SHOW REVIEW: Freedy Johnston at the Lakeshore in New York By: Dan Kennedy Okay. Freedy is a normal guy. He played his songs at a really small bar in the alphabet city neighborhood that borders New York's east village. For the record, I'm a fan of Freedy Johnston. I thought THIS PERFECT WORLD was a fine demonstration of the kind of song writing skills that seem sometimes to have vanished from pop music. Where sincerity meets talent and tasteful production values and before you realize you're under the spell the disc has tracked to number twelve and there's not much question that you were smart enough to use the repeat feature so you won't have to walk across the room and press play again. Freedy's records are good. Freedy's shows are grassroots. Okay...now give me my rock star. I'm so tired of the 'I'm such a normal guy just like you' thing. Look, here's the deal. You don't actually HAVE TO leave your gig drunk two songs early just to piss on BUSH's tour bus...I just have to hear that rumor. You could actually leave because the audience bored you and you weren't drunk enough to make 'em interesting. You don't actually HAVE TO kick somebody out of the band for liking the movie FEELING MINNISOTA...you could have other reasons entirely...but that's what you need to say to the guy when you fire him and that's what I have to hear when I ask my friends what they heard. Freedy is a good songwriter. Good. Marilyn Manson is a good songwriter. Good. Marilyn Dresses like a monster. Marilyn get's christians in small towns mad by acting like satan. See what I'm getting at. I'm not even a fan of Marilyn Manson...I just respect him showing up to work on time for the job he applied for to collect the salary I'm helping pay.
I was in alphabet city. After watching a normal guy play two good songs and act really normal, I knew it was time to walk down the streets to the subway. At least that way I could see the girls that live around avenue B walking home in their tacky "Alterna-thrift" dresses and try out my favorite line: "Nice dress, who shot the sofa?".
