CrackMuzik & Dislexsic Present

Sunday, June 17, 2007.

8:57 PM

0605 - Block-The_Last_Single_Guy-2007

ARTIST: Block
TITLE: The Last Single Guy
LABEL: SonaBLAST! Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 177kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 44m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-05-00
RIP DATE: 2007-06-04

Track List
----------
1. Color Of Heaven 4:03
2. Sweet Potato Pie 3:33
3. Ave. A 3:41
4. Easy 3:56
5. Christine's Left 2:56
6. Molly Malone 3:06
7. The Ring Slipped Off 3:44
8. Far Away 4:02
9. Ruma Jean 3:20
10. Do You Know The Way 3:52
11. Swing Set 3:26
12. It Rained All Night 2:19
13. Show Business 2:58

Release Notes:

To call Block a singer-songwriter is to under-estimate the importance of
story-telling in his songs. Influenced by the Beat poets, but not derivative or
clichT like so many Easty Village crooners, his songs tell stories of Village
gentrification, fake punk rockers, the illusion of an easy marriage, songs that
have a sense of truth because of Block?s own life experience. Block?s past: he
emerged from the anti-folk scene in New York?s East Village in the mid-1990?s.
His first album, 1996?s Lead Me Not Into Penn Station met with great acclaim at
college radio and in the independent community. Producer Glen Ballard (Alanis
Morisette?s ?Jagged Little Pill?) consequently chose Block to be the first Java
Records release on his joint venture with Capitol Records in 1998. That album,
Timing Is Everything met with much critical acclaim and had a song featured in
the opening credits of Drew Barrymore?s ?Never Been Kissed.? When the record
?only? sold 100,000 copies, in 2000, Block was dropped?maybe a classic case of a
big label looking for the next big thing and not wanting to develop new talent.
No longer in his 20?s, Block had a decision to make: Keep plugging away without
support, or quit music altogether. He chose the latter. As he explains, ?I quit
because I reached the place where I thought that all your dreams come true. When
they dropped me, I was 32 years old with a wife and two kids and I had to make
some money. I felt like I the life had been sucked out of me by the business. So
I left it, thinking that I?d never return.? So Block?s present became a new
existence as Jamie Block, Vice President of Investments and financial advisor at
a major Wall Street firm. He recounts, ?During the period I was establishing
myself on Wall Street, I left music behind completely. It was a whole new life ?
people didn?t even know I was a musician or had ever been involved in music. I
didn?t even listen anymore. It pained me. I didn?t want to know what was new or
happening.? Then 7? Years later, comfortable in his fancy car?, early one rainy
December morning in 2002. ?I was driving to work at 6 am in the dark, listening
to WFUV,? he recounts, ?and the great DJ Claudia Marshall started playing my
song ?Catch A Falling Star? (from Timing Is Everything). When the song ended,
she asked, ?Where did you go, Block? Please phone home.? So I went from being
tickled to wondering, and And that started my brain thinking, my heart pounding,
etc..a little worm lodged itself inside me and starting becoming a caterpillar??
He knew he wanted to write songs again, and later decided to record them just
for the fun of it, and with no one to please except for himself, he collaborated
with engineer Mark Hutchins and co-produced The Last Single Guy, which adds to
Block?s tradition of highly wry, literate, witty and occasionally heartbreaking
lyrical observations of modern urban life. Block?s musical reemergence is
documented in The Last Single Guy, an album that reveals Block?s songwriting
gifts in full flower and that exists for the simplest of reasons ? the love of
making music. There?s the lament of ?Ave. A,? where the once authentic bohemian
culture of the East Village has ?turned into a punk theme park;? there?s the
young man in ?Sweet Potato Pie? with a wife and family at home who still craves
the edge of a little drugs and sleaze that he finds in a strip joint. And then
there is the invocation of ?Color of Heaven,? in which Block sings with a
universality and compassion (?In the Chinese shadow/Of the wild America/In the
staggering heat of the day/We will all be standing/In the power and the glory/At
least I hope so someday?) that makes it perhaps his most moving song to date. I
can add songs stuff here.. Musically, there is an attention to groove that is
rare for an artist emerging from folk ? the rhythms complement the lyrics,
adding groove and syncopation to Block?s tales. In ?Molly Malone,? the rhythm
section is perfectly propulsive and fluid, setting a foundation for the guitar
and other instruments to build on, each adding their own distinct coloring.
Other instruments: Flugelhorn, Jew?s Harp, Banjo, Drum Machines and an
occasional full horn section complement Block?s incisive lyrics. Block may have
been gone for years, but he?s back, wiser and even more insightful for who he?s
been and what he?s lived. He states, ?It?s fun this time, I?m not trying to be a
rock star. The songs on The Last Single Guy were done in the spirit of the way
that I wanted to do them.? Another WFUV DJ and fan Rita Houston concludes,
?Block quit and went away "perhaps because he went away, these songs turned out
the way they did."

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