John A. Walker
All Days Are Rhymes
In The Light
The Pop Festival
reviewed by Gary Levinson
We met John A. Walker in the breakfast room at the Hotel Pestalozzi in Lugano, Switzerland. In contrast to the standoffish typical European behavior where people walk by each other as if they don’t exist, John came by our table and greeted us with a friendly “Good Morning”. On the way out, we told him how nice it was to meet a friendly person. After getting to talking, he told us that he wrote books, and to check out his web site.Back in Berlin, I looked at the web site and saw that in addition to writing books, he also made music. I wrote to him about it, and he sent me 3 CDs to listen to.
I first listened to “All Days are Rhymes”. It started out with some electric guitar tuning, and a bit of static; this warming up was the unofficial introduction. Then the music started playing, and I was completely blown away: Amazing! It has the psychedelic, denial-of-the-Buddha-nature-of-life, soft, nostalgic, and disembodied sound of the turned-on generation’s Beatles music à la Yellow Submarine.
John has a proficient voice and plays a good rhythm guitar. This is accompanied by sophisticated keyboard layers, with percussion. I especially liked “Dad has gone”, “All Days are Rhymes”, and “O Lord it’s a strange world”.
The albums “In the Light” and “The Pop Festival” also have a similar enlightened sound. Listen to: “Intro (calling)”, “In the Light”, “Love to Dream”, “Love is Strange”, “Hear my Words”, and “All that Glistens”.
I wrote to John and asked him a few questions:
Indie Music Review: John, to me, your music sounds heavily Beatles influenced. Which musicians have influenced you the most?
John A. Walker: Influences, goodness knows where it all comes from! Certainly I am old enough to remember them, and yes I liked them. Then there were was the seventies: Roxy and all that, and the eighties and nineties. When I write, or an idea enters into my head, I never try and think about styles, or other bands, or other artists. I am sure they are there - but I don’t ape any.
IMR: What instruments do you play on the album? Do you do the vocals?
JW: I play guitar, keyboards, and sing.
IMR: Did you also do the production?
JW: The first album: The Silent Scene, or rather the first part of it: The Pop Festival was recorded in Cava studios, Glasgow , and produced by Robin Rankin. It was quite expensive so I decided to produce the rest in the Cosmos Original records studio in Glasgow.
IMR: What message do you try to convey in your music?
JW: It is important that the listeners make their own minds up about the songs without exterior influences.
IMR: Would you like to comment on your song “Dad has gone”?
JW: Dad passed away when I was working on the album: All Days are Rhymes, so the feeling was there.
IMR: Thoughts about your song “Peace in Europe”? What about world peace?
JW: Remember the last two World Wars were European wars - well that is how they started. I have only been outside Europe to Egypt; I haven’t really got an idea how you could achieve World peace.
IMR: What do you want to achieve with your music?
JW: I want people to know that I am not interested in being a celebrity, but I like music and would like to offer my music to them: so that they can make up their owns minds about it.
John A. Walker is definitely worth a listen. This is one of the few discs that I will listen to again after I have finished writing the review….
-Gary Levinson
http://www.cosmos-original-productions.co.uk
Entries (RSS)