Review:
'HOEKSTRA, DOUG'
'Waiting'
- Label: 'Fundamental Records'
- Genre: 'Alt/Country'
- Catalogue No: '3AD'
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Our Rating:
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This US release from 2003 is being posted out to UK reviewers so we can let you know about DOUG HOEKSTRA's live UK dates during March and April this year. The Nashville singer songwriter has a live compilation "Su Casa, Mi Casa" and an EP called Six Songs (see W&H review elsewehere) that are more recent issues – but "Waiting" probably gives us a definitive set to judge his solo performer qualities by.
Where the other HOEKSTRA recordings use a band sound, "Waiting" is simpler and mainly acoustic with a firm emphasis on the voice and the lyric.
The voice is light and semi-spoken. Like a whispered Johnny Cash, I suppose, the melodies are more implied than sung. The accompaniment is thoughtful and subdued. There's a little percussion, some touches of keyboard and bass here and there and, on "Sunday Blues" some distant church bells.
The overall effect is pretty and confiding. Some of the subject matter touches the darker sides of American life but it's quite easy to leave the CD running on a sunny day without disturbing your natural optimism.
"Crawling Out from Under" is the most beguiling tune. There are spoken voice samples cut in here and there. "In The Middle of the Night" is a well made thing too (with his husky vocalisation reminiscent of Nico in Velvet Underground days).
But rather like the handmade-looking front cover, these esoteric overlays seem a little bit out of sync with the mainstream feel that I'm getting from the general tone. Just looking at that cover and hearing the combination of acoustic instruments and electronic additions you might assume some cultural connection between HOEKSTRA and the restless expressiveness of WILL OLDHAM or BILL CALLAGHAN.
The personality I'm hearing in these tracks is a much more suburban kind of guy. The stories he is telling have the feel of edgy resumés for film scripts or TV dramas. I listen from the outside and don’t get drawn in enough for the visualisations to get working. "Screwball Comedy" exemplifies the tendency most explicitly. The lines I hear start out: "Her wheels are always spinnin' / She's always on her guard. / She's the grass beneath the snow / And when she's near she's far. / I can see her in a movie / and it would be black and white / like Barbara Stanwyck on a bandstand, yeh / Sequin dress, slit ridin' to her thigh"
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Personally I don’t get the image at all. Grass, snow, car wheels spinning, a black and white film star on a bandstand in a sequinned dress? Somehow it’s all too much effort for too little reward. When the lyric gets such reverential treatment from the music track, and printed out in the CD booklet as well, the lyric has to be outstanding. And in HOEKSTRA's case I'm not wholly convinced. They’re OK, they’re potentially interesting, they don’t intrude. But once the critical faculties are switched on and close attention is paid it all goes a bit fuzzy. I have to turn off the jarring lyrics and listen to the nice Tom Petty feel to the guitar line.
All this said, there does seem to be a real appetite these days for solo oddballs who tell stories, strum rich sounding Martin or Gibson guitars and come from the land of the free. But the stories need to be a little more compacted and well structured than the ones on this CD I think. The folk music from which the general patterns have emerged waste no words, move onwards with every line and make no superfluous or abstract observations. I've mentioned Will Oldham and Bill Callaghan – Richard Thompson would be another artist I might point at to say – "that's the way to do it, Doug. That's the way to do it". Make it simpler. Its much harder to do, but it's much more satisfying.
www.doughoekstra.com
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author: Sam Saunders
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READERS COMMENTS
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Hey, Sam!
Thanks for the reviewage! It's always nice to be remembered in primarily positive terms, and I hope you and anyone else reading this can come out to one of the shows in March or April! Details at www.doughoekstra.com or many other sites.
As for Will and Bill and Richard, well, I'll leave their styles to them. You are correct in that I am a suburban guy (or was raised in the suburbs of Chicago, at least, although it's been a long time since I lived in one), and we are what we are, as Popeye once said. And, so ...shortened comments
------------- Author: doughoekstra
09 March 2006
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DOUG HOEKSTRA
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