Joey Pizza Slice AKA Son of Salami is one of the most prolific singer songwriters making music today. What put's Joey's music into a realm of greatness is an integral combination of process and product.
The songwriting is clearly great: funny, awkward, beautiful, often touching; with subject matter that is either too silly or too heavy for most songwriters (sandwiches, dead girlfriends). The washed out cassette production sound that is becoming pretty standard fare these days sounds as good as it possibly can, but it is the way he goes about making his music that truly separates him from the heard. All Son of Salami recordings are first-take tracks made up of a series of "blind" overdubs. "Joey records on a portable tape recorder from which the erase head has been removed, allowing for overdubbing at the cost of not being able to hear the music being recorded over," says Shawn Reed on the Night People website. Ever read Bill Evans' liner notes for Kind of Blue?
There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.
During every one of his live performances, he demonstrates the process and creates a unique pop masterpiece right in front of the audience in a matter of moments. If that's not cool enough, he proceeds to toss the newly formed cassette nonchalantly into the audience, for it to disappear into the void, never to be heard from again. Some intrepid future archivists are going to have their work cut out for them when they attempt to piece together the disparate stains of this guys' unheard discography.
Pick up his new collection of songs on Night People here and you damn well better get his Feeding Tube LP right over here.
Son of Salami website
The songwriting is clearly great: funny, awkward, beautiful, often touching; with subject matter that is either too silly or too heavy for most songwriters (sandwiches, dead girlfriends). The washed out cassette production sound that is becoming pretty standard fare these days sounds as good as it possibly can, but it is the way he goes about making his music that truly separates him from the heard. All Son of Salami recordings are first-take tracks made up of a series of "blind" overdubs. "Joey records on a portable tape recorder from which the erase head has been removed, allowing for overdubbing at the cost of not being able to hear the music being recorded over," says Shawn Reed on the Night People website. Ever read Bill Evans' liner notes for Kind of Blue?
There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.
During every one of his live performances, he demonstrates the process and creates a unique pop masterpiece right in front of the audience in a matter of moments. If that's not cool enough, he proceeds to toss the newly formed cassette nonchalantly into the audience, for it to disappear into the void, never to be heard from again. Some intrepid future archivists are going to have their work cut out for them when they attempt to piece together the disparate stains of this guys' unheard discography.
Pick up his new collection of songs on Night People here and you damn well better get his Feeding Tube LP right over here.
Son of Salami website
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