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Tim Lee
No Discretion
Paisley Pop
Lee, along with singer/guitarist Bobby Sutcliff made up The Windbreakers, an east coast band that was an honorary member in the west coast Paisley Underground movement of the early ’80s. Their chiming guitar leads played off each other as they took turns singing their songs. Sutcliff’s had a heavy Beatles jones, while Lee’s were grittier with bluesy hard edges and closest in sound to Green On Red. This great new record reflects that side of him, with superb songs energized by tough guitar snarling, and his gravelly vocals and lyrics that represent rural life in the South. Lee is joined by early R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter as well as members of Superdrag and Josh Rouse’s band and his wife/bassist Susan Bauer Lee
--by Tucker Petertil
- The Big Takeover - Issue 55
Tim Lee
No Discretion
Paisley Pop
If last year's Windbreakers anthology, Time Machine 1982-2002, made you remember a great band, this terrific solo effort from founding member Tim Lee should tattoo his talents into your memory for good. No Discretion takes Lee's patented power-pop prowess, mixes it with rootsy elements, nods at punk and psychadelic influences, and all the while rocks right along.
Lee recorded the album's thirteen tracks over a year and a half from North Carolina to Mississippi with several producers, including Mitch Easter and Don Coffey Jr., but you'd be hard-pressed to find problems with cohesion. Lee is a skilled lyricist and storyteller; his deceptively simple turns of phrase bring to life the small-time characters who populate songs such as "New Hope", "Things Get Broken", and "Speak Up Girl".
The raucous blue-collar call-to-arms "Keep Me Down" is hard to resist when it instructs, "Take your television set and throw it out the window / Take the rum and the ice and throw it in the blender." The fuzzy fun of "I Wanna Believe" nicely kicks off the album, and "Across the Tracks" earns a spot on my alltime list of can't-wait-to-leave-this-damn-rotten-town anthems. No Discretion finds a veteran artist still making quality music that you can be proud to turn up loud.
--Andy Turner
- No Depression - Nov./Dec. 2004
Tim Lee
No Discretion
Paisley Pop
After making his mark two decades back in the legendary Windbreakers with fellow pop practitioner Bobby Sutliffe, and playing in support of such notables as Let's Active, The Swimming Pool Qs and the Marti Jones Band, Tim lee has a fairly impressive standard to live up to when it comes to pursuing his solo sojourns. Fortunately, he's more than up to the task, as is borne out by his three previous individual efforts. Still, No Discretion is his boldest statement yet, an irrepressible, no-holds-barred set of songs that finds lee in full rock 'n' roll regalia.
Recorded across six studios with sixteen musicians over the span of eighteen months, the album as a whole proves remarkably consistent and unfailingly emphatic. That's evident at the outset, beginning with the all-out assault of the opening track, "I Wanna Believe," and further verified through the driving ferocity of "Across the Tracks," "No Discretion," "Things Get Broken" and "Keep Me Down," ironically recalling the deadpan cool of Lou Reed. Lee tempers his swagger with the occasional ballad -- notably the weary "New Hope" and the pensive closer "The End of Time" -- but on the whole, the pace rarely slackens. A bold stroke for the less Tim-id Lee.
--Lee Zimmerman
- Amplifier - Nov./Dec. 2004
Tim Lee
Under the House
Paisley Pop, 2003
In some circles, the coming of a new Tim Lee/Bobby Sutliff/Windbreakers release is call for a mighty celebration. With the release of Lee's Under the House, I've pulled out the party hats and cake -- the noisemakers have been banished to the back yard so that all revelers can listen and enjoy.
This is a great little CD. Not as polished as his work with the Windbreakers, Under the House has more of a rural feel than the WBs southern roots ever made apparent. Born in Mississippi and based now in Tennessee, Lee connects intimately with the music of the rural south --the electrified blues and the twang of country -- filtered through the aggressive honesty of punk. Indeed, it appears that his near-decade hiatus from recording has encouraged him to reconnect with his regional roots. The result is an honest and organic roots pop album that has none of the sheen of current contemporary country artists -- and certainly little of the self-consciousness of standard pop rock.
There is an appealing rawness to the music. It has a first-take sense of spontaneity, and the phrasing of the lyrics rings with deep emotional honesty and intelligence. With a decade in the non-musical wilderness (which included a stint as an elementary teacher as well as time spent writing about dirt-track racing), Lee has abundant issues to sing about. The songs are about truth and the road, about growing old and the pain of loss. This is pop music from the perspective of an adult -- serious issues, but with an engaging musical environment.
Beyond the sobriety of the lyrics, Lee clearly loves his guitar, and he lets the instrument speak eloquently. An engaging blend of electric and acoustic guitars flavor the mix, with a deep, low bass line anchoring the songs at the bottom. The country feel to the CD is emphasized with the occasional and tasteful use of slide guitar lines, but the primary musical experience is grounded firmly in Lee's hybrid blues-country-powerpop. Those powerpoppish elements are enhanced by challenging and engaging guitar riffs, a mixture of George Harrison's simplicity and Keith Richards organic rootsiness. The new-south elements of 1980s Let's Active/REM/Windbreakers are all present, begging the question once again, of "why wasn't he a megastar in 1985?"
