Kevin
Tihista's Red Terror - Wake Up Captain
 Artist:
Kevin Tihista's Red Terror
Title: Wake Up Captain
Catalog#: Parasol-CD-092
Price: $12.00 
|
Tracks
on this CD: |
| 1.
Outro |
|
10.
Good
Wings |
| 2.
Real Life |
|
11.
Slow Chase Scene |
| 3.
Oh |
|
12.
Freakshow |
| 4.
Damn
the Weather |
|
13.
It's Over |
| 5.
Ride |
|
14.
Yummy |
| 6.
O.K. |
|
15.
Still |
| 7.
Sweet |
|
16.
Microphone In My Brain |
| 8.
Godsend |
|
17.
This Is An Offering |
| 9.
Family
Curse |
|
|
|
|
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" And
on your deathbed before you die
If you remember one thing
Will
it be his love or will it be mine?
Oh let it be mine, oh let
it be mine"
Stupendous third album by Chicagoan Kevin Tihista.
Kevin has played with Triple Fast Action, Veruca Salt, Menthol,
and Guided By Voices' Tobin Sprout, but it's when Kevin is
at the
helm,
in
front
of the microphone with his guitar and his very own songs, that
he
shines the brightest. Kevin's first album Don't
Breathe A Word was released in 2001
by Atlantic Records' short-lived Division One
imprint
and
was
later reissued on Parasol in 2002 along with the follow-up
record
Judo.
Both albums were hailed by critics ("the most romantic
record of the year" - Uncut) and met with uniform
praise in the US, UK (where Blanco Y Negro and Rough Trade
have both
released
KT's music), and Japan (where Philter Records have issued all
three Parasol albums).
On Wake Up Captain Kevin once
again reunites with producer Ellis Clark (Epicycle, June & The
Exit Wounds, Chamber Strings, Nikki Sudden) and delivers his
most stirring album to date. Balancing clever insights, extreme
wit, and tender frailty into a cinematic - nearly visual - song
cycle that mines themes of the paralyzing insecurity and the
boundless safety found in love and life. The duality of strength
and weakness, sentimentality and sarcasm are presented with honest,
intimate realism, a sense of humor, and gorgeous vocals echoing
myriad influences. I've heard folks claim that Kevin's classic
style reminds them of everyone from Terry Hall and Todd Rundgren
to Elliott Smith and Harry Nilsson. The common thread here might
simply be Kevin's terrific voice and direct approach. As far
as I'm concerned all of these supposed influences are starting
to sound more like Kevin than the reverse. The mind is a tricky
thing after all.
Like Joe
Pernice (Pernice
Brothers, Scud
Mountain Boys, Chappaquiddick
Skyline) and Ken
Stringfellow (The
Posies, Twin
Princess), Kevin Tihista is one of those pop songwriters
that just seems to "get it.". So, "Wake up Captain" -
you should too!
" This is an offering, it's not a handout
I'd
give you anything if you'd come with me now
You and I are many
things
But we're nothing without each other now"
And
the critic's swoon:
a Five Star Review and Q&A session from Uncut (UK):
The
Demon King:
Songs of alienation and madness from reclusive Chicago
genius
***** (5
star rating)
Five
years ago, Uncut was sent a tape of a dreamy song full of
dark,
lacerating wit called “Lose That Dress”,
the first dispatch from Chicago-based singer-songwriter Kevin
Tihista. Since then, his career has encompassed two fine albums,
one on a major label (Don’t
Breathe A Word) and one on
a tiny indie (Judo).
His British debut gig remains one of the most painfully shy,
wish-I-wasn’t-here performances we’ve
ever seen. At one point, Kevin produced a box of chocolates
and passed them around to the audience to break the tension.
There were so few of us, there were still a few left after
the box had been around twice.
Six months ago another Tihista album turned up, without any track listing or
title. Just a home-burned disc of 17 skewed pop masterpieces on which Tihista
tests his fragile state of equilibrium to its limit. This, is turned out, was
Wake Up Captain.
In effect, it’s a song cycle that charts Tihista’s struggle to
keep and even keel. “I have finally hit the ocean floor,” he sings
on “Real Life”. By “Oh”, he’s still “drowning
in the ocean”, wondering if his life is worth saving. Briefly, he gets
his head above water, only to go under again on “Godsend” and “Family
Curse”, a devastating observation of teenage anxiety. Alienation then
gives way to madness. “Goodwings” sounds whimsical, almost like
a nursery rhyme. But despite the levity of the tune, the subject matter is
dark as hell as he jumps off a building expecting to fly, only to find “when
I woke up in the hospital, the doctor said I shoulda been dead”. Then
there’s “Freakshow”, a brilliant Smile-style mad-as-Brian
pastiche, and “Yummy”, an even more bizarre Ohio Express parody
(“yummy, yummy, yummy, I’ve got drugs in my tummy”). But
they seem to work.
By “This Is An Offering”, at the end of the cycle, he’s promising, “Nothing
on earth is gonna tear us apart, we’ll make a brand new start”.
Typically, though, the lyric is juxtaposed against doom-laden piano that suggests
the demons that inspired this beautiful and disturbed record are still lurking
in the shadows. -NIGEL WILLIAMSON Q & A:
Tihista on his “Freakshow” life, and the problems
he has performing live
UNCUT:
What have you been doing since we last saw you?
Tihista: Writing my ass off, I just sit home and write and
record songs. And then write some more and record over them.
I’m not a performer. I’m just not that guy. I’m
going to have to teach myself to do that again.
Was Wake Up Captain conceived as a song cycle?
When I handed it to the label they asked if it was a concept
album. I know it sounds like it. But it wasn’t really
planned that way.
Is the darkness in the songs born of personal experience?
I guess so. I tried to keep “Family Curse” and “Freakshow” off
the album, but Ellis [Clark, producer] really wanted them on
there. I felt uneasy saying my life is a freakshow. And it’s
just dumb that I can’t talk to people, which is what “Family
Curse” is about.
Quotable
quotes inspired by Kevin's past work:
"it's his inventive,
honest lyrical approach that separates him from his influences..." -
CMJ
"Full-length from sweetly sarcastic Chicago popster...
Tihista's mordant, melodic songs and voice evoke both Harry
Nilsson and
Elliott Smith, as witty in outlook as they are rich in
harmony and chromatic splendour." - MOJO
"Pop crowned by a
voice born to break and melt the hardest of hearts... Perhaps
only Elliott Smith and Joe Pernice possess similar ability
to find such beauty in sadness... Melancholy spiked with humour
and unashamed romanticism." - Comes With A Smile
The cover image from the first pressing of Wake Up
Captain (pictured above) differs from the later editions.
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