Steve Wynn

Steve Wynn’s solo career began with the last album by the Dream Syndicate, Ghost Stories (Enigma, 1988), which in practice served as the manifesto of a melancholic and introspective singer-songwriter.

His debut album, Kerosene (Rhino, 1990), is a very personal record that documents the transition from angry youth to fatalistic adult. Abandoning psychedelia, his reference models are Lou Reed and Bob Dylan, the most twisted and confessional "storytellers." Martial and nostalgic elegies like Tears Won't Help, bitter and sarcastic invectives like Something To Remember Me By, and pastoral harmonies such as the crackling country-boogie of the title track dominate the album, culminating in a melodic masterpiece like Carolyn, with a beat-driven chorus and an arrangement featuring classical-style violin and Latin-tinged mandolin. Only a couple of tracks (like Younger) draw inspiration from the hypnotic, incendiary atmosphere of the Dream Syndicate. The quality of the compositions ranges from excellent to banal, with occasional embarrassingly weak moments.

Dazzling Display (Rhino, 1992) emphasizes the nocturnal quality of his music but also highlights his compositional shortcomings. Wynn desperately searches for his musical personality—whether in the flowing pop of Tuesday, the Dylan-esque Dandy In Disguise, or the harder sound of Drag—but seems to flounder in a vacuum of ideas.

With the Gutterball (Brake Out, 1993), the supergroup formed with Stephen McCarthy (Long Ryders), Bob Rupe (Silos), Bryan Harvey (House Of Freaks), and Johnny Hott (idem), Wynn can display his fundamentally epigonic nature with even less restraint: Bob Dylan (Trial Separation Blues, Lester Young), Lou Reed (the small masterpiece When You Make Up Your Mind), Neil Young (Falling From The Sky), and Keith Richards (Top Of The Hill) are the fixed stars of his firmament. In the mournful repetition of verses, riffs, and choruses from his youth, one senses a widely shared drama, the same nostalgic grip that affects retirees. His band of "roots-rock" veterans seems mostly to console each other.

Not even his next solo album, Fluorescent (Brake Out, 1994)—perhaps the best-played of the three, or at least the one that sounds most sincere—revives Wynn’s fortunes. The songs flow clearly and affably, but without any real spark (Look Both Ways is yet another poor Dylan imitation). Wynn remembers being the inspirational figure for Galaxie 500 and Luna (Collision Course, Wedding Bells), but forgets how he became so.

More spontaneous and imaginative, the new Gutterball album, Weasel (Brake Out, 1995), does justice to the talent of the supporting musicians, despite the autobiographical themes (Transparency, Your Best Friend).

Everything can be said about Wynn except that he keeps repeating the same album. Melting In The Dark (Zero Hour, 1996), recorded with the help of Thalia Zedek and Chris Brokaw of the Come, displays a verve that harks back to the 1960s. Why, all syncopated bursts and sharp riffs, could fit on a Surgery record. The sinister, driving gallop of What We Call Love blends the fatal tone of Jim Morrison with the cowpunk of the Gun Club. Smooth soars on an epic garage-rock fuzz, while Shelley's Blues rises into a swooning Merseybeat-style chorus. Wynn is far less convincing when he tries to imitate existential/atmospheric singers like Stan Ridgway (Epilogue). Too many songs, however, are pure filler and undermine the good intentions. Unfortunately, the dissonant raga-rock of Melting In The Dark is only the closing track, not the centerpiece.

Wynn has simply continued the downward trajectory that began with Medicine Head. Uncertain whether his calling lies in Springsteen-style melodrama, Dylan-esque folk-rock, or Reed-like "noir" balladry, Wynn drifts on in a lifeless rock, flirting with AOR without the courage (or talent) to become a true pop singer. Consciously or not, every Wynn album "deconstructs" his past, isolating its individual components more and more completely. This process strips the original "fusion" of all its charm, leaving in its place limp, colorless debris.