Regardless of star status of the artist, it is clear that there is much good stuff here. If you like your pop rock with an organic rootsy side, or find the North Mississippi All-Stars to be good, but the drumming too dense, you'll find much to enjoy here.
Ken King - Junk Media
Discography
Solo records:
Concrete Dog (Fundamental) - 2006
No Discretion (Paisley Pop) - 2005
Under the House (Paisley Pop) - 2003
All That Stuff (Fundamental) - 1996
New Thrill Parade (New Rose France) - 1993
Crawdad (DB) - 1991
What Time Will Tell (Coyote) - 1988
Photos
Bio
Welcome to Tim Lee’s Concrete Dog.
The newest recorded effort the veteran, Knoxville, Tenn.-based songwriter is a mad squall of rock energy and gimlet-eyed optimism that could only be produced by a man who’s still young-at-heart enough to believe in possibilities, but wise enough to know that things rarely turn out the way you expect.
In short, it’s vintage Tim Lee.
The third solo outing since he made his return to recording with 2001’s primarily acoustic Under the House, finds Lee re-exploring some of the same fuzzed-up sonic ground he trod with 2004’s No Discretion.
Like its predecessor, Concrete Dog finds Lee again working with drummer/producer Don Coffey Jr., and bassist/wife Susan Bauer Lee.
And as with No Discretion, Lee again ventured into Coffey’s Knoxville-based Independent Recorders and Money Shot studios in Water Valley, Miss., to lay down tracks. And, on the recommendation of Steve Wynn, Lee also cut “Greyhound from Jackson” at Wave Lab in Tucson, Ariz., with producer Craig Schumacher manning the boards.
“Like most things I do, there was no pre-planned idea,” he explained. “I just started recording songs as they came up, and as time passed, it started to take shape.”
As with No Discretion “we recorded a lot more songs than we used,” Lee continued. “The only difference is that we didn’t finish a lot of them. If they didn’t rise to the top, we didn’t fool with them very long.”
Unlike Lee’s previous recording, however, the band that made No Discretion is much different from the one that convened to produce Concrete Dog. This combo, with the addition of guitarist Greg Horne, has logged the miles, playing bar after bar across the American Southeast and beyond, where it gelled into a seasoned unit. And it shows.
“With my wife playing bass and co-writing, and my best friend playing drums and co-producing I’ve got a more permanent group that encourages me and works with me,” Lee said. “It just makes it more fun.”
Concrete Dog also finds Lee opening the songwriting shop to include frequent contributions from Susan, and, with the title track, a rare full-band composition.
“One day, Susan put some lyrics on my desk that ended up being the first verse of ‘Real Bad Habit,’’ Lee recalled. “When I got around to looking at them, the song came together very quickly.”
Working with his wife adds a “spark of inspiration” to start writing, Lee continued.
“A lot of these songs – including “Get Up,” “Dead Guy Story,” and “Half Life” – came from her original ideas,” he said. “I was just lucky enough to have the opportunity to finish them.”
The aficionados know the Tim Lee story. But, for the neophytes, it bears repeating nonetheless.
Back in the 1980s, Lee was one-half of fabled Southern poppers The Windbreakers, one of the great coulda-been stories of the college radio era. Along with songwriting foil/ drinking buddy/quarrelsome sibling Bobby Sutliff, The Windbreakers produced four gorgeous and underappreciated records.
The fans swooned. The critics loved them. Naturally, they didn’t sell. So Lee and Sutliff packed up their tents at the dawn of the 1990s. Though they’ve ceased to exist as a recording entity, Lee and Sutliff do periodic live shows under The Windbreakers’ banner and turned out a best-of collection “Time Machine (Paisley Pop, 2003) that featured their first new recordings in more than a decade.
But even as The Windbreakers spent the 1980s barnstorming across the country in support of their own releases, Lee kept busy on his own.
With the Rain Parade guitarist Matt Piucci, he turned out “Gone Fishin’,” and with ex-Nurses/Half-Japanese Howard Wuelfing, there was “Paid Vacation.”
There were also brace of solo records, including the tour de force that is 1998’s “Crawdad,” which saw Lee turn out a country-inflected cover of Ian Hunter’s “I Wish I Was Your Mother.”
But, for most of the 1990s, Lee remained silent
In 2001, he broke his silence with “Under the House.” It was, Lee said, like learning to walk again.
“When I did Under The House, I was just starting to kinda feel my way around this music stuff again,” he said. “A couple of friends encouraged me to record some songs, and that turned into that record. Since then, I’ve pretty much gotten full-tilt back into it.”
So, here it is, Concrete Dog – proof positive that Dylan Thomas was right: There is just no reason to go gently into that good night.
Tim Lee sure isn’t.
— John L. Micek, February 2006
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