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.

Mark Mallman tells stories. Long ones, sometimes lasting a day or two without taking a break. Back in 1999 he performed one song non-stop for over 26 hours. He beat his own record in September 2004 by performing over 52 hours and 600 pages of lyrics. Unfortunately neither event has been acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records due to hazy guidelines on what constitutes a song. Fortunately, Mark Mallman also records his songs; the kind that you may have heard on the radio back in 1978 or on vinyl before the shiny discs every made it to planet earth.

Hailing from Milwaukee and transplanted to Minneapolis in 1991, Mallman was trained as a classical pianist since he was a child. On his latest pop masterpiece and his fifth full-length studio album, Between the Devil and Middle C, Mallman brews seventies and eighties pop and pours them into a caffeinated power energy drink that encourages guzzling straight from the bottle. The album mixes intense piano-driven ballads with fiery pop and has the energy which recalls another madman pianist but from across the water.

The songs are an eerie mixture of sweet pop, inflamed with lyrics usually about hangovers, drinking wine, going to shows and getting high. Lyrics slip through Mallman’s clenched teeth as if the words are churned through a meat grinder. His grinding vocals recall the unique styling of T Bone Burnett blended with the sounds of T Rex. “Substances” finds the singer looking for something deeper to life but all he can find is addictive substance and evokes the keyboards of Gary Numan. “Turn On of the Century” incorporates most of the album’s themes into one tasty sugar-coated candy bar and contains the album’s title. “Death Wish” deals with suspicions and mistrust as Mallman spits out one-line fragments that gently fly off the pages of his sketchbook. “16 Animals” leads off with synthesizers that sound like “Pop Music” by M, and quickly transcends into a accelerated comet. “Tell Me How a Man Gets Close to You” is a romantic pop sing-along about long distance, yet auspicious relationship. Throughout the album Mallman knits together what appears to be random, incoherent and whacked-out thoughts into a tightly woven, warm, fuzzy sweater perfect for cool nights in the Twin Cities.

Freebies Substances and Death Wish
But I suggest downloading the entire album at emusic.

A prayer before I put in my earbuds: “Our Lady Of the Highway, may you be with me on this journey, which does not leave the confines of this room for fear of taking off my headphones as others my hear the desolation that tears apart my wretched heart. Amen.” Back when I was kid when musicians got all sad and mopey they wore black and started a band, covering nothing but Joy Division and wore makeup like Robert Smith, and we used to walk to school - up hill both ways. Today depression comes in all shapes and genres, and San Francisco’s Our Lady of the Highway heaves it out layered in alt country, mainstream pop, a little faux punk and some emo, all mixed together with oppressive lyrics. The lead singer, Dominic East writes all the songs in his bedroom and that fact is clearly apparent in this 2005 release.

Although East’s vocal stylings have a similar quirkiness to bands such as Modest Mouse, Built To Spill and the Mountain Goats, the lyrics are immensely personal, as most of the songs are about breakups and of course the inevitable broken heart. Musically they sound like a lot of current acts that are mainstream which surprises me they haven’t hit it yet. The band has the capacity to rock out but the high parts are too short: the intro to “End of the World” has a dub/funk/reggae jam which lasts only 23 seconds. Right now this album, Beauty Won’t Save Us This Year, is available for free on eMusic as well as the band’s website when you purchase their latest release Kill You With Numbers. From one free track, I Get The Sense it appears the band is beginning to branch out but they still need to reflect on other things than that girl that broke his heart years ago.

Free album: Beauty Won’t Save Us This Year