Hamell on Trial
Choochtown (Such-A-Punch)
Ed Hamell continues doin’ it for himself. Sure, there are other voices and instrumentalists here and there on Choochtown, but far and away, the latest disc from the anti-folk singer is dominated by the man, his words, and that locomotive-at-full-steam acoustic guitar of his. Starting off with a treatise on why you should “Go Fuck Yourself,” he goes on to cover hopes, dreams, romance, terror, and the lives of various characters from his life and mind in this ambitious concept piece. Epic or no, the challenge an artist like Hamell always faces in recording is the fact that most of his lyrics are of the same meter and there’s only so many sounds that can be milked from an acoustic guitar — even if it’s tuned in that special manner of his. In Choochtown, the former Austinite attempts a solution by use of texture, recording tracks in situations running from boom-box basement lo-fi to high-dollar jillion-track digital studio, and these efforts go a long way toward keeping Choochtown interesting from start to finish. Almost to the finish, anyhow; he concludes the disc with a heart-in-the-right-place but uncharacteristic and inappropriate (given the subject) tribute to late comedian/social commentator Bill Hicks. Perhaps the folks in Choochtown miss ol’ Bill as much as the rest of us do.
This article appears in January 21 • 2000.