Jeffrey Martin comes alive in this raw and unedited live performance.
Introducing the last song on the record, Martin announces that this one is “about all the things that Donald Trump doesn’t know shit about”. That he manages to keep the song to four and a half minutes is some achievement. There Is A Treasure speaks to human insignificance, and the sad reality that the hubris and vanity of some people makes them blind to the wonder and mystery of life and our beautiful planet. Martin is a humble truth teller, and his songs celebrate the human experience and its attendant highs and lows. This record is live, but more importantly, it’s about being alive and the resultant joy, and of course, the messiness. The connection between Martin and his audience brings the songs to life, and you can see why he titled the album as he did.
For those unfamiliar with an artist, a live album is often a way of gaining access, getting a sense of what the artist is all about. This album fulfils that minimal requirement, yet it is more, much more. Alive July 25, 2025, takes you into the soul of Jeffrey Martin. His grizzled authenticity is apparent throughout proceedings; his questioning sometimes appears naïve, yet maybe that’s because he’s asking the questions that are staring all of us in the face. As he points out, spotting the bad guys is sometimes easy, and sometimes it isn’t. “There are some bad people who look kind of sexy… and it’s a problem”, he muses.
The album draws from Martin’s four previous studio albums, as well as some other unreleased and new material. His previous work has received high praise indeed. After his second album, Dogs In The Daylight (2014), The Portland Mercury posited that he “might be the best songwriter in Portland”, and let’s face it, that’s a pretty high bar. Other exalted comments have continued to follow Martin throughout his career, and it’s easy to see why.
The arrangements are simple: Martin’s voice, his acoustic guitar and a guitar accompaniment by Sam Weber. There are 16 songs and another 7 tracks, which are Martin’s introductions and musings. The album is about capturing not just the songs but the totality of what is, a live performance. “I wanted to capture a single show, no edits, no reordering of songs, no compiling of takes from multiple shows. A record of a night in a documentary sense”. Martin fulfils this by leaving in missteps. Garden (Attempt) is abandoned after a few lines, as Martin has a small amphibian in his throat. “Don’t tell anybody about this”, he directs the audience.
The songs in this performance tell their own stories, and the best way to grasp these is through close listening. All songs are Martin’s, with one exception, Out On The Weekend, a Neil Young cover. He covers a lot of ground, yet the underlying messages are consistent. Human connection, the spiritual over the temporal, the wonder of being alive, the need to live an authentic life, to name a few. “The only thing true is nobody is who they’re claiming to be”, Martin announces in the first track, I Know What I Know. He pushes back against the lies that the people are told, and as this track closes, he segues into a reprise of Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land to clearly show where his loyalties lie. He rails against false certitude and the blind alleys and extremism that often result. The Middle advocates for taking the middle ground and delighting in the wonders around you. He queries, looking up to heroes in Billy Burroughs, a song about the influential and controversial writer and artist, William S Burroughs. A pertinent message given the current tendency in some constituencies to uninformed subservience and cultism.
The album’s lead single is 1519. Martin uses the story of Hernán Cortés and his blind certainty of the righteousness of his brutal mission to conquer Mexico for the Spanish. Martin ponders about what we are blind to today and how history will judge us. Of the many excellent tracks on this record, Red Station Wagon is a highlight, a highly poignant reflection on how we all need to accept and embrace difference, and question and reject our own prejudice.
“The live show will always mean more to me than any studio recordings. Every night is different and will never exist again,” says Martin. The album deliberately makes you feel you’ve gate-crashed a very personal performance, a one-off. This album beautifully captures the atmosphere and emotion of the live performance and is a valuable and arguably essential addition to Martin’s catalogue.
