Rockbites: East River Pipe's angst lullaby

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East River Pipe's angst lullaby
29 September 2003

Four years on, a new album from ERP that lulls you to sleep as it squeezes your heart.

New Jersey singer/lo-fi storyteller Fred 'F.M.' Cornog, aka East River Pipe, this month released his first new studio set since 1999’s The Gasoline Age. It’s a gentle angst lullaby of a record, with floaty, trippy sonics perfect for drifting off to sleep or for driving through an empty Manhattan at 4 am, coupled with words to make you cry.
    Not one to exploit fashion or pander to expectations, Cornog chose an odd title—Garbageheads On Endless Stun—and a rather unattractive piece of art for his new CD’s cover—Money Man, by artist Atmo Royce, depicting a gargoyle-faced clown, partially out of costume, with an insane stare, enjoying a cigar, perhaps after work.
    Turns out the cover art is highly congruent with the lyrical themes on the disc—greed, hypocrisy, human weakness… and that inner spark that has something to do with humor and which (usually, anyway) makes one want to get up the next day despite all this crap. This is the most cynical record I’ve heard all year and yet it is, ultimately, like the 1973 Lindsay Anderson film O Lucky Man!, inspiring and hopeful.
    Two songs here—Where Does All The Money Go? and Millionaires Of Doubt—address the increasingly lopsided distribution of wealth in the world. Monumental Freaks is a cogent reflection on the sometimes-toxic impact of one’s own family during childhood. I Won’t Dream About The Girl poetically spotlights a darker aspect of love: the abandonment of self that it sometimes entails.
    And so this record goes, as 'outsider' in its themes as one can get. There is neither hint nor trace of bitterness within or between the lines but simply clear-eyed, objective illumination of some of the dimmer corners of this world we all share responsibility for. Cornog’s utter lack of complaint makes Garbageheads On Endless Stun a powerful and beautiful statement.
    “I paid off the judges / They still wanted more / I followed the leader / He sprung the trap door / Yeah, it’s always been this way.”
    Yeah, sleep well.
| East River Pipe on Merge Records | | CD from Amazon.com | | top of page |

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