Album a Day: Gavin Friday - Shag Tobacco

A classic album by a classy musician in the form of Gavin Friday (ex-Virgin Prunes). This third album by Dublin-born Friday would be his last for about seven years, instead shifting his focus to other artistic endeavors. I love this album as Friday's music oozes sexiness with a thin layer of filth just to cap the whole thing off. The whole album has a lounge feel to it and yet there's also a deep complexity to the work though in the end Friday is really just a romantic. And that isn't necessarily "romantic" in the "boy loves girl", "girl loves boy","girl loves girl", "boy loves boy", or "two boys love a girl and a dwarf" sense (though surely that is in there, except perhaps for the dwarf), but rather a romanticism for words, culture, art. The best example of this may be in the track Caruso which is a tribute to the Italian Opera singer Enrico Caruso. Friday is able to tap his purest of emotions and translate that into his music. For that reason it should come as no surprise that one of the songs on the album, Angel (not my favorite song, but a good tune) would be used on the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo + Juliet. At times it feels like there's an effortless quality to the album that contributes to a relaxing atmosphere but again the complexity of themes that are in each song and also span the entire album are just great and then are mixed in with beautiful music that demonstrates Gavin Friday and contributor Maurice Seezer's diverse musical talents, as can be seen on several tracks in which Fridays sings through a megaphone that he calls the stronzophone. One of the highlights on the album for me is the cover of T-Rex's The Slider. The original version of The Slider is a usual affair you would expect from T-Rex (which even as popular as they are, they still remain one of the most underrated bands). Friday slows down the track just slightly giving it an almost creepy feel that really makes the skin crawl. In general Gavin Friday has a great understanding what to do with a cover as would later be demonstrated with his appearance in the Neil Jordan film Breakfast On Pluto where Friday portrayed glam-rocker Billy Hatchet playing a cover of Sweet's Wig-Wam Bam. In both instances Gavin Friday really makes the song his own while still paying tribute to the original. In addition to a certain level of seriousness there is also a great humour all over this album on songs like Mr. Pussy and Dolls. This 1995 album also shows why its so well worth having physical albums as the liner notes include the prose of Irish novelist Patrick McCabe. The story requires several reads and still doesn't make much sense but has beautiful imagery and manages to incorporate the titles of the songs from the album. This album can usually be found pretty cheap used so even if you're still skeptical then I recommend you spend the 5 dollars and give it a shot, I'm sure you won't regret it (or if you do then fuck you). Favorite Tracks: Shag Tobacco, Caruso, The Slider, Mr. Pussy, You Me and World War Three, and My Twentieth Century