Useful Music
Josh Joplin Group
Sheridan Square / Artemis Records, 2000
http://www.joshjoplin.com
REVIEW BY: Jason Warburg
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 02/15/2002
In an occurrence that's grown as rare as a solar eclipse, Iactually became interested in this band because of a song I heardon the radio. Yes, that's right, for some inexplicable reason, in afeat unlikely to be duplicated any time soon, a local radio stationhere in Sacramento actually played NEW music from an UNKNOWN band.I'm amazed the station staff wasn't fired on the spot.
Of course, it wasn't entirely new, since the song took so longto get even the meager amount of attention it has from programdirectors across the country. The track was "Camera One," and it'sa great intro to the Josh Joplin Group, with a unique point ofview, keenly observant lyrics, a memorable melody and nice crunchon the guitars. In other words, a winner, if only it wasn't muchtoo intelligent for modern rock radio.
The test for me was to see if the rest of the album held up aswell, or if the band was either (a) a one-hit wonder, or (b) aone-note group with no versatility. Good news, folks: these guysknow what they're doing. Taken as a whole, this album constitutesthe most literate, diverse batch of folk-based alt-rock to comedown the pike in quite a while.
A couple of favorite tracks, "Gravity" and "Trailways," exploreheavy personal issues (coping with failure, and starting over againafterwards) with insight and a fiction writer's attention todetail. As serious as Joplin can get with his lyrics, though, themusic is mostly upbeat, and the lyrics betray a certain dry wit("Everybody falls / In small degrees / That's gravity"). Overall,the full-band, rootsy arrangements complement rather than diminishthe potency of Joplin's messages.
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