Review: Tim Easton’s “Not Cool”

by Paul T. Mueller

Someone once said, “Geography is destiny,” and that certainly seems true of Not Cool, the new CD from much-traveled singer-songwriter Tim Easton. Easton recently moved to the Nashville area after several years in the Mojave Desert town of Joshua Tree, California. Fittingly, many of the songs on Not Cool have an early rock ‘n’ roll/rockabilly sound that’s well suited to the home of country music, and Easton’s lyrics (he wrote 10 of the 11 tracks) have taken a more straightforward direction, in contrast to the sometimes oblique nature of much of his recent work.

In keeping with the vintage sound, the CD’s running time totals only 30 minutes, with eight of the 11 tracks clocking in at three minutes or less. Themes include life’s travails (“Troubled Times,” “Four Queens,” “Gallatin Pike Blues”) and bad romance (“Don’t Lie,” “Lickety Split” and the title track). But the grim subject matter is offset by bouncy arrangements, mostly featuring the excellent guitar playing of Easton, J.D. Simo and Sadler Vaden. Megan Palmer, Easton’s partner in a duo called Out of Our Tree, contributes sweet violin and vocals on several tracks.

Easton saves the best for last, closing the album with “Knock Out Roses (For Levon),” a beautiful tribute to the late Levon Helm. Written, according to Easton, the day Helm died, it’s an acoustic instrumental featuring an old-timey sound, set to a lively waltz tempo, but with a melancholy undertone. The song’s delicate interplay of guitar, banjo and violin fades out near the end, leaving only the violin to carry the tune to its end. Sweet.

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