Billy Lamont

Item: Into the 21st Century
Author: Steven S. Baldwin

Into the 21st Century

(1999)

Reviewed by Steven S. Baldwin

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Label National Post-Modern RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth1999

electronic experimental spoken word

Any dumbbell can tell you that music and poetry have been and remain intrinsically linked. Since the dawn of time the earliest poets fashioned instruments and paired their eloquent words to those elusive melodies and rhythms drifting about their head and heart. Poetry and music: they are as tasty a combination as chocolate and peanut butter and forever ideally suited bedfellows. In more recent years, poetry as a form unto itself has gained new prominence and credibility among younger audiences, thanks in part to a burgeoning outcrop of quaint coffee houses percolating up in towns near you. Even old punks like Henry Rollins from Black Flag have taken breaks from music gigs to tour lyceum circuits for pseudo-poetic, well-attended speaking engagements. Jim Carroll is still growing more fashionable. Bob Dylan rightfully continues to be celebrated. Shakespeare just received another Hollywood make-over, and even poet without peer T.S. Eliot got his own movie. Poetry is far from being left out on the fringe.

Into this setting, New York poet Billy Lamont boldly steps with his synthesis of poetry and music, and even performance art! To be sure he has centuries and centuries of poetic and musical heritage behind him, but rather than sitting on his literate duff waxing on and on in a deliberate dated style, he has created a clever EP's worth of poetry perfectly suited for our time. In fact, as the title suggests, this material marks the passage from our current century into the looming next one. But you'd be mistaken if you expect to see him dryly delivering in some dusty library meeting. On the contrary, Lamont has recited poems on MTV, was featured on the 1994 and 1995 Lollapalooza Tours, and recently opened for one of his biggest influences, Mike Peters from The Alarm. The rock 'n' roll arena is right where Lamont and his art belong, serving as an ideal platform to display his considerable, audience-grabbing skills.

Although Lamont's poetic work has been previously published nationally in book form under the title "Gallery of Light," this CD marks his audio debut and much more successfully captures his enthusiastic live performances and vivid style. The title track, for example, is a seamless collaboration between Lamont, Mike Peters, and the late Allen Ginsberg, for whom the album was dedicated. As Mike Peters gently strums the guitar chords to his song of the same name from his 1994 Breathe solo album, Lamont deftly weaves his electrifying verse, lamenting and commenting on the state of the world on the verge of the 21st Century. Particularly poignant is the way Lamont accurately captures modern day commitment woes with a few choice words:

I love you
I love you from the bottom of my...current frame of reference
Of course in a few years I could have a new preference
Microwave romance.

Mike Peters also reprises the vocal bits from his song with his signature, mesmerizing rasp, and Allen Ginsberg is respectfully and posthumously added with a sampled recitation of his poem "Howl." The mix of all three of these layers is intertwined into an original piece that transforms the previous works into something new and memorable, thought-provoking yet accessible.

The combined Peters and Lamont composition is given an even more curious reworking in a remix with Lamont shouting, "My bedroom a jail cell," to a nearly industrial groove created by Myk Amoia of Deep Fried Clams. The result is akin to something you might expect to find on the next Prodigy offering. The rest of the album continues to blend Lamont's verse in whispers, bold declarations and looped utterances with percussion, bass lines, keyboard bits, samples, and more guest artist appearances. Jeff Bruce of the Way Sect Bloom, for example, backs Lamont with a simple keyboard part on "String of Pearls," which celebrates the connection between love, art, and creation. John Bembenek of Jerky Medicine is featured on the last track, "Sonnet for the Sea," which gently invokes a metaphysical experience in the inspiring ocean. Even the album art is exceedingly and tastefully well done, most notably featuring a collage of appropriate photographs.

Best of all, Lamont cleverly and intelligently combines his faith, art, and insight into relevant subjects of extreme contemporary concern. Mike Peters says of Lamont: "There's no truth like the truth you dare to let yourself see. Billy's poetry lets you see the truth of himself and the truth that surrounds him, which is also the truth that surrounds you. Take a look and you will find love, hate, all life in it." Whereas much of Lamont's poetry is concerned with the connection of real truth, realized justice, and unconditional love, his poem entitled "X" serves as merely one relevant example:

Politicians abuse power
because greed wants to maintain
unfair social structure
for personal gain
ignorance rules
when they smear
and fear
youth
enraged
painted black
freedom under
media attack
compassion in action
casts off big business hex
we are not generation x!

Of course, reading this and hearing Lamont deliver it in his persuasive signature style are two totally different experiences altogether. The latter is recommended.

Clocking in with only seven pieces totaling less than fifteen minutes, this disc is barely enough to whet your appetite, sending you off to rummage around for his book or causing you to anxiously await new material. Into the 21st Century serves as an excellent calling card for the great things to come from Lamont, and, gratefully, more is on the way soon (the next album will even feature Larry Norman).

If all this sounds like Steve Scott's previous work, namely albums like The Butterfly Effect, you would not be far off. Lamont's canon, however, is far more affable and immediate, never pretentious, always delivered clearly and appropriately, and emphasizes the poetic qualities more than quirky studio effects and droning loops. You don't have to love poetry to enjoy this unique experience, either. If you like modern day music with vibrant messages that will leave a lump in your throat or stir you into passionate action, then Into the 21st Century is as fun as a Reese's peanut butter cup, and far better for you.

As an added bonus the CD is a benefit for Teen Challenge!

4.5 tocks