The Sensational Country Blues Wonders! – Music Sounds Better When You’re Stoned
Self-release
10 songs – 36 minutes
Music Sounds Better When You’re Stoned is Gary Van Miert’s fourth album of original material. The biographical material provided with the album states that Van Miert came up with the concept of The Sensational Country Blues Wonders! as a vehicle to start performing within the vibrant art and music scene in Jersey City, NJ. The band was apparently designed to replicate the original instrumental line-up of acoustic guitar, electric lead guitar and upright acoustic bass used on the first rock and roll records by Elvis Presley at Sun Studio in Memphis. The bio also informs us that Van Miert blends classic American musical styles like country, blues and gospel with a distinct theatrical aesthetic, celebrating the spirit of classic Americana, especially 1950s and 1960s honky-tonk and gospel revival music.
All of which perhaps suggests that Van Miert has been indulging in the past-time openly alluded to in the album title.
Do not be fooled by the name of this band. There is no blues on Music Sounds Better When You’re Stoned. Instead, we have 10 self-penned songs about “time, weed, the universe and mortality”, as Van Miert puts it. The primary influence appears to be The Beatles at their most, um, experimental, but it’s all about the psychedelic pop and proto-rock of the late 1960s. If one were being generous, one might argue that “Mr Doppelgänger” has a basic gospel-blues structure, but there is nothing in the performance or in Van Miert’s reedy vocal delivery that feels like blues. Rather, Van Miert presents songs such as “Stoner’s Circus”, a simple pop-rock tune driven by a umpa-lumpa beat, with banal lyrics such as “You can smell the sweet smell of cannabis burning. When you walk into the big top, you’re so happy you’re returning. The jugglers and tumblers and clowns are all waiting, to bring you a show nothing short of amazing.”
There is no information about who plays on the album or who engineered it or mixed it, other than a brief reference in the biographical notes to Van Miert utilizing “skilled session musicians at Nashville Master Tracks”.
There are some good moments on the album. The musicianship throughout is generally very good and the lead guitar fills on “Harsh Toke” are great. And there is probably a market for this kind of throwback pop. But blues this is not.
