Andrew Calhoun, Tiger Tattoo (Waterbug, 2003)

Singer-songwriter and Waterbug Records magnate Andrew Calhoun comes...at least these days...from Portland, Oregon. I've heard a few of his albums from playing record station copies. Most of what I remember of these is a pretty song about Vancouver Harbour, and how light Celtic roots twine into sometimes brittle contemporary themes. This last album, Tiger Tattoo, has received good remarks from my colleagues. Are they deserved? Yes, but like many it is not an album for everyone.

The songs here are sometimes very detailed, and many portray incidents in Calhoun's early and present lives. Like many of the best songwriters, his songs are poetry set to music. Often his rhymes are odd or missing; for instance in "Miss Hill," a story of fifth grade vindication (I think I remember this crazy old teacher from sixth grade! She used to keep her teeth in a glass by the sink!), he rhymes "bucket" with "turnip." Also:

Then she turned back to the black board and scratched out full throttle
While the flesh hung down from her writing arm and flapped like a turkey's waddle.

Often too, he will sing with an intentionally awkward but charming syncopation, stuffing too many syllables into a line to come forth with an easy listen.

These first songs on the album are about his experiences growing up. In "Fred's Brother" he throws together seemingly unrelated memories of his pal's dry-skinned sibling, like a verbal path through a photo album. I particularly like this reference to a disastrous minister at Fred's brother's wedding:

But I recoil to recall the twisted things he said,
His words flowed on like oily snakes that rent the air and fled.

"Goin' Down To See John Prine" is a recount of growing up in Illinois and listening to the Proto-John Prine, turned surprisingly and honestly bitter. And "Catching On Fire" is a candid account of catching on fire. Only a few tracks are about recent experiences. One, the symbolic "Tiger Tattoo," tells about a Rose City woman who has been through too much for being 23.

Other songs are more abstract. "The Scyther" is a pretty, abstractly symbolic song about death and victory. "Shadow Song" is about time passing. "Day In And Day Out" is a love song and gives a clue to the origin of the "Waterbug" reference. "I'm a Rover" is a jaunty...and most welcome...traditional Scots tune. Two songs are dedicated to the late Oregon songwriter Dave Carter.

On most songs, it is just Calhoun's folky guitar backing his strong but weary baritone. A few songs include a bigger band, including Tracy Grammer on violin. Listening to the poems, the vocals, the arrangements, is like leafing through a black and white book of street photography, with white bare limbs of humanity jutting out of every page. Even the happiest songs, songs that with just a slight twist, more twinkle and sparkle, a different key, a different cadence would be cheering, are covered with the poignant shroud of Calhoun's human experience. There are people who find that this poignancy cuts like a scythe to open their heart. But my own opinion is that I see too much grim sorrow in my life already, and would just as soon scan the book and then leave it closed.