Jack Oblivion Dream Killers - Lost Weekend

The Gizmos played with Jack Oblivion and the Sheiks at Detroit's fun-tastic Stroh-Down last month and we were knocked out by his high energy, wild garage'n'roll, punk'n'soul set so I had to pick up something by him. I grabbed this LP and a 7" (I'll get to that later) but this record is vastly different than his current live set. Apparently, this is more of a true solo project with Jack playing everything on some of the songs and being joined by assorted friends and associates on others. There is a lot of variety here but not a whole lot of garagey punk. Not to say it's bad, but don't go in expecting the Oblivions!

This set opens with a cool, funky, soulful instro, "CRO2", that has some sweet lead guitar work followed by "Scarla", a garage-y, maybe kinda-Clash-y, slide-dominated rock'n'roller. From there we get "La Charra", which reminds me of something that would appear on Kid Congo's Dracula Boots - funky, soulful, 60's, riff-oriented and danceable with a hip horn section. "Cigarillo 1" is a keyboard-dominated instrumental that sounds like it could be from a movie soundtrack and comes to a quick end while "Girl on the Beach" is a pop nugget with an almost reggae beat, clean guitars and keyboard riffs. The clean-to-the-point-of-sounding-odd guitars continue in "Good Time With a Bad Girl", another instro with pop/new wave leanings that again (in a Rolling Stones' Some Girls kinda way)sounded a bit unfinished and "Stick To Me" is an upbeat electronica-ish-in-a-Ministry-like-way short burst of fun.

The title cut, "Dream Killer", is total 70's easy listening, electric piano/organ yacht rock ala Friends of Distinction! Very bizarre coming from Jack and one of the longest cuts here. We're a bit more back-on-track with "The Lone Ranger of Love", a laid-back bit of 60's garage-pop and "Boy in a Bubble" is more like it - energetic garage punk'n'roll with tough guitars although controlled enough that I assume it was recorded with a drum machine. "Funky Blue" is a bit Seeds-like with guitar licks interwoven around insistent keyboards and fine fuzz lead work and probably one of my fave cuts here. There's hints of the Nerves "When You Find Out" in "Sweet Thang" and then weird tropical pop with odd vocal affectations in "Sabine" followed by Americana/Country-isms in the cautionary tale "Bank, Gun, Jail". The sequel "Cigarillo 2" is almost an Ennio Morricone, spaghetti-western-styled instrumental and the finale, "Loose Diamonds" is a slow, Dylan-ish folk-y number that doesn't do a whole lot and eventually just drifts off.

Really a mixed bag here, which shows that Jack has lots of facets to his musical personality and means that not everyone will go for this. Overall, it has some fine tunes, but the schizophrenic nature of the record overall makes it almost like an odd mix tape rather than a coherent album. But then, I like mix tapes, so there ya go. Don't go in expecting the Oblivians or even his work with the Sheiks and dig it all.