You know what they say about certain very distinctive guitarists, Eddie, or Carlos or Dickey Betts or the like: give them any rig, a les paul through a marshall or a silvertone through a pignose--and they'll sound like themselves. I've always had the same feeling about Steve Nieve: gave him any keyboard and he'll make it sound like Steve Nieve, which is to say chattery, blinkering, cascading, with a touch of self-aware cheesiness.



He's a strangely baroque palyer for rock and roll, and I mean that in the adjectival, not hisotrical, sense of the word: ornate and a little fussy. Sometimes he's a busy little bee, but the rare magic of the Attractions is that they were all kind of busy, and it worked in a gloriously chaotic way. They might actually be my favorite rock and roll band ever. I just can't get over the rift between EC and Bruce Thomas. Davey Faragher does a good job trying to sound like Bruce on When I Was Cruel (and his playing really is an obvious BT impersonation), but close don't count when classic band chemistry is at stake...



What the hell am I on about? Oh yeah, Steve Nieve. Yeah, we really started to hear what he was capable of on Trust, with songs like Shot With His Own Gun. Steve's great, and he and EC are great as a perfroming duo, sometimes with guitar, sometimes without.



I'm afraid that EC's new album is going to be nothing but torch songs for Diana Krall, and I don't love Elvis as a crooner, but, sigh, I'll probably get it anyway. If I lived through Bacharach, if I lived through the Brodsky Quartet, I can probably live through this.



EC uber fan rant off.

Check out the Sweet Clementines CD at Check out the Sweet Clementines CD at bandcamp