Wednesday, June 23, 2010

BoDeans - Mr. Sad Clown

BoDeans were a pretty big part of my high school rock years. I saw the video for Only Love, assumably on the MTV and picked up Outside Looking In on vinyl. It's still a great record, as are the two releases that bookened it (Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams and Home). In my mind, some shark jumping occurred after the next record Black and White, but then the song Closer To Free was chosen as the theme song to the maudlin yet popular Party Of Five TV series and has proven to be an evergreen for Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas.

Various live and solo releases came down the pike in the last couple of years, each featuring a decent song of two, but the general consensus was that Llanas and Neumann were best appreciated together. After a three year battle to extricate themselves from a Sony contract, the pair convened on and off in 2009 to record Mr. Sad Clown at Neumann's Texas studio. The duo recorded all the tracks themselves, then overdubbed a hired horn section. It works for the most part, but the main shortcoming of Mr. Sad Clown is that it overstays its welcome by easily five songs. This is a good hour-long record that would be a great 40 minute one. I'm still excited to hear that they are back on the road. Here's hoping they play Mercury sometime real soon. In the interim, you can get Mr. Sad Clown here at the official BoDeans web presence.

R

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