Tom Petty Hypnotic Eye - Album Review

Hypnotic Eye - is tremendous. I know it seems like Hyperbole now that Tom has passed but I'm not kidding this record rocks. It starts out with a crunch American Dream Plan B. As usual Tom's lyrics aren't pulling any punches and just as your neck is getting sore from the head banging the band segues out into a light melodic chorus with full chord strums. At the two minute mark Mike cranks out some classic Chuck Berry licks and oh yeah this is rock n roll.

Fault Lines is mixed right onto the heels of the first track and the bass line is to die for I freakin' love it and the fuzz tone on the guitar is fantastic. Then enters Tom's voice singing about broken promises. I love this cut fantastic - give me more.

Red River veers back into the crunchy riffs of American Dream Plan B but the strength of this cut are Tom's lyrics - She’s got a 3D Jesus in a picture frame, Got a child she’s never named, She shakes a snake above her hair, Talks in tongues when there’s no one there. There's a nice short little acoustic measure in the middle of the song followed by Mike shredding it up and in an instant we are back to the verse.

The thing I love about this album is how each song is put together and arranged by Tom and the Band plus the mixes from one tune to the next are clean, tight and perfect. They flow effortlessly into one another.

The next tune Full Grown Boy has a gentle shuffle. It's quiet with shades of Kenny Burrell as the lead guitar takes on the tone of a classic hollow body. Love it!

Just as we are all chilled and relaxed in comes the heavy again with Tom singing about ghosts and then the stand out chorus of the disc comes in "Take What You Can All That You Can Carry". There's a little Steeley Dan feel to some measures but it has a rock beat that Mike just screams over. I love how they switch the tones of the guitars here back and forth between the verse and the chorus. At the top of their game people. All you Can Carry is a great tune.

Power Drunk the next tune should just play in the Oval Office 24/7. It has some interesting tone and textures again harkening back to early Steeley Dan just for comparrison if you haven't gotten familiar with this album.

Forgotten Man is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers doing what they do best charging mightly through Tom's lyrics. There is a nice acoustic break in the middle of the song before Mike rips our faces off again. Thanks Mike I love it when you do that!

Sin's of my youth opens up as if a film noir detective movie is starting and Tom's Lyrics settle quietly and lightly on the bands arrangements. Time for a little introspection and reflection and I love you more than the sins of my youth floats along with Benmonts keyboard. Very nice and chill and perfectly placed in the sequence of songs.

U Get Me High understands how light Sins of my Youth was and doesn't charge back in so hard. It retains some of that free floating melody we all love about Tom's tunes. And if you listen closely the bass is having a ball high stepping through the verse. This song also introduces different textures of guitar than we have heard before. All of their tunes are little rock n roll symphonies that always manage to hit the sweet spot.

Burnt Out Town brings Tom's humor up front in the opening and in the lyrics. It definitely swings and has a Bo Diddley feel to it with touches of Barrell House keyboards and a wailing harmonica. This tune puts you squarely on main street with one gas station and dirt roads.

Shadow people closes with a cultural statement about us. That one's thinking of great art...that one's strapped on a gun and joined up with the herd. We get almost a pink floyd like break in the middle of the tune with a subtle heartbeat around moody blue like guitar chords until someone pokes Mike and we are back gristling under our collective societal ills.

And it is because we are so inundated with those ills as we speak that I'm surely going to miss Tom's insight, the bands swagger and from a musical standpoint just the sheer intelligence and taste of their arrangements and productions.

In short this is a great album. There are a many touches of acoustic guitars peppering the heavy and the bass lines are imaginative, funky and all the tunes shift and turn. The arrangements are sophisticated and righteous. The shifting guitar tones jangle and explode, and the drum kit drives everything beautifully. This is just a great band doing its thing and in expert fashion. You have to pay attention to everything and not miss the endings as they transit into the next song. The whole thing feels like a movie score it moves so brilliantly from song to song but also within each song. Its in heavy rotation at my house and we are rockin with our bad selves. We love you for that and more Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Tom Petty - An Avalanche of Creativity

I'm still so very impressed with Tom's work as I dive deeper into his catalogue. There is definitely a huge contingent of us out here that may have had a greatest hits or a few choice albums like Wildflowers but thats just scratching the surface.

