LES BARKER
Arovertherapy
Mrs Ackroyd 2001
http://www.cix.co.uk/~ackroyd/welcome.htm

"It's easy to face Armageddon when it's followed by a week in the Canary Islands."

Or "Les Barker Live in Various Places." Les is a former accountant from Manchester, England who is now a professional poet, writing sometimes sharp lyrics to funny or startlingly perceptive songs for others to sing, and sometimes writing and reciting these crazy poems, out of little books, which is why he probably doesn't include a lyric sheet in the liner notes, because he has had these experiences with keeping track of money.
I first listened to Arovertherapy driving with 2 kids in my Aerostar east on Washington 14 along the Columbia, around treacherous curves with various tourists from Japan and Idaho inexplicably coming to dead stops or turnouts in front of me, so I suppose you could say this is a dangerous album, the poems are so fascinating. Lucky we, Arovertherapy and all, didn't end up in the Big Dammed Lake. When Les does these public readings, many in the audience are apt to know and recite the lines, so if asked "Doesn't this spoken word stuff get old after a while?" I would have to say "Not if you know it by heart." Anyway, driving a long I was thrilled to finally find lyrics I could relate to in "Reinstalling Windows" and "ancient mariner.com," in the end chanting lines with my children. The audiences on the album chanted chorus lines as well. Pretty weird.
If you are unfamiliar with this poetry, Les often uses puns; like in "Inconsonants" where the earth spews out "The Vowels Of the Earth," leading on to "the Lost Consonant of Atlantis." Sometimes he just describes situations, like the spotted zebra who is shunned because he's really a leopard, in "Spot the zebra." Sometimes he gently but brutally reminds us that we are expendable and headed for Armageddon, as in "The weakest link."
The readings were recorded from 1999-2001 in the US and the UK. Some of the recordings are kind of odd, for instance on "Guide cats for the blind," recorded at the "Old Songs Festival," Les sounds like he's speaking into a tin can, and you can hear music in the background. You would think that maybe he could have found a better live recording or something, but maybe he was aiming for an authentic sound, who knows?
I think this verse from "Mono," for example, is very sharp-
I was made on the loom of the night
With justice my warp and my weft
I will ride on the side of the right
That's me over there on the left

gennett at gorge dot net

The Columbia Gypsy