THE DUKE LISTENS TO
GOOD MORNING, WEST GORDON
BY ONE STAR HOTEL
GOOD MORNING, WEST GORDON
BY ONE STAR HOTEL
Hellish pre-production, car-crashes, motherfucking floods in the
rehearsal space, line-up’s being re-arranged and refined like
nobody’s business. Far as The Duke can deduce, a catalogue of
catastrophes like that right there might be enough to make most
combos think about maybe this record we’re working on ain’t
supposed to be after all. I’d imagine if shit like that right
there were to occur amidst the production of, say, the latest Lou
Reed, he’d be inviting you to take a walk on the wild side and
kiss his arsehole, on account of that record can go fuck itself.
Alt-country rogues One Star Hotel, though, they don’t give up so
easily. Flood my funereal parlour-cum-rehearsal studio all you
want, is what One Star Hotel would announce. Destroy my vans and
pick us all off one by one, but I'll be fucked if this record
ain't gonna get done.
Good Morning, West Gordon, the second record by the aforementioned
troubadours, was borne amidst just this type a chaos. What they
did was they ditched a buncha demos, headed off in the van and
recorded the whole thing live at Miner Street Studios. What
emerges is a motherfucking epic, a record that’s awash with
lonesome hollers and Technicolor soundscapes, a record that sounds
like the dementia of an ocean storm one minute, then feels like
it's being whispered from behind a cupboard the next.
As far as the old song-structure and such is concerned, One Star
Hotel sound a bit like an Americana Flaming Lips, i.e, all multi-
layered melodies and bizarre instrumentation and such, except with
songs about small towns instead of giant robots. Also, a man would
be deaf not to notice the similarities to Wilco here and there.
Starlight, in particular, sounds like something Jeff Tweedy would
be proud of. It’s a beautiful song, is what.
“I am controlled by the tides, you said,
Underneath the haze of city lights”
That kinda sublime, evocative wordplay pops up again and again
throughout the proceedings. You might think a song called The Fall
would be all about maybe seeing Mark E Smith in a pub one night,
and maybe he flung a pint glass at somebody’s head and ranted on
about some conspiracy or other. Turns out, though, it wants to
talk about how “From the next room, the whispers drift / This fall
could be the last”. The title track opens with birds chirping and
a backwards organ thing like what opens Strawberry Fields Forever,
perfectly evoking the hazy dawn of the narrative, and goes on to
address the town in question;
“Bring your night’s regrets, and all your secrets,
To burn in the sun.”
I’m gonna go ahead and venture this is one of the finest alt.
country, Americana, whatever-the-fuck records of 2004, fit for to
stand alongside those masterpieces by The Drive By Truckers and
Ryan Adams and The Arlenes and Loretta Lynn. It’s one of those
records that, even for a fella sitting in a back-room in a council
estate in The Northern Ireland, seems to offer a window of some
kind, possibly Satanic in nature, for to peek through and have a
look across these dust-kissed towns so eulogised in the songs.
Even though it’s pissing down and pitch black outside, you can
almost see those motherfuckers standing in the street looking
skyward, some mythological America conjured before a fella.
Kings even sounds a bit like one of the more subtle moments from
The Joshua Tree, all spooky atmospherics and Daniel Lanois-esque
ethereal whispers. Falling Down thankfully has not one thing for
to do with the Joel Schumacher flick, and is instead indicative of
the quality of the tunes throughout this opus. Melodies that hug a
man’s skull for weeks, months, years, most likely.
What it is, then, is a life-affirming, magisterial shindig, a
record that occasionally talks of loneliness and yearning, but
which feels celebratory, and let’s be all the honest in the world,
when the shit’s this good, why the fuck shouldn’t they celebrate?
Keep in mind, also, how the rancid, noxious drivel pouring forth
from an obscene percentage of the Top 40 is copy-protected to the
bollocks, whilst this stunning, original piece of work has the
following disclaimer on the back cover; “Unauthorised copying is
encouraged.”
I know you can’t see me right now, The One Star Hotel, but rest
the fuck assured, The Duke’s hat is off, is what.
