STEW
Guest Host (The Telegraph Company)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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If you aren't hip to The Negro Problem yet you won't know Stew, the leader of the LA band that has been one of the most critically acclaimed acts of recent years. If you're intimately familiar with TNP, you don't yet know all there is to know about the idiosyncratic musical genius that is Stew. By the end of your first hearing of Guest Host, you'll know a bit more, and you'll want to know even more than that.

I use the word genius advisedly. Pop music is full of talents. There are capable journeymen, inventive craftsmen and lots of generally competent hacks in the field. Geniuses? Well, there's Brian Wilson, and there's Stew, and it's hard to think of anyone else off the top of my head. One who might come close is Stew's TNP bandmate and Guest Host co-producer Heidi Rodewald. Rodewald adds bass, acoustic guitar, piano, synth, oboe, harmonica, floor tom, background vocals and arrangements to the album, and Stew credits her with providing a measure of restraint that he prizes as well. Stew himself offers acoustic guitar, a variety of keyboards, lead and background vocals, tambourine, arrangements and, of course, the remarkable songs themselves. There are other contributors here and there, but other than drums (Marty Beller on all but one track, when he's replaced by Andy Sykora) the rest are incidental and no one's around for more than a track or two.

The songs! Oh yeah, the songs. Brian Wilson meets Gilbert & Sullivan to score lyrics by e.e. cummings on acid. Lennon & McCartney meet Cole Porter in Jimmy Webb's basement. Barry White on helium sings Frank Zappa outtakes. Or something like that. Or not quite like that. And it all comes out of one fantastically fertile mind. I can't describe the songs, but you've simply got to hear them. The Negro Problem albums were in my top ten for 1997 and 1999, though they missed the final cut for the top fives we put up on Cosmik. This one's gonna make it.

Track List:

Cavity * She's Really Daddy Feelgood * Essence * Re-Hab * Into Me * Ordinary Love * Man In A Dress * The Stepford Lives * Bijou * Sister/Mother * C'mon Everybody

© 2000 - Shaun Dale