Holiday in Dirt
Roaming a psychedelic no-man's land whereTom Waitsand Jack Kerouac might converge, Stan Ridgway is an inimitable singer and precision essayist whose song characters wear life's grit under their fingernails. It's doubtful Ridgway ever broke the legs of a no-goodnik named Bing, but gosh darn if you're not thoroughly convinced of it by the end of "Bing Can't Walk," one of a handful of creaky, ramshackle gems gathered together on the odds-and-sodsHoliday in Dirt. He may scribble outside the lines musically, but Ridgway's harp-goosed, art-rock vignettes are enormously detailed--witness the bloopy, futuristic "After the Storm," the eerily straight-faced midtempo rocker "Whatever Happened to You?" or the unlisted cover ofCharlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors," cheekily delivered in a character that might have been crafted by Bill Murray circaCaddyshack. Admittedly an acquired taste, Ridgway repays diligence with cartwheeling, consistently unexpected, possibly true parables sucked straight out of the twilight zone that is contemporary America. If Jackson Pollack paintings had sound, they'd probably sound a lot like this.--Kim Hughes