Perpetual Change — CD Review: “Dead End Street”
CD Review: Dead End Street by Michelle Rocking Horse Garcia
Last year, this column posted a two part interview with multi-instrumentalist Michelle Rocking Horse Garcia, for our September and October installments. A brief review of a previous album of hers, San Francisco Queers was also posted.
At that time, Garcia was finishing up production on her newest project, Dead End Street. While Garcia is primarily a rocker, it’s really inaccurate to place her squarely in one musical genre. Dead End Street has elements of jazz, Latin, and country as well as rock. This is her best effort to date, with excellent, layered vocals that she obviously spent a lot of time on. Overall, the sound of the album tends to lean towards a late 1970s English rock feel at times, with all the aforementioned elements interspersed throughout.
Garcia’s musicianship is evident immediately upon first listen. The first three tracks — Crisis On The Shore, It’s Come To This and Why The World Is Today — display her skill as a guitarist as well as the layered vocal technique she favors.
The first of the album’s stand out tracks is One By One. It’s one of the better production moments and along with backing piano, the tune is the best example of the English rock feel. After an extended chorus of:
“In a world full of fear
There’s no way out of here
We’re livin’ on the run
We’ll take it one by one”
…there follows an excellent lead guitar break, and a spoken section till the end. Very well done texture for the entire song.
Other standout tracks include Bring It On, Nashville, She’s Got Girl Power, Fate Of Man, Great Mystery Of The Sacred and the title track, Dead End Street.
On Bring It On, Nashville a sort of nod to Garcia’s newly adopted home town, she presents a country moments that’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek in its approach. Part spoken, with tempo changes it’s nonetheless excellent country.
She’s Got Girl Power is probably the best modern rock moment on the album. Garcia takes another tongue-in-cheek approach, this time at what it’s like to be a female in a rock band. Asks that age old question “…how long does it take to be a rock star?”
Fate Of Man is one of the Latin jazz moments on Dead End Street. Comparison to any well known jazz artist notwithstanding, Garcia can hold her own in this genre without question. The interplay of percussion and instrumentation is true jazz.
While it’s hard to distinguish the single best production moment on this project, the tune Great Mystery Of The Sacred is a contender. This is a definite homage to Garcia’s background in Native culture and natural healing.
The project’s title cut, Dead End Street is the last song on the CD, and is the other contender for best production. It’s also the most “radio friendly” tune on the project, and given the right circumstances, could really do a lot for her career.
The song’s chorus could describe virtually anything: your relationship, your job, the economy, whatever.
“We’re going nowhere fast
We’re having such a blast
We’re on a dead end street
Gonna make it last…nowhere fast”
The tune ends with a slight bit of techno/sci-fi/weirdness that somehow seems appropriate.
Dead End Street by Michelle Rocking Horse Garcia is work that could take this well known transgender artist to more mainstream acceptance. Lord knows, she’s far more talented and creative than most of those passing for hot musicians nowadays.
Her varied song writing keeps the album from falling into the rut of everything sounding the same. Her musical grasp of more than one genre makes it believable and entertaining. And to top it all off, she actually has something intelligent to say. Don’t let the title throw you…”Dead End Streetcan turn out to be the place where Garcia’s career finds more commercial success.
For more information, please check out Garcia’s website.
ALSO THIS MONTH
LGBT Music Festival, Nashville, TN
It’s through Michelle Rocking Horse Garcia that I learned about the upcoming LGBT Music Festival that is scheduled to be held in Nashville, Tennessee January 31st through February 2nd. There are various venues for the festival, which will be held in and around Nashville’s Music Row vicinity, which encompasses the Broadway/1st and 2nd Avenues, and 15th and 16th Avenues South, which are part of Music Row. I’ve approached the promoter about getting an interview regarding the festival, since I think this is one of the cooler things I’ve heard about for quite some time. Haven’t heard back yet, but until I do, please feel free to check out Garcia’s web site, as well as the festival website or the Gay/Straight Music Alliance site.
David de Alba
There are new YouTube videos of David de Alba — PLUS — this just in, David is featured in a new book by Carollyn Faith Olson, entitled More TG Short Stories David is highlighted in a story called What’s Up Jack that is set at the legendary Finocchio’s club. For more information, please contact Carollyn or visit David’s website. Ms. Olson says the book will be available on Kindle soon.
Category: Music
About the Author (Author Profile)
Pamela DeGroff been writing for TGForum since the start of 1999. Her humor column, The Pamela Principle, ran until 2005. She started the Perpetual Change music column in May of 1999, and in 2008, Angela Gardner came up with the idea for the Transvocalizers column and put Pam to work on that. Pamela was a regular contributor to Transgender Community News until that magazine's demise. While part of a support group in Nashville called The Tennessee Vals she began writing for their newsletter, and also wrote for several local GLBT alternative newspapers in Tennessee. Pamela is currently a staff reporter for a small town daily paper in Indiana, and is also a working musician.Subscribe
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