Down here at Daisy Towers, Howie Beck has so rarely been off the juke box, that it seems like Sometimes has been a comfortable old friend which has been around forever. It might well have seen the light of day sometime earlier if it hadn’t been Howie’s compulsive obsessive desires to work, work and re-work his intimate pop-life vignettes. That, and the need to find a new label following the demise of his previous home Easy! Tiger.
So in that time, what’s changed? Certainly not the content which has enamoured lonely bed-sitters the world over, as the opening line "she can never walk a straight line except sometimes in the morning" bears testament to. Finely honed perhaps, as is his production which is stunning. It’s not tricksy, just honest, allowing the instrumentation, all performed by Howie himself, to breath life into this beauteous composition. There’s an uplifting jangle to this that won’t let the feet sit still, a combination of cyclical guitars, toy glockenspiel and keyboard hook that’s so fat it won’t be needing the after dinner mint.
The CD also boasts two remixes of tracks from the forthcoming album. Lay down remixed by Stratus who strip down the Howie original and then underpin it with a fabulous monster drum groove, and Gonzales, a long time associate of Howie’s who has reworked My Low into an un-expected kitschy jumble far removed from its former self. Get this for the Stratus remix and then get the album, and if you haven’t done already, learn to love Howie Beck.
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