专辑简介

Composed over the course of a year spent traveling the country alone during the 2008 election season, "The Off-White Album and Watzes in the Key of Gypsy Mcgee" is a compilation of snidbits from two records; the first (The Off-White Album) comprised of tunes written about the annoying culture of whiny white people (ironic), and the second (Waltzes in the Key of Gypsy McGee) a collection of miniature stories about life on the road, observing people, places, and government during one of the longest and most emotionally-charged political campaigns in American history (compelling). Conveniently, the results of said election makes the melding of these albums seem appropriate, in the least appropriate manor. Born out of the arguable muse of solitude (but not really), this album was recorded in ten hours with a makeshift band of upright bass, trumpet, clarinet, sax, mandolin, and of course, cowbell. Each track was recorded live (as much an artistic decision as a financial one), making the whole record a celebration of imperfect music-making and a study in the joys of improvised collaboration.

The record opens with "A Great Notion," including a brief quotation of the old standard "Goodnight Irene" and reference to Ken Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion," a story about a wanderer stranded in New Orleans in the summer and drunkenly coming to grips with the idea that the most profound art is often times only appreciated posthumously, if at all... and so what? "PhDs" reinterprets Malvina Reynold's "Little Boxes," a social commentary on the tendency of young people to continue going to school throughout their 20's out of a fear of reality and for lack of better ideas. The gypsy swing of "Rat Pack" describes a memorable night spent in a small anachronistic town just after the announcement of Sarah Palin's candidacy, where male chauvinism and the fashion and bravado of the ghost of Al Capone was abundant. "Flannel and Recording Gear" may or may not be a love song to Bon Iver in the style of a poorly-converted record-to-disc Nina Simone opus, while "Beacon of Liberty" captures the observations of a young woman visiting the Statue of Liberty upon moving to New York City in all of its romanticism and struggling with the oscillation between her own patriotism and disgust at a country whose government time and time again withdraws its promises to its citizens. "Tower of Babel" compares the religious parable to the occurrence of and human reactions to the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami and 2005 Hurricane Katrina. "Boston" is less serious, a parody on Tom Waits' "Picture in a Frame," written for the city following a gig in Jamaica Plain during a Red Sox game (and whose fault was that). "Overeasy Eggs" is a gypsy jazz tribute to the avant-garde community of New York City, while "Armadillo," "Lies," and "The Ballad of Steve Martin" are heavily influenced by listening to public radio and traveling from place to place, poor and rich, young and old, north and south, left and right, during the election season. "Oh, George and his Funeral March" imagines what it might have been like to drink a few beers with W, briefly brings the listener back to the political turmoil (one might argue) prior to 2008, and then celebrates the former president's departure from office with an ironic New Orleans-style pomp and circumstance. "Ode to Tequila" leaves the listener delirious and inebriated in the bathroom of a bar in a foreign country, taken back to the memory of former US Senator Larry Craig's two-step in an airport restroom and subsequent political scandal, taking stock of the record and all the while returning to a joyous state of patriotism: "If you're tired of being sick and tired / go ahead, rest your head against the bathroom wall / because your Kenneth Coles are now the greatest civic weapon / in the history of bathroom stalls."