Stan Ridgway

Stan Ridgway is one of the unsung heroes of American music. His is a career that that has been marked by memorable songs, the occasion moment of startling brilliance and a willingness to push the envelope. His songs are known for their cinematic qualities, their habitation by a luridly coloured cast of characters and perspectives that are different from those offered by most of his peers.

We are better for it.

The other factor is longevity – by performing under a number of different incarnations and configurations Stan Ridgway has managed to keep his output fresh and interesting. He has a highly distinctive voice and style and in the absence of evolution he could easily have become a self-parody or even worse just got bored (and boring).

He hasn’t.

“Music is more than just chords and notes to me, it has the ability to make pictures in the mind,” he says on his website. “My records are designed to be seen as well as heard.”

“It’s a hybrid of all the music I’ve loved and admired,” is how he describes his music. “There are no boundaries on art and no rules to follow in music. A song is really just a strong point of view.”

Lyrically Ridgway works in both harsh reality and romance – but its not your standard view of reality and it’s a very different vision of romance – its more about hopeless romantics than any picture perfect view of suburban utopia. It’s what lurks below the surface that intrigues him and while his music oscillates between the abrasive and the embracing he always finds a way to draw the listener into his web.

His website lists his influences as  “European soundtrack music, American folk tradition, primitive rock ‘n’ roll, blues, psychedelia, free jazz and all that is avant-garde.” And if you give his music more than a cursory listen you can hear all of the above.

Stan Ridgway first came to widespread attention as the singer for Wall Of Voodoo, the LA band who were formed with the intention of  making music for low budget horror films. Instead they ended up making hit records including the single Mexican Radio. That was about a quarter of a century ago.

“Life is absurd. But that doesn’t mean it has to be meaningless,” he says. “From an early age music centered me in a chaotic world that didn’t make sense. I’ve always liked tall tales, urban myths and ghost stories,” he says. “I like a strong protagonist, as well as a story that unfolds with drama, color and detail. A song should take you away for awhile and into another world.”

Ridgway has gone on to release eight solo albums, an impressive catalogue that reads as follows:

Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs (2004)

Holiday in Dirt (2002)

Anatomy (1999)

Black Diamond (1996)

Songs That Made This Country Great (1992)

Partyball (1991)

Mosquitos (1989)

The Big Heat (1986)

Within these albums are songs like Camouflage, Don’t Box Me In, Goin’ Southbound, I Wanna Be A Boss, Salesman as well as some oddities pulled together on Holiday In Dirt.

Between this Ridgway has contributed to his partner Pietra Wexstun and her band Hecates Angels and worked with her on a more experimental sonic soundscape outfit under the name of Drywall. Three albums have resulted.

These days Ridgway has embraced the music of his entire career. He is currently touring America under the title “Desert Of Dreams: A Sandstorm of Song,” an all inclusive retrospective show highlighting Ridgway’s musical journey from past to present. Ridgway and his band are performing key songs and music from his entire career in an intimate acoustic format with Pietra Wexstun (keys, melodica, vocals) and Rick King guitar, bass, vocals). New songs will be played as well from his soon-to-be-released new solo CD out this summer.

There’s also  another album recently released – an EP of children’s songs entitled Silly Songs For Kids that Ridgway and Wexstun explain like this;

“With lots of of nieces and nephews around, we are always making up songs for them when we get together and well, things just happen. Childish and silly? We hope so. I guess you could say we are exploring a new frontier”

The Desert Of Dreams shows sound great and this review indicates that it would be a very welcome tour should it ever make it to Australia.

“Accompanied by Rick King on guitar, Amy Farris on viola, Joe Berardi on percussion, and Pietra Wexstun on keyboards, Ridgway performed older numbers like “Calling Out to Carol” and “Peg and Pete and Me” alongside “Wake Up Sally (the Cops are Here)” and “King for a Day” from what he called his “latest opus,” 2005′s Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs.

The former Wall of Voodoo frontman performed slowed-down versions of his ’80s hit “Mexican Radio” and “Camouflage,” his tale of a soldier’s encounter with a benevolently belligerent poltergeist in the Vietnamese jungle. He delved into “deeper Tarzana” with “Knife and Fork,” a declaration of love where cutlery has never sounded more amusingly lurid.

His stirring version of “Underneath the Big Green Tree” was among the best songs of the night and probably the best of the songs taken from his underrated 1995 Black Diamond. Riding along with Ridgway’s songs, the audience traveled all over the map, stopping to check out a carnival here, a roadblock there and finally a madcap barbeque, (Ridgway and side project Drywall’s 2006 “BBQ Babylon”) before a grateful Ridgway put on the brakes, offering his thanks to the crowd.”

We can only hope.