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Luke Doucet
Outlaws: Live and Unreleased
Six Shooter Records
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Article
written by Tim B
Aug 18, 2005.
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Luke Doucet is an excellent guitarist and, as the driving force behind Canada's finest, Veal, he's also an excellent frontman. His many friends - Sarah McLachlan, NQ Arbuckle, Melissa McLelland - suggests he also makes an excellent producer. It seems the man can do no wrong; Outlaws, recorded at Toronto's Rivoli earlier this year, is a welcome arrival which, at the very least, demonstrates Doucet's abilities as an excellent live performer too. More importantly though, since both the Veal back catalogue and his own solo album, Aloha Manitoba, have gone largely ignored since their respective releases in this country this collection serves as a healthy introduction to Doucet's majesty, and in good time too; a new solo record is due to arrive later this year.
Doucet writes dusty vignettes about desperately broken men destoyed by alcoholism, love and loss but like Johnny Cash or Tom Waits, his most obvious antecedants, he tells his stories with as much wit and energy as he does with tragedy and melancholy and it's difficult not to find his characters' failings endearing. Upon being thrown out of the house over his excessive drinking, an alcoholic pleads with his partner not to tell his mother as 'she's getting old', whilst the slack dad in Buttercloud, both drunk and high, casually remembers that he has misplaced his baby daughter, adding that they'll probably 'hear her when she cries'. Musically, there are hints of the early blues of Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt or Skip James as well as the occasional similarity to the likes of Robbie Fulks or Jawbone, yet there is an eloquence and articulation to Doucet's lyrics which is only rivalled by the storytelling of Billy Bragg. There's an affection for minor details which are all meticulously noted right down to the colour of the walls, while his vast and insightful description of an ex-girlfriend in Spiderman ('she drank her beer through a straw') brings to mind the object of Bragg's affections in A Lover Sings, and the 'amazing' way she took her coffee.
Doucet is not joined on stage by Veal, instead he is joined by Big Sugar's Paul Brennan and two duelling drummers, Blue Rodeo's Bazil Donovan and Glen Milchem, a quartet playing so tightly as if they have played together for decades. Giving the Veal works a more refined sound, they offer new reworkings of the previously acoustic Another Woman, Pedro and the album's title track, turning them into jangly alt-country rock. Of the new songs the Giant Sand-tinged At The End of the Day is a more subdued affair, though undeniably gorgeous. Annie Lu creates vivid imagery over two simple chords and a Bert Janschian riff, while the Tom Waits influence, in a duet with Melissa McLelland, provides us with an almost unrecognisable cover of Gun Street Girl.
Outlaws is an absolute must and with regards to the rest of the year's releases, this whiskey-soaked collection could be difficult to better. Buy it, over-indulge, suffer the hangover and when Veal's brilliant The Embattle Hearts is reissued in September, consider it 'hair of the dog'.
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