Warren Zanes
Memory Girls
Dualtone Records
By Kevin Minihan
 Beer commercials -- you gotta
love 'em. It was on a beer commercial back in the early '80s
that I was introduced to the Boston band the Del Fuegos. They
had the buzz of being the next 'big thing'. They played stripped
down, straight ahead guitar roots rock. But it was not to be.
They put out a few forgettable albums and rode off into the
musical sunset. The lead guitarist, Warren Zanes (little brother
to band leader Dan Zanes), left the music scene and buried himself
into the world of academia. Along the way, he earned a bachelor's
degree, 2 master's degrees, and is about to finish his Ph. D.
But the soon to be Dr. Zanes could never shake the music bug.
He started recording a few demos and before he knew it, had
a new record deal. But nothing is as easy as it seems. After
completing the sessions, his label went kaput and the tapes sat
in the can for two years. Finally, through an agreement with
Dualtone Records, they are seeing the light of day with the release
of Memory Girls.
The big knock on the Del Fuegos was that they were an incredible
live band that sounded fairly plain in the studio. Zanes goes
the opposite direction and finds his inner 'Beatle' with this
wonderfully orchestrated new disk. As for the overall sound,
think of the previously mentioned Beatles mixed with a heavy
dose of Tom Petty and a pinch a Beck thrown in for good measure.
What comes out of the oven is a very tasty collection of roots-pop
songs that deal with his many broken relationships over the years.
In "Sidewalk Sale," Zanes sings about the joy of
selling his ex's left behind belongings. An upbeat tempo and
an Elton John-like carnival piano create a sense of vengeful
bliss as Zanes proclaims:
The records you left me, the cookbooks, the ten-inch TV
The radio you found, the thing couldn't reach downtown
I think I've had my fill, so if you want your stuff still
You're gonna see it in a sidewalk sale, old boxes and broken
chairs
Strangers can take this stuff away
The opening guitar riff of "If You Could Stay" is
an almost exact duplication of the Beatles' "It's Getting
Better." The jangly number is about a loser at love finally
making a proper attempt to keep the woman he loves.
And on Lover's Lane I was stumbling beneath burned out
streetlights
I made the move just to call you up, to shake your little hand,
say "howdy!"
But I'm calling to say much more to you
And I'm wondering with all this love, if you could stay
Emmylou Harris lends her exquisite voice to a couple of tunes,
most notably "Scrapbook." It tells the tale of a volatile
doomed relationship, spelling out the highs and lows as if the
events were photographs being placed into a scrapbook. But Zanes
doesn't want to just include the happy times. He wants the truth.
He wants to put the good, the bad and the ugly out there for
all to see.
let's put it all in there
let's put the kitchen sink, the times you ran away or when the
neighbors came because of all the noise
let's put their faces at the door, let's put the lids we'd drop
on the things we'd say though it was late to stop
hey, you know if everything is through let's really let 'em stare,
let's put it all in there
Although Zanes doesn't really come up with his own original
sound, he successfully mixes together all of these great influences
to create the very satisfying Memory Girls. By the way,
Zanes is starting to get a little buzz going for himself as well.
Entertainment Weekly, that pillar of pop culture, recently
called the album "a thing of indie-pop beauty." With
a few more mainstream kudos like that, who knows, we may see
Warren Zanes in his own beer commercial very soon.
*www.dualtone.com
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