Don’t know about in your town, but here in Los Angeles, “Adult Album Alternative” (aka Triple-A) radio stuff tends to be watered-down folk-rock and HORDE-iness with a side order of Steely Dan, Dire Straits and Peter Gabriel. Sure, there’s the occasional surprise, say, some old Dylan or Van Morrison, and it is just about the only commercial format that flirts with Americana acts. But mostly the message is that we thirtysomethings want introspective, wordy tunes that are slightly rocking but smooth enough to wash down the work-induced daily dose of Tums. In other words, B-L-A-N-D. But just because we’re old farts (in rock terms, at least), that doesn’t mean we need out music anesthetized.
Take Peter Holsapple’s Out Of My Way, for example. You could call it a Triple-A record, but one that lives and breathes with ragged glory in its music. When Holsapple goes it alone on the acoustic, it’s not just strummed pleasantly; you can feel the thing being played. And when the full band kicks a song into gear, guitars howl, keyboards chirp and drums drive the damn beast. At its best, as on the dirgelike “Couldn’t Stop Lying To You”, guitars burn like a freshly skinned knee.
Lyrically, Holsapple’s first solo effort (well, since 1977′s “Big Black Truck” 45 on Car Records) is equally unguarded. It delves into the ups and downs (mostly downs) of relationships, and does so with humor, bitterness and an occasional peek into the soul. “No one cared enough to care,” he sings with sad resignation about a fizzled relationship in “Shirley”. “You’re the one that’s gonna dig himself an early grave/I’d stick around to watch but hell I’ve got myself to save,” he seethes in the evil-but-fun country-folk of “Pretty Damned Smart”. Moments like these remind you there’s still room for originality in the most used theme in popular music.
Out Of My Way pokes its head into the garage, the coffeehouse and the bar nearly without a gaffe. It’s as if Holsapple has applied what he learned in the indie ’80s with the quirk-poppy dB’s and more recently with the rootsy Continental Drifters and remembered, most importantly, not to go Sting-like on us. Maybe Holsapple’s best record to date, it’s the way that Adult Album Alternative stuff should sound to those of us who still demand some open wounds in our musical diet.
