- The Fens
- Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete
- Binky Records
- By Reid Mitchell
 Leaving my personal feelings aside,
I don't know if it's really true that nobody likes Sneaky Pete.
I guess it makes for a better title than Strung-Out, Horny,
and Pissed-Off in New Orleans. Some listeners might
be tempted to throw in overeducated but not me. If Sneaky Pete's
New Orleans sounds like Henry Miller's Paris and William Burroughs'
Algiers...well, New Orleans is like Henry Miller's Paris and
Algiers is within the parish limits.
Or maybe you can believe that nobody loves Sneaky Pete, a
man who is (imagine the announcer introducing James Brown on
Live at the Apollo) a "Lush," who needs "Your
love and friendship like a hole in the head," who's "Better
off stupid," who doesn't need "Enemies with friends
like you," and who's gonna "Jump from the Algiers ferry
and drown."
Welcome to his world.
* * *
- It was 1981
- We were wearing ugly clothes
- Listening to Talking Heads
- and the Teardrop Explodes
- While staring at the Hudson
- Until you ran away from me
- Which wouldn't have been so bad
- Except we'd taken LSD
- All at once you couldn't stand me
- And you didn't want to know me
- I said, "I'm from Missouri"
- And you're going have to show me"
- And I cried out to the heavens
- And the sky turned white and red
- And I need your love and friendship like a hole in my
goddam head
-----Peter Orr, "I Need Your Love and Friendship"
The core of Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete is a set of five
humorous but dark songs about bad love. Maybe with five different
women, maybe with one woman, clearly with The One Woman Sneaky
Pete looks for and usually finds in all the women he sings about.
One song is even called "New Song, Old Story." She's
the one he follows down to New Orleans or finds in the demimonde
after he's here.
- Your tears are bleary but my heart is aching
- The light in your eyes is all I hold sacred
- You throw your pearls at swine
- They all drag you down every time
- You throw your pearls at swine
- From here to the end of the line
- You spend your nights
- In whisky and lights
- You wake up hungover with strange married men
- You crawl to my sofa
- Where you sit sipping coffee
- You say you're so glad I'm not one of them
- Fuck you too
-----Peter Orr, "Dumb as Shit"
Tormenting himself with a self-destructive woman who he's
letting destroy him, it's no wonder nobody likes Sneaky Pete:
he doesn't much like himself, at least not in any way you would
notice. Musically, the strongest song of this set of five, the
one I'd pick for radio play on some college station, is the bass-riff
driven "Better Off Stupid."
- Nothing like a good looking woman who's just starting
to hit the skids
- Left your husband in Ohio, he got the house and kids
- I wouldn't trust you even if you weren't a thief
- With all your lies and betrayals and your strange beliefs
- You'll be older and wiser if you don't die first
- That thing on your arm is only gonna get worse
-----Peter Orr, "Better Off Stupid"
* * *
Sneaky Pete is Peter Orr's stage-name and alter-ego, and how
far his world view is shared by Mr. Orr I don't know. Orr knows
that since the advent of recorded music, all music became contemporary
and that our folk songs, the ones we heard in childhood and high
school, the ones that are stuck in our helpless minds and hearts,
are less likely to be Childe's Ballads and Woody Guthrie than
they are the Four Tops and the Rolling Stones. These are the
songs that are the touchstones for most of Sneaky Pete's sad
tales.
Narrative logic insists that Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete
end with a song about suicide. Sneaky Pete says he's going to
jump from the Algiers Ferry, the unromantic car ferry that shuttles
from the foot of Canal Street to Algiers Point. It's the funniest
thing on the cd precisely because, as Peter Orr told me, you
know the singer really is just going to stay in the bar and drink
more beer. He's more likely to miss the ferry than jump from
it.
But Sneaky Pete has more to sing about than Sneaky Pete. There's
also the song "Checkpoint's," about a local late night
bar. It has the same relationshipship to Billy Joel's "Piano
Man" as anti-matter to matter. Imagine coming into Cheers
and hearing the entertainer toast you along these lines:
- Drink all your troubles away
- Let them wash up somewhere
- They might like it and stay
- You hate your life
- You can't stand your job
- What's five o'clock for anyway?
- Shoot all your wishes to hell
- Blow all your money but don't blame yourself
- Somebody in here might be your friend
- Or maybe you could just pretend
- Will it make any difference in the end?
It's rare to hear a debut album where all the songs are as
powerful--and corrosive--as these. One warning: if you get to
the point you're firmly fixed in the world of Nobody Likes
Sneaky Pete, it'll probably be a good idea to stop listening
to the cd for a while. And maybe double check your medication.
Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete is available from Binky Records
[www.binkyrecords.com]
Contact Reid Mitchell at: reid-at-rockzilla.net
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