Musical Notes From Underground

While the zine incarnation of The Whirligig is dedicated to fiction and poetry, here at the blog there is no reason why we can't cover anything in the arts and present it in essays, reviews, blurbs or any other form as the mood strikes.

So in that spirit, here is a review of Next, a music CD by Hunkasaurus and His Pet Dog Guitar (www.hunkasaurus.com) aka Tom Hendricks of long-running zine Musea (www.musea.us), of which Next is a CD version. (TH = a composition by Tom.)

Songs 1-3 (Anytime at All, For Pete's Sake and How Do You Do It) Homages to a watershed period in pop music, the British Invasion of the early 60's. Tom does this stuff well.

Song 4 (Fully Automated TH) Nice short interlude instrumental. Somehow reminded me of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive".

Song 5 (Not Fade Away) I would have preferred a bit more grit in the performance, but there's a nice twist in his "come-on/come-on" as the guitar seems to make a move of its own -- with a mind of its own.

Song 6 (Lovin' You) A Presley chestnut that didn't do too much for me here.

Song 7 (That Means A Lot) Tom has a good feel for Beatlesesque pop and as this was written by Lennon/McCartney he's on firm ground. Enjoyable.

Song 8 (Modern Art TH) Bert Jansch type melodic acoustic guitar song.

Song 9 (Secret Agent Man) Cleverly adds the James Bond guitar riff; but what happened to the third verse?

Song 10 (140 MPH TH) Simply a well-crafted pop song. Like the songs from the group America (Ventura Highway, Sister Goldenhair, etc.) that you liked in spite of yourself, it just has something.

Song 11 (I'm Alive TH) Simple in all ways: Lyric, melody and arrangement all serve the purpose of the song. Referencing Thoreau, it makes the most basic statement of existence: I'm alive.

Song 12 (Sleepwalk) With Kazoo!

Song 13 (Windy) Serviceable rendition, but I'm not a fan of the song.

Song 14 (I Will) Interesting/different arrangment of this song from "The White Album". Good double tracked vocal.

Song 15 (Grand Sweep TH) Another good change-up piece that moves things along nicely. If this CD were Sgt. Pepper's this song would be Fixing A Hole.

Song 16 (Shake, Shout, and Go TH) Good boogie based riff. This song is the definition of "catchy" and seems happy to exist just for that.

Song 17 (Harmonics TH) Tom says goodbye with a little acoustic music of the spheres.