Kerr limits the
music to a DiFranco-esque rhythm and reveals he’s a pretty funny spinner of homespun
spoken-word yarns.
"On my way back to the airport the next
day, I started thinking of all the stereotypes and the expectations I brought with me to
east Kentucky. And about how kind these people had been to me… at first I didn’t
know what to think. The Californian in me said, yeah, believe it man, it’s beautiful,
it’s true. And the New Yorker said shut up, they want something from you."
If you’re carrying in aversion to the
contemplation of middle class suburbia, there will be at least one pleasant surprise: you
might be surprised to find it’s not the subject matter that will turn you off.
It’s only the music.
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