THE OTHER STREAM
SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE
March 23, 2006
By George Varga

IMAGINATION UNLEASHED

"LIVE AT THE BOWERY POETRY CLUB"
Andy Friedman & The Other Failures
City Salvage Records

At first glance, what's most intriguing about this 11-song live album is what's missing from it. A noted writer, photographer and visual artist who has been hailed as a "slide-show poet" and a "country-music conceptualist," Friedman carved out a niche by performing spoken lyrics and monologues that were accompanied only by his projections, in essence reciting the words to songs that then existed just in his head. To further compound matters, his two previous releases, "Future Blues" and "Drawings & Other Failures," were books, not albums, but so what?

On "Live at the Bowery Poetry Club," his debut recording, this neophyte singer-songwriter and his recently formed roots-country group combine an outsider sensibility with the kind of droll insights you'd expect from a band leader who is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design (also the alma mater of Martin Mull and three-quarters of Talking Heads). As for those missing visual elements, they should be well-represented when Friedman and his band perform tomorrow night at Joe N' Andy's Hole In The Wall in downtown La Mesa, where
they'll be joined by San Diego's Matt Cuerreri & The Exfriends