Oct 27, 2015 Bob Forrest’s Survival Songs
The new Bob Forrest record doesn’t have layers of self-destructive lyrics and post-punk guitar like Thelonious Monster or the sobered-up and cleaned-up sound of The Bicycle Thief (his old bands). The concept is more akin to the Rick Rubin-produced Johnny Cash records: the raw voice of a well-traveled badass reinventing old songs. Of course, it’s a little different because most of the songs were written by Bob himself at different stages in his life–up-and-coming songwriter, junkie musician, recovered addict, and survivor–and revisited with simple-but-not-simplistic accompaniment by his longtime musical partner and masterful guitarist Zander Schloss.
Schloss should get a lot of credit, too, because this collection not only shares the rootsy vibe of his duo, Sean Wheeler & Zander Schloss, but also includes one of his tunes, “Song of the Songs.” It practically provides a Greek chorus putting the other cuts in context.
But back to Bob… Us fans of his work will get a lot out of his new takes on old songs. It was a hoot to see Thelonious Monster perform “Sammy Hagar Weekend” in the late ’80s and early ’90s when he was living out the song’s carpe diem lyrics unironically. The experience of hearing it alongside a stripped-down version of “Cereal Song” (a.k.a. “The Heroin Song”) is a lot different. His real-life song cycle of divorce, disillusionment, and hitting rock bottom is way more affecting than a musical crafted from the canons of ABBA or Queen.
Bob’s songs have always been as harrowing as they are honest as they are smart, and it’s a wild ride to hear rearranged into an arc and then capped with new works about patience and hope. The T-shirts at swap meets tend to celebrate our favorite musicians who die young looking beautiful, but I want mine to live, grow, and keep contributing to our causes, culture, and record collections. More Survival Songs, please.
Check out Survival Songs at bobforrest.bandcamp.com and follow Imprint on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, too!