So, here's something different. Today I went out to the mailbox and found a nice little package wrapped with Christmas cheer. The return address said it was from John & Paul. I couldn’t think of anyone I knew by those names except my uncle Paul and those guys from the Beatles. When I opened the package I found a cassette tape by the band, John & Paul. The cover had a third person there too, and listening to the tape I discovered it had to be a Georgie Lou Canon, who plays on at least half the record. Another Beatles nod. There’s even a song named after him that’s reminiscent of the Velvet’s “I’m Waiting For My Man” except in John & Paul’s version they end up befriending the drug dealer and he joins the band. Despite the band’s name, they don’t really have anything to do with the Beatles, except that their music is often just as good, in a weird, off-kilter, outsider kinda way. The album opens with a bizarre folk-punky track called “Duende” (a word I had to look up that turns out to be a little goblin from Spanish folklore who inspires madness and creativity in people, a fitting title and opener for this strange yet beautiful band). By the second song, the band quickly changes its tune with a track called “The Morning Dew” a nursery rhyme-style ditty about how funny life’s course can be. The album really goes all over the place and takes you on quite the journey. One moment you’re floating down life’s lazy river and the next you’re “riding a hog with the devil, giving him a reach around”. Anthology II is a very dark yet very colorful place. It even reaches out to the wee ones and teaches them about the perils of talking to strangers on their piano-driven children’s song “Stranger Danger”. It’s an album, or should I say “Anthology” for everyone. And some of the songs are just so good I found myself humming their tunes days after my initial listening. So hats off to John & Paul (and Georgie). I can’t wait to see where you take us next.
Stream "Anthology ll"
Follow @johnkilledpaul
Purchase Tape or CD thru Chthonic Records