I caught Story Tellers this weekend someone had posted the broadcast on You Tube. It wasn't a bad capture seeing that it was an old VH-1 tape with German subtitles and I was struck by a tune from an album called Echo.

Echo is the album where Howie missed the photo shoot. It only went gold and was a top ten album so it begs the question - what in good gods blazes was I paying attention to at the time to have missed this album.

The tune I heard was "Swingin" and I just shook my head. How did I miss this? What stupid conceit was I under or lame ass distraction?

It's just so inconceivable and phenomenal to me that Tom channeled all this great music, lyrical poetry, driving rock n roll and sweet, sweet, ballads in such an amazing outpouring of vital, swagger, and frailty. Its an historic revelation of immense creativity.

Tom had a helluva of a lot of heart. He poured it all out for us every last drop of his passion, enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. He consistently time in and time out painted beautiful landscapes some stark some brightly full and others of humor, pain, hope, the mundane. His music was down to earth and flying heavenly all at once and within each refrain. There is an honest complexity to it all as it is with our very own lives.

Tom Petty put it all into words and sang it back to us and we understood every last bit of it as each of us gets up and climbs that hill again.

What a bittersweet affair his music, his life and his passing. The very damn definition of the word. I'm in awe of the man and the band and will be forever grateful. It's with a heavy heart that we have to say goodbye. Totally out of our control we feel ripped off but if we embrace the music just as hard as we are gutted by the suddenness of it all we'll get through it. After all we have the sound of his voice and all of his everything to embrace in each and every stanza.

It's manna from Heaven - believe that. Tom Petty gave expression to our very core from deep inside his and thats why it hits home to all of us so completely. He exhausted his whole being into his craft and it shows with every syllable, every note, every verse, every chorus.

And I thought I wasn't going to write anything today..then I put his music on and the feeling was unstoppable.

Maybe he felt the same way too....

Tom Petty Born to Rock n Roll

Born to play, born to write, born to rock n roll. I'm somehow experiencing all the stages of grief at once mostly anger. God damn it we need Tom in this day and age more than ever.

But this weird unfolding is taking place as well. His catalogue is enormous a dozen lifetimes worth of music. Every nook and cranny of his catalogue reveals something amazing, a sonic turn of tone or phrase. It may seem like simple rock n roll but there is a whole lot going on with each track. There is much to discover and I'm going to end up with all his recordings I just know it. They are dragging me toward them even though I'm out of room in my house and I'm resisting but I'm just not going to able to refrain.

In ice hockey we have whats called rink rats. Players, professional, amateur, kids, these are guys who show up to the rink early and leave late. They are always around in the locker room, trainers room, getting their skates sharpened and on the ice every chance they get practicing their shots and skating just waiting for the Zamboni to take its final turn. I fully believe Tom was a certified studio rat honing his craft, exploring the sonic journey and capturing what he thought sounded right chasing the muse and I'm guessing he lived in whatever studio he could find.

If you go out on the web and look at the pictures its amazing. No matter when or where in his life fans were on their feet with their arms in the air jumping up and down in appreciation. Since he was a skinny kid to a full grown adult and all the roads and stages in between in the adulation poured.

And Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers deserved every bit of it, every round of applause, every clap, every holler, every whistle, every breath, every sing along, every standing ovation they ever got and then some. He knew we loved him and the band. He knew he was universally adored and from looking at the pictures, reading the interviews and witnessing him in person myself more than a few times I believe he really was humbled by it and it knocked him out and he appreciated it maybe more than we know and maybe even needed it more than we know for what he had been through as a child. And I for one am god damn glad we could give it back to him.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker shows were a love fest and I'm proud to say it and he had to have felt that down to his core, piercing his soul as we sang his songs back to him. How unbelievably soulfully righteous is that?

Tom knew how much we loved him and how much he meant to us and thats the thought I'm holding onto with both of my hands and all of my heart as I try to grip my way through this one just after making my peace with losing Gregg and Doc Watson before that. My strength is my faith and my faith is in the music.

Paul