Walk Through Walls by Brian Capps, the coolest album I have heard in a long, long time! Brian was in the Roots Rock band The Domino Kings, and after leaving that band formed The True Liars, the other members all coming from the legendary Springfield Missouri combo The Morells (like NRBQ, a favorite of Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and every hip musician I know).
The songs are cool, the playing very cool (bassist Lou Whitney makes his Fender P-Bass sound like an upright; guitarist D. Clinton Thompson, one of my favorites, has worked with Steve Forbert, Jonathan Richman, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, The Del-Lords, Andy Shernoff of The Dicatators, many others---he’s brilliant!; drummer Bobby Lloyd Hicks---one of two drummers the band has had---has been in and out of Dave Alvin’s band for years), and the production---by Whitney---outstanding.
As an example of what’s so great about the music, many guitarists in Rock music (most, imo), when it comes time for their solo, play "riffs"---many merely blues scales they have learned over the years. The solo is not actually very much related to the song itself, but is more played out of the guitarist’s knowledge of the Blues lexicon than from any musical consideration. D. Clinton approaches guitar playing from a completely different point of view. His guitar parts, including his solos, are musical parts of the song itself, played to enhance the song, not his own stature as a guitarist. Think George Harrison, Robbie Robertson (The Band of course), and Al Anderson (NRBQ), not Clapton, Hendrix, Page, Beck, Van Halen, or any of the other "normal", blues-based players. MUCH more musically interesting, to me at least. The whole True Liars band plays that way, and it’s SO refreshing!
Unfortunately, the album is out-of-print (actually, Hightone Records is out of business), and I got the last new copy available on Amazon (fulfilled by Waterloo Records in Austin. Sorry Bill ;-), for under three bucks. But used copies are available, for cheap. Do yourself a huge favor and buy the album!
