I JUST NEED SOMEONE TO TELL ME HOW TALL I AM
Review: LA Weekly
By Liam Gowing
MINIBAR
at Cafe Largo, February 4
Not too long ago it looked like Minibar might end up another casualty in the
series of record industry expansion/contraction cycles forever chasing
market trends. After spending a half-million dollars on their album Road
Movies with Grammy Award-winning producer T-Bone Burnett, Cherry
Entertainment's parent company, Universal Music, decided to divest itself of
the band, because--in the words of Minibar lead singer Simon Petty--"it
just wasn't 'shiny, happy people' enough." But instead of returning to their
native London, Minibar decided to record another album on the cheap, and
turned up at Largo to promote copies of a taster EP, The Unstoppable.
Petty, whose voice evokes a young Peter Gabriel, sang well-crafted, almost
anthemically catchy songs that only occasionally shared the downcast lyrical
face of his alt-country brethren. Minibar lack the kind of hard-hitting
sound necessary to breach the fine cheesecloth of commercial radio
playlists, but that criticism misses the point of the band, who are
attempting to catalyze an endothermic reaction, not an explosive one. With
three-part harmonies drifting over Malcolm Cross' sensitive drums, Sid
Jordan's intuitive bass meanderings and Tim Walker's beautifully spacy lap
steel, Minibar perfectly achieved their artistic vision at Largo--a desert
in bloom.
Petty humbly acknowledged the challenges Minibar face forging ahead without
major label support. "We did the impossible," he sang on the EP's title
track, "can we do it again?" In the end, their classic sound may never pull
the right dollar signs to catapult them onto the world stage as superstars.
But to the packed house at Largo, watching a performance that can only be
described as flawless, they already were.
From LA Weekly FEBRUARY 14-20, 2003 VOL. 25 NO. 13