9th November 2009

Audio

Vic Chesnutt - Worst Friend
Skitter on Take-Off (Vapor)

To be honest, I didn’t really know that much about Vic Chesnutt when I grabbed this CD for review.  I still don’t.  But here’s what I do know: he’s recorded more than 15 albums, loads of early 90’s musicians love him, he was in Sling Blade, Jonathan Richman helped produce his new record, Skitter on Take-Off, and he’s quadriplegic.

I also know that I like this record a lot more than I would have thought.  It’s all acoustic; most tracks are just Chesnutt and a guitar.  But that’s all he really needs.  There are few chords, mostly lead lines he picks with his fingers, and a lot of them are more challenging than one would expect, because they’re frequently so sparse.  The lyrics deal with some darker stuff. He talks about his aesthetic approach towards lyrics in this NY Daily News piece: “Other people write about the bling and the booty.  I write about the pus and the gnats.  To me, that’s beautiful.”

Tagged: sad bastard music