June 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Hudson Bell self-releases 2nd album of personal novellas 12 June 2002
Somewhat of a southern F.M. Cornog (the modest genius behind New Jersey band East River Pipe), 27 year old Baton Rouge-born, Kentucky raised author/ singer/ songwriter/ multi-instrumentalist Hudson Bell yesterday released his second album of fragile and brilliant acoustic/electric novellas. Bell wrote the songs for Captain Of The Old Girls—out on his own Upperworks imprint—in San Francisco. But he chose to return to his high-school & college haunts in Mississippi a couple of times over the past two years to commit the tracks to tape. “It’s a special place for me,” Bell says. “The only constant I had in the roughest and most confusing years of my life.” The songs on Captain Of The Old Girls range from straight-ahead folk rock (New World, Silver Screen); to avant-strange (Expatriate); to boppy indie-pop (Halcyon Days, The Rounds); to East River Pipe-style swirliness (Vials In The Stump). Along the way, Bell’s forthright vocals variously suggest the stylings of Neil Young, Michael Stipe, and Lou Reed (he covers Vicious Circle, from Reed’s 1976 album Rock And Roll Heart). And throughout, the simple but elegant music supports the erudite, poignant, compelling lyrics. These are words you can sink your teeth into and chew hard. Take this snippet from Silver Screen... “And I can see you standing there/ Holding up the moon/ Saying 'Don’t wish, ’cause it’ll come and pass too soon'/ And as the dark clouds move through us/ We see all that is left us/Is the growing inside/The bending of the light” Bell spoke to Rockbites this week, explaining the LP’s curious title—taken from a line in his song New World. “Captain of the Old Girls is that girl that kind of leads her own pack or clique of girls. She’s always pretty loud and likes attention, whether it’s from one of her follower wanna-be’s or whether it’s 15 minutes with the quarterback under the bleachers. I think anyone who went to high school in America knows of one.” A self-made musician, early high school was the time Bell got his only musical training—which spanned mere months and ended suddenly and traumatically. He told us, “...my [guitar] teacher committed suicide, shot himself. I think his wife was going to leave him and he’d started doing drugs again or something. It was a weird thing. I showed up for practice and his room was all dark and the lady told me he was sick. My mom called them later to see what was wrong and then came up and told me while I was sitting there practicing in my room. So when the door closed I called his house and his answering machine picked up and I listened to his message and voice....” Bell co-founded and played in The Usurpers around the US south in the mid ’90s. He has a new San Francisco-based live band under his own name that includes bassist John Slater and drummer David Paslay. They plan to tour the US this year. With an ad-hoc simplicity and a hopeful innocence camouflaging its emotional power, Captain Of The Old Girls earns five bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. | Hudson Bell/Upperworks | | CD from Amazon US | | top of page | |
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