Phases and Stages

Shandon Sahm

Like his late father, Doug Sahm, Shandon Sahm is a musical chameleon, slithering easily between sonic genres. On his first solo release, bearing the unwieldy title of Good Thoughts Are Better Than Laxatives, the youngest Sahm stays within the comfortable confines of rock. That's a broad base of sound to bounce around, and Good Thoughts hits most of them squarely. Sahm composed 13-14 tracks, once again displaying the family brand of groove-heavy songwriting inherited by him and brother Shawn, who guests on "80's Metal Song," and two others. To that end, most of Good Thoughts revolves around groove rather than the traditional verse-verse-chorus. Whether that's by design or just comes naturally is irrelevant; groove is this Sahm's oeuvre. And what's a Sahm recording without a groove breaker? "Stress, Speed, Noise" is 10-plus minutes of studio fun, voice-overs, sound effects, and guitar wanking, and just might be Sahm's way of telling the listener to loosen up. He plays all the instruments, with brief appearances by Garrett Jamison, Max Baca, and former Pariah bandmate/album co-producer Dave Derrick. The ghost of Doug Sahm is surely smiling on his son's one-man take on "She's About a Mover," and if there's a message here, it's the one on nearly every Sahm recording: "Let's rawk!"