David Yazbek And His Warmest Regards

You can praise the lord

You can curse your fate

You can stand in line

You can lie in state

But the truth’s right there

On a paper plate

David Yazbek is not only a Tony award nominee for musicals like The Full Monty and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but also an Emmy Award winning T.V. writer for Late Night with David Letterman, which may help explain the tenor of this album.

Let me say that any album that has the word monkey in the title already has my attention. And “Evil Monkey Man” quickly delivers the message in the first song, “Terrible Thing” a funky Stevie Wonder vibe where Yazbek sings about landing right in the middle of middle age and deciding to give up. So, if that’s the case, what’s the point of continuing on with the album? Well, there are a few reasons.

First, Yazbek has catchy tunes with cool titles like “Monkey Baby Hanging on a Chicken Wire” and “Bazooka Joe.” He also sings a couple of ballads like “A Blustery Wind” and “Steps of an Other Man’s House” that could fit nicely into a new musical. And interspersed between the songs is what can best be described as three musical interludes called The Traveler:

DAVID YAZBEK

#1 (The Fecund Woods)
A happy-go-lucky-trudge-of-a-romp, if that’s
possible.

#2 (He Stomps Rhythms Down to Hell)
A jazz screed that sounds like a couple members of Metallica stumbled into an all-night jam session.

#3 (Beside the Antifreeze Pond)
The title of the song says it all.

My favorite song is “Never Get Out of This” a fun-loving ode to fatalism. It has some of Yazbek’s best lyrics and it chugs along with a Johnny Cash train beat, which is the beat of fate, which is a reoccurring theme of this album.

So, if you are looking for a light hearted fare to brighten up your day, you may want to take a pass. But if you are looking for smart, sarcastic irony with a strong New York attitude, you may want to pick up this album and listen to “Wasted”, probably the first lament to a life unfulfilled buoyed by an uplifting samba beat.

DAVE