Americana Music Reviews

Jim Bianco
Well Within Reason
Self-Released
by Samuel L. Wereb

Jim Bianco might be a musical genius. Then again, he might just be an alien. I'm not sure I would recognize either. He is certainly one talented, wacky sonofabitch who is having a blast making original music. And he makes it look easy.

His debut CD Well Within Reason is clever, innovative and fascinating. I can't find a reviewing format or precedent for this one. But I do know what it sounds like and that a lot of people are going to love it.

Jim Bianco is somewhat reminiscent of Beck in his crossing of genres and styles, but he is far more original, creative, and authentic. Even at his best, Beck still relies a great deal on powerful production effects and plagiarism, er... sampling, that is. Bianco, on the other hand, is a real musician.

Everyone I talk to about Jim Bianco tries to compare him to Tom Waits. Worse, they usually do it in the irksome "meets" convention, as in "Van Morrison meets Tom Waits." He does sound a little like Tom Waits, but the comparison is not only misleading it's just plain lazy. Let's dispense with it right away. This music is what would happen if Tom Waits and Dr. John sat in with the Muppets' band for a session of MTV Unplugged with Bianco as the puppet master.

T-t-t-two birds staring at a stone
Wondering why it was thrown
Missed 'em by a foot and a half
They button up their feathers and laugh
Two birds staring at a stone

There's obviously more to that song, but let that be the last comparison made to Tom Waits.

Bianco sings in a gravelly, reverse falsetto. Sometimes he'll strain to force certain vocal intonations. Consequently, he does frequently sing like Tom Waits sings. That's essentially all there is to the comparison. While Waits is a very talented musician, he's also an act. He's become a character and he's in the Tom Waits business. His raison
d' etre fades as he becomes more of a legend. Jim Bianco is not acting. He's making good music, and he can sing his ass off when he wants to.

Well Within Reason is a complicated, poetic performance, but it's only complicated in trying to explain it. Listening to it is simply fun. It's a treatise on poetic songwriting, set to ripping guitar progressions and blistering keyboarding. Bianco plays with notes, and words, and their meanings like little kids toss sand into the sea breeze. He builds sand castles out of inventive rhythms, imagery, melody and a truckload of pure fun.

He's recorded songs about cockroaches, bad advice from Nietzsche, good advice from his mother, dimes, and birds. He finds romanticism and a spiritual nature in drudgery and oft-overlooked, mundane realities. He takes two steps toward Immanuel Kant, and then a Buster Keaton pratfall back to where he started. One can't tell if he's telling a real story or just pulling your leg until after it's all over. The music leaves listeners either sand-blasted with wonder or comfortably overwhelmed with joy.

His songs are not lyrical in that they don't follow a conventional storytelling arc. There's a through-line in each one, but it's often playing hide-and-seek behind an ingenious metaphor. Bianco is quite like a magician. He doesn't want us to see the trick, but to believe in the magic. If he thinks he's blown your mind, he'll occasionally deign to show you where he's hidden the rabbit.

Standing on the shoulders of the morning
You can see the moon
That lonely sickle scrapes the sky
It's rising on the widow's peak of the afternoon
And it's a long way home

Ashtrays are graveyards for the cigarettes you smoke
Second hand spirits rise from the filter
Headed for heaven but they stop at the ceiling
And into the walls they soak
It's a long way home

I caught you looking at yourself
Who could blame you?
I was looking at you too
Baby, all the things you are afraid of are not afraid of you
And it's a long way home

"A song can be like a girl," says Bianco. "You usually notice her beauty first, the melody. Then perhaps the way she's dressed and carries herself, the rhythm. If you sit down to talk with her, you might get to know what she thinks, the lyrics." That's a pleasant way to deconstruct a song, but what happens when one meets a beautiful, intelligent girl from the Bizarro World?

Well, sometimes he gets a Jim Bianco song.

Jim Bianco has only been playing professionally, on his own, for two and a half years. To say that I am a great deal impressed with his ability is an enormous understatement. His musicianship is more than solid. Bianco doesn't merely play his instruments, he wrestles them into submission until they yield the best noises they can make. Then he makes them dance like marionettes, finely manipulating them and imbuing them with new life.

The players he recruited for this album all come from bigger acts. They mix a crisp, living sound out of traditional instruments and help plumb the depths of Bianco's musicianship, humor, and originality.

He may sing and write his own songs, but I wouldn't call Jim Bianco a "singer-songwriter." That moniker invokes miserable panty-waists like Jackson Browne. Jim Bianco is more like Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. He makes terrific music and he makes it look easy. If you're toiling away in anonymity, why the hell not try to make it look easy?

On your knees, you pray I pull my punches,
And I believe I will
Saturday, and everybody wants some

"Just make it look easy,
Just make it look like you can do no wrong
Just make it look easy," my mama said

If I believe that Jesus was a southpaw,
Then you'll believe he was
Sunday, you're begging for mercy

** Jim Bianco performs regularly in Los Angeles at The Mint, The Hotel Café, The Knitting Factory, and Genghis Cohen. He's building a following of serious music fans, among them Glenn Tilbrook of SQUEEZE. The two have hooked up for a tour of the Southwest, beginning with a December 4th gig at the Viper Room. We can only expect good things from this. Hit www.jimbianco.com to get more details, listen to a few songs and buy the CD.

 
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