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"All The Pain Money Can Buy," the 1998 album that with its hit "The Way" brought Fastball to fleeting mainstream success, is certainly not a landmark: an honest power-pop record, quite unripe and inconsistent, with some gems alternating with not exactly memorable songs. However, the Austin trio demonstrated all their worth and achieved artistic maturity with the subsequent "The Harsh Light Of Day" (2000). Unfortunately, the group had already played their trump card with "The Way," and to achieve ongoing and lasting success, one needs to be somewhat (very) opportunistic, and evidently, Tony Scalzo, Miles Zuniga, and Joey Shuffield were not capable of doing so or, as I like to think, chose not to, resulting in the beautiful "The Harsh Light Of Day" selling a meager 85,000 copies and reaching a 97th position in the USA as its best chart placement. Naturally, Hollywood Records took two seconds to realize that they had already squeezed all they could from the not exactly bountiful Fastball, and so the three Texans found themselves swept away like dust from the mainstream Olympus; on foot, with a career to rebuild, with the absolute certainty of no longer being able to reclaim the glittering paradise they had touched with a finger, revealed as a treacherous and fleeting illusion.
Thus, "The Harsh Light Of Day" was followed by four years of silence, interrupted in 2004 by the release of "Keep Your Wig On," under the aegis of independent label Rykodisc: in the twelve songs of this album, Fastball proves to have grown artistically, far from celebrity and the glitz of MTV: their music has grown, maintained its characteristic guitar-oriented trademark and fresh spontaneity, but has also been enriched from a qualitative and creative standpoint, adopting new sounds and stylistic registers: this is clear from "Shortwave," a brief intro of just over a minute that plays on the bounce between a simple piano line and Tony Scalzo's affected and reverberated voice, perfectly interpreting a slightly surrealist text: an opening that is almost a statement of intent, but the surprises do not end here: among the numerous experiments that make "Keep Your Wig On" an interesting, colorful, and never banal album, stand out songs like the lopsided piano-rock of "I Get High," imbued with disenchanted and bittersweet self-irony, "'Til I Get It Right," an exhilarating autobiographical ride, graced by a perfectly fitting, almost epic choir in its stride and concluded by an elaborate solo where sax and guitar duet, the light summer-flavored, carefree country-rock of "Mercenary Girl," flavored with the usual touch of biting irony typical of Tony Scalzo's songwriting, and "Red Light," a kind of frantic Mexican-style reggae-pop punk complete with a horn sarabande, the undisputed peak of the album and perhaps of Fastball's entire career is reached with "Falling Upstairs," a bitter and unsettling ballad characterized by an enveloping and sly guitar with a few tremulous notes of xylophone and piano in the background, where you can almost hear a more sparse and 'homemade' but equally intriguing and expressive version of Muse's "Absolution."
Alongside these "new" Fastball tracks, there is, of course, space for songs that trace the more classic and purely power-pop style of the Austin trio, including the fast and rustic "Lou-ee, Lou-ee," the textbook pop-rock of "Drifting Away" and the more tormented sounds of "Our Misunderstanding," written with Jeff Trott, Sheryl Crow's longtime collaborator, which directly recalls the wonderful "Slow Drag" from "All The Pain Money Can Buy," culminating in the first single, "Airstream," a song with relaxed and rarefied tones, excellent for describing the exit from a period of pressure and difficulties, somehow echoing, in a substantially different way, the same desire for freedom as "The Way," and it is a desire for freedom that pervades Fastball’s entire career, a trio of musicians who found themselves at a crossroads, having to choose whether to remain musicians or become cash-grabbing sellouts and, partly by necessity and partly by love, chose the former option, leading them to forgo extravagant videos, MTV awards, and mansions in Beverly Hills but also to produce albums like "Keep Your Wig On," the product of a mature band at the height of their potential, having found their stylistic measure both musically and in songwriting, free from artificial poses, sellouts, and scripts, and this is more than enough to earn my complete respect and admiration.
Tracklist and Lyrics
02 Lou-ee, Lou-ee (02:52)
Sittin' here in your room
I've been listen' to the freeway and the moon
Shinin' through
Broken windows I've been waitin' for ya singin'
Louie louie louie lou-ee
When ya gonna come back home
Louie louie louie lou-ii
You know I hate to see you cry
Sittin' on the hood of your car
Starin' up at the sky, wishin' on a fallin' star
You come so far
I get no response, I just keep on waiting
Louie louie louie lou-ee
When ya gonna come back home
Louie louie louie lou-ii
You know I hate to be alone
Louie louie louie lou-ee
When ya gonna come back home
Louie louie louie lou-ii
You know I hate to be alone
Sittin' here in your room
I've been listen' to the freeway and the moon
Shinin' through
Broken windows I've been waitin' for ya
Louie louie louie lou-ee
When ya gonna come back home
Louie louie louie lou-ii
You know I hate to see you cry
Louie louie louie lou-ee
When ya gonna come back home
Louie louie louie lou-ii
You know I hate to be alone with myself
03 Drifting Away (03:46)
Got nowhere to stay
Got nowhere to go
Got no one to blame for lettin' myself get so low
It's right on the tip of my tongue
What's the word I'm thinkin' of
It's right in the middle of good and bad
So how can it be love
My brain is too soft
My money's no good
I tend to get lost just walkin' in the neighborhood
It's right on the tip of my tongue
What's the word I'm thinkin' of
Sometimes I feel like I'm drifting away
And that's all I can say
It's nothing I can't control
But in matters of the heart and soul
I must admit that I just don't know
I don't know what to say
I don't know what to do
I don't know what possessed me
To get together with a girl like you
You're right on the tip of my tongue
Are you the girl I'm thinkin' of
Right in the middle of hate and love
An iron fist in a velvet glove
Sometimes I feel like I'm drifting away
And that's all I can say
Gotta step back
And give each other room to grow
Listen to your heart
It'll tell you where to go
I must admit that I just don't know
Admit that I just don't know
Sometimes I feel like I'm drifting away
And that's all I can say
It's nothing I can't control
But in matters of the heart and soul
Sometimes I feel like I'm drifting away
And that's all I can say
Gotta step back
And give each other room to grow
Listen to your heart
It'll tell you where to go
I must admit that I just don't know
Admit that I just don't know
Admit that I just don't know
04 Airstream (03:29)
Airstream, big chrome airstream
Leave the world behind me
They won't find me in my airstream
Free, I don't wanna be stuck in the city
With the cars and people downtown
Waiting in a line
Wishing I was far away
Where no one knows my name
Ocean, big blue ocean
Rolling like a daydream
Down the highway in my airstream
Free, I don't wanna be stuck in the city
With the cars and people downtown
Waiting in a line
Wishing I was far away
Where no one knows my name
Or my address, it's a place I've never been
When it gets too familiar I'll be gone
Free, I don't wanna be stuck in the city
With the cars and people downtown
Waiting in a line
Wishing I was far away
Where no one knows my name
Or my address, it's a place I've never been
When it gets too familiar I'll be gone
When it gets too familiar I'll be gone
When it gets too familiar I'll be gone
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