Dream Syndicate founder releases semi-autobiographical solo album.
Steve Wynn has a lot of outlets for his music, the revived Dream Syndicate being of course the most significant, and so it is hardly surprising that solo albums are few and far between – his last solo release was more than a decade back. This album release is somewhat different from previous albums as it ties in directly with the release of the first volume of Wynn’s memoirs ‘I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,’ not only with a common issue date but underscoring the twin nature of the book and album the title of the memoirs comes from one of the songs on ‘Make It Right‘ and the memoirs, in places, certainly do make an effort to…right some mistakes. That’s the groundwork – these two different media releases are certainly intertwined – but, if you don’t want to read the book the album does stand on its own merits. Across ten tracks Steve Wynn – helped out by, amongst others, Mike Mills, Vicki Peterson, Chris Schlarb (Psychic Temple), Emil Nikolaisen (Serena Maneesh), and Linda Pitmon (The Baseball Project) – offers something of a heartfelt sigh of reflections on opportunities missed, and taken; loves found, and lost; and a determination to get somewhere.
As might be expected from Steve Wynn the album is eclectic in sounds between the bookends of ‘Santa Monica‘ (where Wynn grew up) and ‘Roosevelt Avenue‘ (the main New York street through the borough Wynn now lives in). A lot of ground gets covered in between – from straight forward storytelling rock to more experimental sounds, epitomised by the electric hum and blurred vocals of ‘What Were You Expecting‘, and a couple of songs that have the harsh rough edges left on them giving them an advanced demo or semi-live feel.
Opener ‘Santa Monica‘ reflects most directly on the new book with lines like “did you hear the one about the prodigal son? / Found himself alone, far from everyone / Carefully serving up a tattered pedigree / As if to say there was a time when that was me” laying a path to reflections on false starts and early loves and finding so many ways to “wish there was a way to unsay some things I said use some of the wisdom I’ve gained since then instead” but with a rueful self-deprecating “I’ll go and fuck it up some other way” indicating an honest acceptance on the immutability of personality.
It’s a theme that gets picked up on the following song, the late-night bar reflections of ‘Make It Right (Benedikt’s Blues)‘ on which, over slow guitar and countrified pedal steel, Steve Wynn sings of attempts to undo past wrongs and to grasp opportunities which sand-like slip through his fingers. Not that there’s no hope on the album – ‘You’re Halfway There‘ is an ambitious dream of success viewed from the approach road, albeit one that is balanced against the ever-looming curtain of night.
There’s more of the late night bar feel on ‘Madly‘ where love lost is the theme. It’s a step away from the previous dive bar, ‘Madly,‘ with its latinesque sway and more than a hint of Lee Hazlewood about it, has Wynn now stirring the olive in his martini around the glass as the jazz club winds up for the night. But, hey, at least he’s out and about – not something which the Lou Reedism of ‘Then Again‘ suggests, where everything just seems too much effort “new day and a new regimen, but then again, then again,” it’s easier to stay where you are and “feel the pinch / and then I give an inch / drifting slowly down the creek.”
The Dream Syndicate this is not, and quite right too – if it was then why make it a solo album? There are, though, songs which bring to mind the various musical strands of the Paisley Underground. There’s also traces of Seventies avant-garde rock experimentalism, and even some folky and Latin jazz-flecked elements. Eclectic. Rather like Wynn himself.
