| CD REVIEW Steve Conte & The Crazy Truth |
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Band : Steve Conte & The Crazy Truth Due to his joining New York Dolls as lead guitarist when that band reformed in the earlier part of this decenium, Steve Conte already found his way into the history books of Rock, but the man already made a nice career for himself before arriving there! He started his career in the early ‘90s as the songwriter and guitarist for Company Of Wolves, releasing an album on Mercury Records that same year (with more albums to follow in 1998 and 2001, this time on Ryf Records). With his brother John he then started Crown Jewels (releasing albums in 1996 and 1998 through Thunderdog), which was to evolve in the still existing The Contes (only album to date is 2003’s Bleed Together, also a Thunderdog release). Steve also got a good name as a session musician, working with/ having guested on albbums by the likes of Peter Wolf, Willie DeVille, Maceo Parker, Phoebe Snow, Billy Squier, Suzi Quatro, Jill Jones, Chuck Berry, Simon & Garfunckel, Paul Simon, David Johansson & The Harry Smiths, Willie Nile, and oh-so many others. He’s also known to occasionally join Eric Burdon & The Animals on stage! But Steve didn’t stop there! He frequently collaborates with composer Yoko Kanno and lyricist Tim Jensen, creating soundtracks to animation series. Among the credits the music to the series of Stray, plus several tracks which were to appear on different soundtrack albums of the series Wolf’s Rain. Independently, Steve’s vocals can be heard in some episodes of Cowboy Bebop, and in 4 songs of the movie. He also sang the original soundtrack CD version of “Rain”, in the series sung by MaiYamane. Later he’d sing alongside Shanti Snyder on “Living In A Shell” (used as ending theme to 2004’s Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG). Together with Japanese singer Maaya Sakamoto, he performed a duet on the latter’s RahXephon-related single “Tune The Rainbow”. And he also provided vocals on the video game Sonic And The Secret Rings, singing on the game’s main theme “Seven Rings In Hand” and the closing credits song entitled “Worth A Chance”. In spite of his obviously busy schedule (NYDreleased the “Cauze I Sez So” album in 2009), Steve found time left to form a new power trio in 2005 with drummer Phil Steward (said to be equal parts Max Roach and Keith Moon, and sounding the part) and bassist Leeko (said to be weaned on the Clash and old school Reggae, but not playing in that style in thís case; Lee “Leeko” Kostrinsky is an old school pal of Steve’s, and it’s meeting up with him that prompted the formation of the band), compose enough songs to fill an evening’s worth for extensive touring, and eventually also to shove his companions into a studio to record 11 songs for this album! On their own website, Varèse Sarabande gives Steve Conte & The Crazy Truth’s music a rather good description as follows: “Sonically, The Crazy Truth lies somewhere between Garage Rock and Punk Blues with hints of Latin-Soul in a dark, smoky lounge. It’s the Stooges and the Stones versus Morphine and Tom Waits.” Conte himself prefers to generalize things to “classic Roots with a modern twist”! The crazy truth (just a pun) lays somewhere in between, because while on stage the trio may indeed sound as described by Steve, in the studio they got the aid of many guest musicians…including David Johansen (NYD) adding harmonica to a couple of songs, Catherine Russell (David Bowie’s band, also formerly of Al Green) and Nicki Richards (Madonna’s band, also former backing singer for Tina Turner) providing some sparce female vocal backings, but also Danny Ray (Sylvain Sylvain & Johnny Thunders), Kiku Collins (Beyonce) and Tom Timko (Stevie Wonder) adding horn sounds to several songs (hence the Morphine connection mentioned by the label). Lyrically, the songs deal with 2 decades of life and excess in New York City, and mainly with the distractions (dive bars, gambling, sex, drugs…it’s all there) less strong people will revert to in their weak moments, when confronted with moments of emptiness…not with the traditional macho attitude of the Rock artist, but more as a redemption, and perhaps that’s where the label got their connection to Waits? To give the album even more luster than the sum of its elemental components, they had the legendary Niko Bolas mix the album (he’s known for his past collaborations with Keith Richards & Neil Young), and had the album mastered by Richard Todd (another “biggy” in the music industry who’s worked with Tom Petty and Green Day). But at the end of the day, music appreciation is a very personal thing, and while I personally cheer at these kind of albums which revisit the past and puts it in the jacket of modern day production, and indeed have found myself pushing that “play” button on the cd-player more times than strictly necessary to get into the music and start up the review, one needs a broad-minded taste in music to like this! I’m not sure whether younger people who’ve only started to listen to music in the new millenium, are gonna be up for this. Then again, SC & TCT deliver a very honest type of Rock ‘n’ Roll music the kind of which we don’t hear too much anymore, and in certain aspects it certainly is somewhat akin to NY Dolls. Of course, whether one’s gonna like this or not may depend on the kind of music one’s already been exposed to! For instance, our editor-in-chief didn’t like this a bit when I put the album on as background while we were working on the website. Good for me…as he just might let me keep the promo copy of the album (he does have first pick in the stuff the website receives for review, see?)! Oo…almost forgot to tell you, you can find 4 tracks posted at myspace.com/stevecontecrazytruth, giving evidence only of the more Roots-geared side of the band (“Gypsy Cab” and “Texas T” do have sóme horns though). Perhaps, just perhaps (I forget to check…shame on me!) there’s more audio at the band’s own website (www.) steveconteandthecrazytruth.com, and otherwize I’m sure you can listen to some 1-minute samples at Amazon.com! 86/100 Tony. |