Search - Chagall Guevara :: Chagall Guevara

GREAT CD! But, another SUPERGROUP Bites The Dust!

Danny M. Dean | Baton Rouge, Louisiana United States | 02/16/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"CHAGALL GUEVARA must've been doomed just because of their name. They have nothing to do with the great painter, and they weren't responsible for the Cuban revolution. At least I don't think they used to "hang" with Che Guevara. Other than the terrible band name, this is a great CD. It stands up today just as strong as it did on its release during the birth of "Alternative" music. While most Alternative wasn't a true Alternative to anything, Chagall Guevara was. Who else breaks up their big debut of Working For MCA to play a cool instrumental while you hear the conversation of Dave Perkins talking to a slightly kooky grannie convinced she is talking to her nephew. NOW THAT'S ALTERNATIVE! There isn't a misfire in any of these tracks. "Candy Guru" and "Love Is A Dead Language" would've made great radio friendly singles, but the album got lost in the Nirvana shuffle and the band didn't get noticed on the first track out of the gate, "Murder In The Big House." Maybe it was because the band got stuck with the Christian music label when bands like U2 have shown music is just MUSIC (unless your album consists solely of the repeated manra "Jesus" 3,000 times. CHAGALL GUEVARA KICK OUT THE JAMS! ("Take Me To Love Canal" probably won't end up in the Baptist hymnal.) HOOK friendly Rock and Roll, at its BEST from 1991! Uh, HELLO! Time for a reunion record. P.S. "check" out yet MORE CG in the form of "Tale o' the Twister" from PUMP UP THE VOLUME! Good advice!"

This is the friction of joy and misery

Greg Brady | Capital City | 06/13/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This group is doomed to the dust of history thanks to:

an awful name (The group implies they intended it to mean "revolutionary art" {from painter Marc Chagall and revolutionary Che Guevara}, lack of touring, the band's reluctance to discuss their lyrics in interviews, and the band's marriage of withering sarcasm to reluctant optimism. This review then serves as a memorial to the "revolutionary art" that was Chagall Guevara, consisting of lead vocalist Steve Taylor, drummer Mike Mead, guitarist L. Arthur "Lynn" Nichols, guitarist Dave Perkins, and bassist Wade Jaynes. Combine jangly guitars, Elvis Costelloesque sarcasm, and the skewed lyrics of Barenaked Ladies or They Might be Giants in a blender and you've got a starting point for the sound of Chagall Guevara.



HIGHLIGHTS:

The "friction of joy and misery" comes from the planet finding itself in the death throes of "Murder in the Big House". An environmentalist treatise? A remark on the collapse of societal mores? A take on the end of the self-satisfied consumerism rampant in the U.S. in the 80s? Take your pick..."Escher's World", a tribute to the illustrator of the mind-boggling optical illusions, is its own defiance of natural order.



Powerbrokers take their licks in "Play God" as what sounds like drunken New Orleans brass join in the funeral march. The epic "Monkey Grinder" uses the imagery of a "fat man" street-corner entertainer as overseer, tightening the collar of the monkey "working stiffs" until the day "some say it just unhooks its jaws/Then it swallows most anything it wants/even a full grown fat man".



"Candy Guru" puts religious hucksters in its crosshairs. ("It was a willing seduction/the apple was bitten/primed and smitten/by a sense of belonging somewhere/I didn't deserve") Everclear's Art Alexakis will probably add it to the setlist if he ever hears divorce angst anthem "The Rub of Love" ("Every other week on visiting day/I get tolerated by his new wife/I swear, if he ever really held me/they'd have to pry me off with the jaws of life"). A plea to weather the storms of marriage follows with "If It All Comes True" ("And if it all comes real/confirming this fear that I feel/oh, my love, come stand by me")



LOWS:

"The Wrong George" is a novelty that's funny once but forgettable thereafter. It apparently was a wrong number call made to the band's guitarist by accident by a slightly kooky old lady who wanted a different Dave Perkins. Taylor sounds a bit shrill on "Take me Back to Love Canal" making it one of the weaker tracks here.



BOTTOM LINE:

The writing here is first-rate. Many of the songs succeed on several levels..they're about what YOU think they're about. Devoid of any then-trendy early 90s grunge sounds, it's held up surprisingly well. The sound is unique enough that it's hard to say "If you like Band X, you'll like Chagall Guevara." But I would imagine fans of intelligent, snarky alternative rock will find quite a few joys on this criminally overlooked CD."

The sound of your rooftop coming down

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 03/30/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's hard to describe precisely what Chagall Guevera's music is, except that with a name like that, you can't expect it to be sugarcoated or in any way comfy. It's unfortunate that there is no more music like this by this group, because what there is is extremely entertaining.Mathematicians can rejoice with "Escher's World," a slightly amusing song based on Escher's prints ("up's down, down is out, out is in/stairways circle back to where you've been/time falls, water crawls, are you listenin'?"), the slightly mocking-seeming "Play God" ("and you still play God/how'd you get so good?"), the more quietly-sung "Can't You Feel The Chains," the fast-paced "Violent Blue," the slightly amusingly-written "Take Me Back To Love Canal," the my-dad-left-my-family lament "Rub of Love" ("if he ever really held me/they'd have to pry me off with the jaws of life") and others.I'm not sure why, with the "alternative" feel and lyrics like "lay down/strip it off/and lose yourself," this is classified as Christian music. The music in this album is rough and often raw, such as the guitar playing in "Murder in the Big House," or the drums in "Escher's World." The songs in it are often a bit surreal, but overall I found it entertaining and very far from the mainstream."