Greenlawn Abbey

there's a line in a gaunt song that goes "i just want to listen to the shoes" and i can tell ya for a fact that jerry wasn't lying when he said that but methinks perhaps our friends in greenlawn abbey took that one step farther and ONLY listened to the shoes. tony's voice is a dead ringer for a murphy brother and the same pre-cars powerpop sensibilities are there, tho' greenlawn out-rocks shoes about 5-to-1 here with some serious cheap trick-isms all over these two discs. savvy listeners will also no doubt recognize - despite all attempts at anachronism on th part of th band - that this is music written post-"everything flows"; above th wham/bam recording approach and th one-two-and-we're-off-again arrangements, compositionally these tunes are on a par with the posies and are most probably better than anything velvet crush ever eked out (tho' as a hearty not-fan, i haven't listened to them in many a season) - and in all honesty th disregard for perfection (esp. on their first disc) lays bare an action-rock aesthetic that a lotta powerpoopers sadly eschew in favor of dullsville late-zombies perfectionism. greenlawn also have a fucking ace-in-the-hole in bassplayer matt davey and his rare-yet-always-wicked minor key good-sebadoh-meets-evil-treepeople ravers.

these days th three original dudes sometimes show up backing chris burney as dead indians, but are evidently completely tired of playing their own tunes anymore.

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