Click Here For MP3 Of The Title Track, Thanks To The Good Folks
Themselves
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
rehearsal space, line-up’s being re-arranged and refined like
nobody’s business. Far as The Duke can deduce, a catalogue of
catastrophes like that right there might be enough to make most
combos think about maybe this record we’re working on ain’t
supposed to be after all. I’d imagine if shit like that right
there were to occur amidst the production of, say, the latest Lou
Reed, he’d be inviting you to take a walk on the wild side and
kiss his arsehole, on account of that record can go fuck itself.
Alt-country rogues One Star Hotel, though, they don’t give up so
easily. Flood my funereal parlour-cum-rehearsal studio all you
want, is what One Star Hotel would announce. Destroy my vans and
pick us all off one by one, but I'll be fucked if this record
ain't gonna get done.
Good Morning, West Gordon, the second record by the aforementioned
troubadours, was borne amidst just this type a chaos. What they
did was they ditched a buncha demos, headed off in the van and
recorded the whole thing live at Miner Street Studios. What
emerges is a motherfucking epic, a record that’s awash with
lonesome hollers and Technicolor soundscapes, a record that sounds
like the dementia of an ocean storm one minute, then feels like
it's being whispered from behind a cupboard the next.
As far as the old song-structure and such is concerned, One Star
Hotel sound a bit like an Americana Flaming Lips, i.e, all multi-
layered melodies and bizarre instrumentation and such, except with
songs about small towns instead of giant robots. Also, a man would
be deaf not to notice the similarities to Wilco here and there.
Starlight, in particular, sounds like something Jeff Tweedy would
be proud of. It’s a beautiful song, is what.
“I am controlled by the tides, you said,
Underneath the haze of city lights”
That kinda sublime, evocative wordplay pops up again and again
throughout the proceedings. You might think a song called The Fall
would be all about maybe seeing Mark E Smith in a pub one night,
and maybe he flung a pint glass at somebody’s head and ranted on
about some conspiracy or other. Turns out, though, it wants to
talk about how “From the next room, the whispers drift / This fall
could be the last”. The title track opens with birds chirping and
a backwards organ thing like what opens Strawberry Fields Forever,
perfectly evoking the hazy dawn of the narrative, and goes on to
address the town in question;
“Bring your night’s regrets, and all your secrets,
To burn in the sun.”
I’m gonna go ahead and venture this is one of the finest alt.
country, Americana, whatever-the-fuck records of 2004, fit for to
stand alongside those masterpieces by The Drive By Truckers and
Ryan Adams and The Arlenes and Loretta Lynn. It’s one of those
records that, even for a fella sitting in a back-room in a council
estate in The Northern Ireland, seems to offer a window of some
kind, possibly Satanic in nature, for to peek through and have a
look across these dust-kissed towns so eulogised in the songs.
Even though it’s pissing down and pitch black outside, you can
almost see those motherfuckers standing in the street looking
skyward, some mythological America conjured before a fella.
Kings even sounds a bit like one of the more subtle moments from
The Joshua Tree, all spooky atmospherics and Daniel Lanois-esque
ethereal whispers. Falling Down thankfully has not one thing for
to do with the Joel Schumacher flick, and is instead indicative of
the quality of the tunes throughout this opus. Melodies that hug a
man’s skull for weeks, months, years, most likely.
What it is, then, is a life-affirming, magisterial shindig, a
record that occasionally talks of loneliness and yearning, but
which feels celebratory, and let’s be all the honest in the world,
when the shit’s this good, why the fuck shouldn’t they celebrate?
Keep in mind, also, how the rancid, noxious drivel pouring forth
from an obscene percentage of the Top 40 is copy-protected to the
bollocks, whilst this stunning, original piece of work has the
following disclaimer on the back cover; “Unauthorised copying is
encouraged.”
I know you can’t see me right now, The One Star Hotel, but rest
the fuck assured, The Duke’s hat is off, is what.
Click Here For MP3 Of The Title Track, Thanks To The Good Folks
Themselves
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
