Jay Farrar, Stone, Steel & Bright Lights - 1h 13m 57s

Tracks & Durations

1. Doesn't Have to Be This Way	3:32
2. Greenwich Time	2:30
3. 6 String Belief	2:40
4. Feel Free	3:01
5. Make It Alright	4:01
6. No Rolling Back	3:09
7. Damn Shame	2:37
8. All of Your Might	3:34
9. Cahokian	5:00
10. Heart on the Ground	4:44
11. California	4:46
12. Fool King's Crown	2:42
13. Vitamins	4:35
14. Voodoo Candle	3:50
15. Damaged Son	3:19
16. Feed Kill Chain	3:34
17. Clear Day Thunder	3:28
18. Lucifer Sam	5:36
19. Like a Hurricane	7:07

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

Recorded throughout September and October of 2003, as Farrar criss-crossed the country with the DC-based 5-piece, Canyon, as his backing band, Stone Steel & Bright Lights offers a diverse collection of Farrar's solo career. The album features 2 new originals ("Doesn't Have to Be This Way" and "6 String Belief"), 15 songs from Farrar's 3 solo releases, as well as 2 well-chosen covers (Syd Barrett's "Lucifer Sam" and Neil Young's "Like A Hurricane). As a bonus, the album package also features an 11-song DVD with performance footage from Slim's in San Francisco. The new originals, "Doesn't Have to Be This Way" and "6 String Belief", prove to be especially timely eventhough they were written and recorded in 2003. According to Farrar, "'Doesn't Have to Be This Way' reflects the headlines in the newspapers during that period," and frames its surging protest against a "new world of shame" with a chiming piano and mournful lap steel. "6 String Belief" touches on an issue that seems equally close to the songwriter's heart - the strength of rock and roll to renew and redeem itself in moments when it becomes jaded, corrupted and bankrupt. The song, says Farrar, "deals with the idea of rebellion against the status quo in a music industry context. When corporate blitzes and payola reach a saturation point at the mainstream level, it spawns a reaction of good music - a grassroots, do-it-yourself level." He calls the song "two-thirds idealism and one third reality."

Stone, Steel & Bright Lights documents the acrobatic swings from quiet intimacy to guitar roar that typify Farrar's approach to live performance. Resisting the urge merely to regurgitate his studio recordings, Farrar, with Canyon's help, reinterprets, reinvents and offers up new material. As Stone, Steel & Bright Lights unfolds, some of the best songs of Farrar's solo career roll out of the speakers in astonishing new guises or with clever new twists in arrangement or instrumentation. This collection proves that the heart of Farrar's last three records lay not in manipulating tape but in his superb songwriting.

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