Ed Volker aka Zeke Fishhead
Prodigal
Cd review
Bold and endearing, Prodigal from Zeke Fishhead will wake you, shake you and remind you to take a chance once in a while. There are full bodied anthems ready to be obscessed over on Prodigal. This is Zeke Fishhead, the spirit guide and love preacher, laying out fresh fish down at the market, cool as ice.
Name Your Shame is the perfect example of a song you may never here the Radiators play, but you need to hear. Piano, organ, a light beat and Zeke`s yearning voice meld beautifully and the journey begins. "Name your shame, name your crime. Somethin you did, once upon a time. A crime of love, a mark on the soul. A wound always fresh, never grows cold." This is tremendously good writing, singing and playing. No matter what genre usually befalls you and your cd player, Name Your Shame is a song for anyone who has ever been in love, or just thought they were. However this is not a love song in any of the traditional senses, it is more like a truth song.
Same holds true for the greasy, beat-licious track, Sybillina. It opines, " I knew you were out of your mind. But I needed you out of my heart.. Do we get what we deserve, or do we just get what we bought.?" Even if you did deem this a love song, the love is so funked up that it is the beat that will attract you. "My wedding was short and sweet, when I married my ghost.. Only thing I knew for sure was real, was the ring in my nose. I`ll be sad, and I`ll be glad, when the wind wears me away, Sybillina." Too many contrasts, and way too much of a radiating, pulsating rhythm to be labeled a love song. We will call Sybillina a lesson song. "Don`t things always change ? Nothing really is ever in stone. There`s only so much you can do, livin` a dream that`s not your own. Deamons hold on forever, to get that last bitter shame. And the ghost is always near, especially when she`s not there."
"Where were you when the lights went out. ? When the water rose and souls froze. When the rainman danced the monkey dance. Where were you when the lights went out. ?" The track entitled k is a haunted house ride. "In Opelousas, Birmingham. Or maybe you got to Frisco Town. Maybe you couldn`t run or fly. Maybe your body just floated on by." Zeke does his best and boldest to zap into the unseen, the unknown. The message here is that we are not alone. The myths, the curses, the voodoo of the city of New Orleans is reborn with k. "Where were you when they came back on ? In a sticky ghost town without a ghost around. Here I stand, hammer in my hand. Where were you when the lights went out ?" This is eloquence in the face of chaos, art and life battling it out.
Exile on Filmore is another song that plays like it had to be written. "Exiled on Fillmore, back home it`s too little too late. But I`ll be strong, and I`ll live on, but my soul is gone. Blown away, no birds in the sky today. All the children have gone away." Deep, down, real but still inspiring and uplifting, Exile on Fillmore is Zeke telling it like it is in his own style.
A whole lot of truth, spirit and honestly on the out-flow. Watch out..
Santa Claus has a country feel. This track almost sounds like Jackson Brown. "What we used to use for love, can`t use no more. What we used to use for water, can`t use no more. The mirror`s unbroken, the soul is lost.. Get back to the brickyard, Santa Claus." And like most of those fine Jackson Brown songs, I do not have to understand it, to like it.. This is definitely Zeke like you have never heard him.
Prodigal is full of sincerity, and other things too. From funked - out tunes you will pray the Radiators learn, to solidly Zeke Fishhead tunes with carefree swing to them that were meant to be more intimate, Prodigal skips to the front of the line in terms of must-buy CDs. This is all Zeke, all the time, with a little percussion help from (I think) Frank Bua Jr and Mike Skinkus. Recording for this album began about two weeks before katrina and wound up just before Christmas 2005. Prodigal is available thru Nugs.net and www.livedownloads.com. Get it, enjoy it., Zeke it..
Gregory Harrison Gunther (Lex)
