If the name Jeff Eyrich sounds familiar, but you can’t quite place him, take a look at the producer and musicians credits in your albums collection and there’s a very good chance he’ll be among at least one of them. Since the 70s, Eyrich has been a go to live and studio bassist for names that include Tim Buckley, Bette Midler, John Cale and Natalie Cole while, as a producer, he’s twiddled knobs for the likes of T Bone Burnett, The Blasters, Thin White Rope, The Gun Club and The Plimsouls. However, until now, he’s never actually made a record of his own.
Teaming with fellow sideman, singer-songwriter/guitarist Steve Kirkman, they’ve put together and album that (predominantly featuring previously unrecorded Kirkman songs dating back to the 90s) showcases their mutual love of twangy surf guitar, FX pedals, Morricone soundtracks and a wide range of Americana genres. Indeed, the album opens in spaghetti-western mode with Mariachi trumpet setting the scene for ‘The Debt’, a slow paced, desert noir number that underscores the southern gothic vein that runs through much of the album.
They mix it up throughout, sliding from the slide guitar rocking blues boogie title track and the haunted Mexican desert feel of the moody, drum machine backed storysong ‘Whiskey Water’ with its part spoken lyric to the Everlys-styled close harmony country ballad ‘Cross and the Switchblade’ and the sweaty mid-tempo blues ‘Fork In The Road’ with its back and forth vocals. There’s a brace of dusk to dawn instrumentals, the reverb heavy ballad ‘Sunset At County Line’ and the sparse tremolo guitar and muted drums Morricone-esque album closer ‘Sunrise At Faria’, as well as a couple of covers, a chugging work song gospel version of Guthrie’s ‘Hard Travelin’’ and John D Loudermilk’s ‘Tobacco Road’ given a sort of steady, measured Status Quo boogie treatment. It’s taken Eyrich over 40 years to get round to stepping into the spotlight, let’s hope he decides to stay in it for a while longer.
Mike Davies
‘School Of Desire’:
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