Joe Cassady & The West End Sound

I've seen New York's Joe Cassady And The West End Sound at Belladrum Festival two years running and absolutely loved 'em each time: 'a classic rock band with a star guitarist' is how I described them and that's pretty much how they come over in a live setting. (see fan video below) I was perplexed that their first two cds didn't have the oomph that they deliver on stage but with the arrival of this, their third album, I guess my view is going to be that they're a band with two characters. Again, the sound on disc tends towards the restrained, lyrical and wistful; you can hear the rock party starting on a few songs, for sure, but they don't catch quite light in the way things do on stage.

This, however, is not a problem because the music on this cd is, I think, something of what Gram Parsons had in mind when he talked about his Cosmic American Music or whatever his phrase was. Fusing elements of country music - there's some pickin' and some twang in there - with a basic rock sensibility, the thing that really makes this band distinctive is Joe Cassady himself. On stage he kind of looks like a trendy college teacher on play day in his cordurouy jacket and hiding a little behind his spectacles and unruly hair. Listen to the words he's singing though and you soon realise that this is a man with a very individual take on life and one who's chronicling the America he finds around him. Questioning all the givens that other people take at face value and wrestling with the dark side of life, he's certainly a man with something to say. As with so many American songsters, Jesus does keep cropping up, but I guess he did for Gram, too. The thing is, with Joe's lyrical preoccupations he could easily have ended up singing solo in coffee bars, just him and his guitar. It seems incongruous that he should have ended up fronting a rock band but it works really well. There's a wry humour in his writing - witness the song 'We All Tour With Elvis' (i.e. on The Great Tour In The Sky) - which works well with the cheerful barroom rock of his band; it's the end of the world as we know it but we'll all feel fine with this lot.

There's a suspicion that he doesn't have too many melodies up his sleeve; some of these songs sound like numbers from previous albums. The same charge has been levelled at much bigger bands, though, and besides Joe's got a wonder guitarist in Shu Nakamura who comes up with no end of joyful instrumental breaks to cover his tracks. With a lot of bands you get a sense of the career trajectory, from breakthrough hit to losing the plot in search of a mature sound. I don't think these guys will have that problem. They kind of sound like they've been around forever and will be around for a long time to come, doing that Joe Cassady thing. As for 'The Chymical Wedding...' , if you want an explanation of the title best check out Joe's tale on his website.
John Davy


- NoDepression.com

WHAT'S YOUR SIGN? Selected as one of Soundstage! Magazine's "Best Recordings of 2007" - Soundstage!

"The biggest surprises and successes of the weekend came on the Saturday. In the mid-afternoon Joe Cassady and the West End Sound came on stage and set the place alight. Somehow reminding me of both The Faces and The Band they played tuneful, lyrical roots rock and would have played for another half hour if the crowd had got their way but we had to make do with two encores. Shu Nakamura on guitar was a total star, grinning his way joyfully through the entire business and playing like a demon. It was perfect festival music; there were some covers in there but their own stuff somehow seemed familiar."
http://flyinshoes.ning.com/profiles/blogs/americana-at-belladrum-the?xgs=1 - Flying Shoes Review

1. Olika artister “Radio Nord & Radio Syd” (Riverside/BAM)
2. Diana Jones “Better days will come” (Proper Records/BAM)
3. Sofia Karlsson “Söder om kärleken” (Sally Wiola Music/Playground Music)
4. Joe Cassady & The West End Sound "The 47th Problem” (Avenue A Records/Hemifrån)
5. Greg Copeland “Diana and James” (Inside/BAM)
6. Amy Allison “Sheffield Streets” (UM/Hemifrån)
7. Todd Thibaud “Broken” (Blue Rose/Border)
8. Gretche Peters & Tom Russell “One to the heart, one to the head” (Scarlett Letter Records/BAM)
9. Pilgrim “Harbour girl” (Rootsy)
10. J-Tex “Misery” (Heptown Records)
- "Best Of 2009" in Hifi & Musik Magazine, Sweden - Hi-Fi & Musik Magazine (Sweden)

1. Olika artister
Radio Nord & Radio Syd
(Riverside/BAM)

2. Diana Jones
Better days will come
(Proper Records/BAM)

3. Sofia Karlsson
Söder om kärleken
(Sally Wiola Music/Playground Music)

4. Olika artister
Dim lights, thick smoke and hillbilly music
(Bear Family/Border)

5. Joe Cassady & West End Sound
The 47th problem
(Avenue A Records/Hemifrån)
- Rootsy.nu (Sweden)

" . . . a beatnik in the wrong decade, with a taste of country rock and urban, brazen, outsider romance. It is as if he wants to be Allen Ginsberg, Paul Westerberg, Waylon Jennings and Keith Richards at the same time. He succeeds surprisingly well."--Honkey Deluxe Blogspot - Honkey Deluxe Blogspot (Sweden)

Joe Cassady and the West End Sound
The 47th Problem
Avenue A records
****

"It doesn't take a genius to work out that Joe Cassady is a damn fine musician and an even
better songwriter. Some of the tracks on THE 47TH PROBLEM would stand scrutiny with the very best of Americana and not be found wanting. Everything that is great about the album is encapsulated in Willie Mays, it's engaging, well written, beautifully played and eminently listenable without being shallow or trite."
- Maverick Magazine (UK)

In this album, Joe Cassady and the West End Sound, more than most singers and bands, resubmit familiar experiences to us afresh. Maybe songwriter Cassady’s "Willie Mays" is influenced by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy’s "Catfish," about Catfish Hunter, another baseball star, but like the album’s other ten original soft-to-driving rock tracks, this song sparkles in its own right: "Pinstripes and diamonds and overhead lights / Million mile stars twinkle through million dollar nights."

Cassady explicitly acknowledges his Dylan influence. Especially when spinning out his prosaic lines while fronting his ragtag-sounding, deceptively musical band, he makes big-time hay from ground that Dylan already plowed. But part of his success is his individuality, and he diverges significantly from Dylan. His singing is more conversational, less apocalyptic, and reading the lyrics, you think about Allen Ginsberg -- another acknowledged occupier of Cassady’s brain.

Shu Nakamura on several instruments, Robert Bohnomme on drums, Anthony Bax on percussion, and Aaron Gardner on bass shine more than players in a classic Dylan model band -- Nakamura in particular, with his hot guitar solos and catchy introductions. The sound needed a bit more work, but we'd want to keep the "mess" that keeps the listener hopping.

Cassady’s writing on personal relationships and literature are sophisticated and witty but not in a popular vein. Writing excitingly on public matters might be a useful page to borrow from Dylan. Cassady's big talent deserves a serious following, and the timing is right. - Soundstage! Magazine

"Cassady and his pals continue to merge the best of various fringe and underground sounds into a special Americana gumbo that you label that way because there’s no other way to make the uninitiated understand. Would it be so weird for Townes Van Zandt to hang out with Lou Reed? Perhaps not as the journey through the mirror these two would take together would be really off the hook." - Midewest Record Review

Joe Cassady & the West End Sound/What's Your Sign? (out now): Wasn't necessarily expecting good alt-country from a Manhattan band, but got it anyway. The songs' obvious intelligence doesn't get in the way of the solid, often enthralling music.

- USA Today.com

WHAT'S YOUR SIGN? Selected as one of "My favorite albums of 2007."


Ken Barnes - USA TODAY - USA Today.com