| Track: | Rating: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Biznis As Usual | | | | | |
| 2. Sleepy | | | | ||
| 3. Miss You Well | | | | ||
| 4. (Venting The) Krypton Gas | | | | | |
| 5. Bad Time | | | | ||
| 6. The Foreigner From Boston | | | | | |
| 7. Do/Don't | | | | | |
| 8. Ounces O'Prevention | | | | | |
| 9. Fine | | | | | |
| 10.The Hollow Earth | | | | | |
Released in 1988, Ike Willis's Should'a Gone Before I Left has never received the attention it deserves. Most reviewers, if they've commented on the album at all, have been content to include it in the "Zappa sideman album - nothing special" category, a musical burial ground also home to various works by Patrick O'Hearn, Ed Mann, and others. The All-Music guide gives it a two-star rating, with guest critic Allen Green referring to the work as "two-tone ska-flavored pop-with-a-message" (a generalization that has some truth to it, but not much).
Why has the album been given this treatment? I suspect that there are two reasons.
The first, and most obvious, is the "Zappa factor". The shadow of Frank Zappa so greatly overshadows Ike Willis's career that comparisons are inevitable -- it's not just that Willis worked with Zappa for a decade, it's also that he's hardly ever worked with anyone outside of Zappa's circle. Almost invariably, his solo material will be judged as lacking FZ's brilliance -- indeed, there's nothing resembling the musical pot-pourri of The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life here (nor would Willis claim that there is, I suspect). This doesn't rule out the possibility of Willis's music succeeding on its own terms, of course, but it gives him a huge disadvantage right from the start.
The second reason is even less fair. I suspect that many listeners decided to write off this album after hearing its inferior first side, thereby shutting themselves off from the much more impressive second side. This is extremely unfortunate. The second half of the album features some remarkably clever lyrics, attacking various cultural malaises in more subtle language than Zappa was capable of (one might even wonder if Zappa threw away a golden opportunity by not having Willis write his lyrics during the '80s). And if the music occasionally suffers from the synth-trappings which appear throughout the album, Willis has more than enough hooks to make up the balance, on the second half.
IW's advantages come together most smoothly in "The Foreigner From Boston", one of the best AOR-parody tracks of any year. Consider, for instance, the opening lyrics:
I'm known in certain circles as the Foreigner from Boston I ain't too pretty, seen a lot of better days My occupation is I find 'em if you've lost 'em So don't you try to judge me, it's semi-honest and it pays
My greatest problem as a musical creation Like my cartoon conscience [...] And anyway since I'm a conscience-pumping station, I get to ask the question, `What exactly have you done?'
In eight lines, Willis sums up the worst features of the genre -- the musicians ruined by musical mediocrity and personal excess, the mindless lyrical populism, and the "superhuman" ideal imposed upon its leading exponents. After this, he drives the point home with the chorus: "I'm on a Rush, my Journey through the Styx of Kansas/God save the Queen [etc.]". The remainder of the lyric continues this assault on those who "all seek fame and fortune/giv[ing] nothing back", all at the behest of "the leisure-suited ones". A herky-jerky rhythm propels the entire track forward. (I'm not certain who the Richards and Rogers are, incidentally, but I'm sure they couldn't have been flattered).
"Do/Don't", the next number, is a bit more obscure but no less intriguing. The lyrics of this track describe a tarnished statue in a village square; oblique references to drug use appear on occasion, and Willis actually chides himself in mid-track for being too obscure (given the rumours of his cocaine use at the time, it seems more than likely that this song was at least semi-autobiographical, despite the references to MTV success at the song's end). Any darkness in the lyrics aside, this is one of the catchiest tracks on the album -- and there is a certain level of ska here, albeit not of a pure sort.
"Ounces O'Prevention" is another lyrical triumph -- who else, one wonders, would have the cheek to write lines like "I'm never writing something like `Baby, baby hold my hand' [or] 'This feeling is so right'"? By its very existence, this song expands the range of cleverness available to aspiring lyricists -- though, as Willis notes at the end, someone else is bound to write the very cliches he despises, and "They'll be Billboard with a bullet, and I'll eat the bitter pill". It's not quite as good as "The Foreigner" musically, but still catchy enough.
The remaining two tracks on this side aren't quite as distinctive, but they round out the album fairly well. "Feel" is a troubled pop song with confusing references to personal difficulties and political developments in the 3rd world -- I'm not sure that the lyrical centre ever becomes evident here, but the music is still good enough to carry the tune. "The Hollow Earth", meanwhile, is a bizarre tale of the 1929 Arctic expedition, and a man who seeks to discover the hollow insides of our planet (as Willis slyly notes, "If you think this is real/You've got another think coming, only that one might be right"). Hollie adds some good saxophone parts (but why couldn't Willis have enlisted a Fowler?), and there's some nice piano towards the end.
Such is the second half of the album -- a solid collection of songs without any obvious weak link. As to the first half ...
There are two better-than-average tracks on this side: "Biznis As Usual" and "Krypton Gas". The former begins with a synth/guitar bit oddly akin to Van Halen's "Why Can't This Be Love" [???], leading to a quality pop song with some rather astute observations on American racial politics (it's hard to miss the sarcasm when IW quotes Sting's line, "you're the king of all you survey", in the chorus). This track also features a lengthy Zappa-esque guitar solo -- which, amusingly, spends a good deal of time in the low notes. All in all, this is a good ear- catching track to start the album, making the subsequent tracks all the more puzzling. "Krypton Gas", for its part, is a half-droll/half-serious parody of redneck country culture, complete with "good ol' boy" guitar licks in the chorus.
As to the other tracks ... "Miss You Well" and "Bad Time" have some decent moments, but don't quite add up to the sum of their parts. The former has a nice arrangement, and features some impressive harmony vocals, but is brought down by its unduly lite-pop-jazz features. "Bad Time" is a reggae tune with convincing vocals from Willis, and would probably merit a higher rating if it didn't drag on at least a minute too long. "Sleepy", meanwhile, offers some evidence that pop songs need not be burdened with lines like "This feeling is so right" to be decidedly sub-par.
I'd recommend this album to any serious Zappa fans, and to anyone curious -- but I'd also recommend that first-time listeners skip tracks 2-4 until they've heard the rest of the album.
(review originally posted to alt.music.yes on 21 Aug 2000)