Like Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, C.R. Avery’s music is built upon his lyricism with a heavy focus on poetry and performed with a gravelly vocal delivery but with a lot less years of oral torture. The Ontario born artist is known for his slam poetry, which he infuses into his songs along with his human beat-box, harmonica, guitar and piano. Now based out of Vancouver, CR has been competing in slam poetry contests since the late nineties and is a member of a Vancouver slam poetry team. He is also a member of Tons of Fun University and The Fugitives both featuring members who are multi-instrumentalist, rapping poets. I would compare CR’s mixed-bag of hip-hop and jumbled genres to the sounds of another young Canadian hip-hop, multi-genre artist, Ridley Bent as well as Buck 65. Although the beats are influenced by hip-hop, his poetry originates more from Ginsberg and Kerouac than Jay Z or G Love.

I recently, accidently downloaded his latest release Chainsmoking Blues from eMusic after it was released as an exclusive. One track was offered for free and I clicked the “download all” button. I noticed in a review on the site, another member did the same thing, so I guess it’s a common occurrence at eMu which sometimes turns out to be a fortunate mistake. I am not going to get Richard Scarry on you and claim it was “The Best Mistake Ever!” but I after testing the newly purchased tracks I was satisfied and now a couple months later this album is rapidly building up the numbers in my playlists.

“East Van Business Plan” opens the album simply with three guitar chords that at first seem like a Seventie’s pop number. Once the catchy harmonica, beat-box hits the tune is put into drive and raps about leaving his home country, traveling on the road and hanging in San Francisco. A friend on RYM made me aware that The Be Good Tanyas provide the excellent background vocals to a few of the album’s tracks such as the “Door By The River” and “When I’m Gone” a sad and dreary piece featuring CR’s scruffy, torn voice backed by their beautiful vocals. “Commercial Drive” is the album’s most accessible number, although it lacks the poetic substance contained in the other songs it’s the one that is the most shout-out fun.

Through his lyrics, CR dispatches names and artists he admires such as The Suicide Kings, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and on his song “News Travel Fast” (mislabeled as Train Whistle on eMusic) he refers to R.E.M., Leonard Cohen, KRS One and Dylan through the lyric “Napoleon in Rags”. CR also pays tribute to “Bill Hicks” the comedian who was not afraid to speak his voiced by suggesting “What this world needs now is another Bill Hicks” since he passed away in 1994. Like Hicks, CR is not afraid about touchy subject matters in his lyrics letting loose challenging lyrics such as this verse from “Door By The River”

They say act like your Roman peers when in Rome
but ain’t that the trouble with hip-hoping gang-bangers these days
originality can single handily make that stop
like a free clinic is doing abortions with clothes hangers

There are a bunch of Freebies for the grabbing. Three from the album available from his official site Disclosure, Door By The River, News Travels Fast and one non-album track Postcard From New York. The album’s final track, “Pocketknife” is also availble free on eMusic; it’s a chilling spoken-word ode which the narrator tells a tale of teaching his young daughter in very harsh terms to challenge authority at all costs. To get a feel of his live act and who CR is check out this five minute video on You Tube featuring a playful interview and short, but vivacious live performance clips from a street festival in Vancouver. CR can also be found on two tracks on the album Vagabond Lullabies by Po Girl, which features Trish Klein of the Be Good Tanyas. Also available on his My Space Site is “Eye Of the Storm” which features (I am guessing) Samantha Parton of the Good Tanyas again providing sweet soulful harmonies.

Speaking of the The Be Good Tanyas they have a new release that just came out; albeit a short three song EP which most likely is a preview of their upcoming album due out this October. The title track “Scattered Leaves” and final track “Back Back Train” are twangy, backwoods numbers that dispense a sense of mystery but will make you wanna pitch a tent in the middle of the woods and wait till the rest of the album is released. Nuzzled in between the two is the slumbering lullaby “Song for R.” You can pick up Scattered Leaves at eMusic or on iTunes.