★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
I've been a Steve Wynn fan ever since his first solo album, Kerosene Man, which came out in 1990, which means I've been a fan for oh my lord thirty years how is that possible I'm so very old. Anyhoo. This new release, only available on his website or Bandcamp, is a recreation of his solo acoustic concerts. It's got some songs from his solo albums, some from his work with the Miracle 3, a Gutterball song, even one from the 2017 Dream Syndicate reunion album How Did I Find Myself Here?, but all slowed down and acoustic. Now, like I mentioned, this is coming from a big fan, but, well, like a lot of singer-songwriter rock front men, Steve Wynn is not exactly Leo Kottke on the guitar. So these sparse versions are not as compelling as the full band versions. The call and response chorus of "My Old Haunts" just comes out flat out of a single throat. Even on the songs that were originally slow and steady like "Merrittville," Wynn's voice doesn't attain the menacing hiss it does on the original songs. So. Three stars for being Steve Wynn and giving the world thirty years of fantastic music after breaking up one of the best bands of the '80s. Favorite tracks: the beautiful "If My Life Was an Open Book," "Manhattan Fault Line."
