Yard Sale by Illinois 3 piece The Beauty Shop is a collected number of tracks from their first two albums ‘Yr Money or Yr Life’ & 'Crisis Helpline'.
A Deep voiced, small Americana town record. Storytelling comes from the lead singer John Hoeffleur he invokes the sound of the open road song writers before them Waits, Cash, Cohen & and a bit of a badlands Cake in there. Accompanyment is mostly acoustic and skiffle drums, with the occasional incidental or screaming guitar for a bar.
‘Nightcrawlers’ a lets skip town kind of track. ‘I got Issues’ The track that got me scrabbling for a scrap of paper when I first heard it, everyone I know has that moment where they want to write ‘fuck on all there clothes’. This follows the traditions of alcoholic love/hate tracks and makes it almost a Genre. 'Rumplestiltskin' Lives a driving chord progression and seems to document a travelling salesmen. ‘Paper Hart for Josie’ is I can’t help think it sounds like the Crash Test Dummies and it throws my open road fantasies into a ditch. ‘Babyshaker’ an upbeat almost Squirrel Nut Zippers meets Van Halen track suddenly all about Robots and Biotech labs.
Prefering the upbeat or sinister tracks on this record to the summer time skip school type ballads. They are coming with me on the Arizona Road trip at the end of the month.
Links: www.thebeautyshopband.comA short film about the Beauty Shopwww.rocktofakie.com/beautyshop/beautyshop1.htm
