by Alan K. StoutMusic Columnist
There’s some terrific imagery on “Move Down,” the new CD from area musician Jimmy Mancus. The breezy and catchy collection of songs paints pictures that aren’t usually found on most rock albums. The finely-produced tracks aren’t your prototypical boy-meets-girl, girl-leaves-boy, boy-has-the-blues fodder. In fact, it was Mancus intent to not write such material. And his imaginative sources for inspiration easily made that possible.
“I got away from the clich� singer/songwriter stuff,” says Mancus. “My first album was more mellow kind of love songs, and I just got sick of that. I think the whole singer/songwriter genre is just so (expletive) up right now, pardon my language. It’s such crap. They’re all identical. They’re all copycats. They all look the same and talk the same and sing the same. I wanted to get away from that, so we brought high-energy, upbeat kind of stuff into it. It’s not typical of what all of the young male singer/songwriters are doing right now.
“I wanted to get as far away from that as possible.”
The album offers memorable melodies, gliding grooves and hefty hooks. It’s also got some funkiness to it in a G. Love and Jason Mraz kind of way, though there’s sometimes more of a big rock edge. Tracks include “Walk With Me,” “Cinnamon” and “Come Join The Tea Party.” One track, “Oz,” was inspired by “The Wizard of Oz” film.
“When I get really bored, I’ll just pick a topic and write about it, and I find that’s a pretty cool way to write songs,” says Mancus, who also plays in the local band Jugdish. “A lot of singer/songwriters just wait for personal experiences (for inspiration), and it just overlaps. That’s why you end up getting a whole album of songs that sound the same. I wrote a song about ‘Alice In Wonderland.’ I wrote a song called ‘The King.’ One day, I thought, ‘I’m going to write a song about a king looking for a girlfriend,’ so that’s what I wrote. ‘Give It Up’ is pretty much my song about sex and my ode to Motley Crue. It’s all about Hollywood and shit like that. That’s what I do. I pick a topic, and write about it.”
The new album, which will be released Aug. 4, is the follow up to Mancus’ debut CD, 2006’s “Time To Shed Some Light On Me.” It will be available through his Web site, cdbaby.com and at his shows. It was recorded at Sound Investments recording studio over the past two years and was produced by Clyde Rosencrance, who has played in area bands OurAfter and The Collective.
Mancus says penning third-person, storytelling-type lyrics isn’t the only difference between “Move Down” and its predecessor.
“It’s a full-band arrangement,” he says. “The first one was just an acoustic album. It was just me and an acoustic guitar, and Clyde played a little bit of lead on it, so it was pretty much just two guitars and vocals. With this one, we had talked about wanting to do one with a full band and a really big, high-production type of record, and that’s what we ended up doing.”
Joining Mancus and Rosencrance on the CD is bassist Lenny Mecca, who steps up for notice on rhythmic tracks such as “Sugar.” Eli Hludzik, one of the region’s best drummers, lays down the backbeat. And in what many would consider a real coup, “Field” Marshall Goodman, aka Ras MG of Sublime, also plays turntables and offers some samples on several tracks. Mancus — who names Dave Matthews, The Getaway People, Dispatch and Jack Johnson among his influences — says it meant a lot to have one of his all-time favorites such as Goodman appear on the album.
“We mailed the tracks out, and he did it at his studio in California,” says Mancus. “It was a thrill to have him.”
As for that unlimited and imaginative source for inspiration, Mancus says he wishes more songwriters would do the same. He shares a story of a time he was out seeing an acoustic duo playing in a local club and decided to offer them some advice.
“All of the songs were love songs and about breakups,” he says. “Literally, every one. I said ‘Hey, play a song that isn’t about heartbreak.’ And they said, ‘We don’t have one of those. We don’t know how to write anything other than that. And I said, ‘Here’s what you do. … Do you like the Smurfs?’ And they said ,‘Yeah.’ And I said, ‘Go home tonight and write a song about the Smurfs. It will get you out of that rut. Just pick a topic and write about it. Write a song about the Smurfs.’ And they were like, ‘Wow. We can actually do that. That’s a good idea.’
“See how easy it is?”
w
“Move Down,” the new CD from Jimmy Mancus, available Tuesday, Aug. 4 at jimmymancus.com, cdbaby.com. Info: myspace.com/jimmymancus
