Take three guys with a dozen songs or so of roughly three to four minutes apiece into a studio in Jersey with just a few instruments and not that many tracks to over-produce across for two weeks only and what do you get?
Well, in the case of Dipsomaniac Mick Chorba’s self-confessed “lo-fi side project with alt. counry overtonesâ€Â The Successful Failures, you more than ably get to recreate that fleeting Golden Age of the Paley Brothers, Greg Kihn and Rubinoos anew, that’s what!
And guess what else? Well, one can hear precisely the kind of potent musical potient Ryan Adams, for one, is in most dire need of right about now (“Sewer Waterâ€Â), one can savor again all the Farfisic paisley garage-pop of the classic circa-’86 Cheepskates (“What You Areâ€Â), one can imagine Poco hiring Pete Ham to write them a rightful middle-eight (“God Knowsâ€Â) or The Replacements threw some brand new ProTools even (“If That’s The Way That You Want Itâ€Â).
But no, that still ain’t all! Coz “Hick Barsâ€Â may as well be the world’s first-ever lovingly lowly mp3, “Letting The Terrorists Winâ€Â once and hopefully for all relegates John Ashcroft’s “Let The Eagle Soarâ€Â to the Axis of Evil Besides, and even the Bonus “I Am A Rockâ€Â Track is SO much more a pleasant Surprise than P. Simon’s latest ever will be, believe you me.
So, as recent all-American events more than repeatedly demonstrate, only the most successful fail upwards, and this CD certainly isn’t about to prove otherwise, God knows.