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Sweetness And Light (Zero Hour, 1997) is another exercise in updating retro` rock. The catchy Silver Lining is balanced by the noir ballad This Deadly Game, and the synth-tinged Ghosts is redeemed by the sprightly Blood From A Stone.

In keeping with his committment to explore ever newer avenues, My Midnight and Here Come The Miracles are almost each the opposite of the other.

My Midnight (Zero Hour, 1999) features Chris Brokaw again, but also adds Psychedelic Furs' Joe McGinty to the ranks, who is probably responsible for the least "Wynn-ian" sounds on the album. The album opens with a powerful Who-style rocker (Nothing But The Shell), and doubles it with a boogie-propelled shuffle (My Favorite Game, that borrows the riff from Procol Harum's Simple Sister).
However, Wynn has shifted target. He is no longer a "Lou Reed meets Neil Young" poet of the dark alleys. He aims at being a pop bard fronting a full-fledged orchestra. The songs are progressively more arranged, unusually emphatic, the production obliterating the guitar and often the voice itself. Propulsive rhythms wed symphonic passages. His songs used to "bleed": now they spring like water fountains at Versailles.
Suddenly, we hear echoes of Stan Ridgway's "in-your-face" country-pop in In Your Prime), of Todd Rundgren's pop-soul (Out Of This World), of French chansonniers (We've Been Hanging Out, replete with sensual female whisper and romantic synthesizer). Cats and Dogs is a melodramatic hodgepodge of sweet soul melody, church-hymn piano, understated organ, Bacharach-style horns and funky guitar.
Wynn is simply unrecognizable: the lullaby Lay Of The Land is delivered with Kevin Ayers' lunatic calm while the piano intones a classical fugue; and the solemn, mournful piano-based elegy Mandy Breakdown soars in a cacophonous, violin-driven coda.
Over a laid-back bossanova tempo, My Midnight embraces an easy-listening theme played by electronic keyboards, repetitive string patterns a` la Michael Nyman, staccato piano a` la Jim Steinman, and guitar twang a` la Duan Eddy and even a tex-mex trumpet.
Even the Dylan-ian imitations are skewed: The Mask Of Shame features an accordion-driven waltz and a majestic bacchanal.
So, by the end of the album, the seven-minute pounding Velvet Underground-ian voodoobilly and feedback maelstrom of 500 Girl Mornings sounds like Zorro jumping from the roof on his horse and riding away in the dark.
This is Wynn's noisiest and riskiest album since he started his solo career, and perhaps since the first Dream Syndicate album.

On the contrary, the double-CD monolith Here Come The Miracles (Blue Rose, 2001) is an imposing tribute to his garage-rock roots. Pinned between the rock pillars of Neil Young and Lou Reed, the core of the album rocks, sweats and bleeds. The defiant melody of Southern California Line winds up a burning guitar riff. The furious, distorted rave-up of Smash Myself To Bits delivers the motto "I take my hits, forget my vows and find new ways to smash myself to bits". Crawling Misanthropic Blues is a volcanic eruption of southern boogie. Shades Of Blue worships the triad of Bob Dylan, Byrds and Syd Barrett. Strange New World is almost a tribute to the Stooges. Sunset To The Sea is tense and sinister, with war drums and tragic guitar. The gospel hymn There Will Come A Day closes the album in Bob Dylan's most prophetic tone.
This is not to say that Wynn indulges in harsh sounds. On the contrary: Here Come The Miracles is shamelessly catchy, Sustain is even too poppy and upbeat, Butterscotch is a late-night country waltz, and the delicate Morningside Heights sounds like a romantic ditty from the 1960s.
Wynn has mastered the art of dynamics and the art of arrangement, that's all. And sometimes the results are truly odd: Let's Leave It Like That sounds like a meeting between Tom Waits and Harry Mancini, and Topanga Canyon Freaks sounds like Inxs mistakenly added to an Iron Butterfly jam.
The vibrant "punk" energy that still boils inside Wynn's mind is balanced, like in Dream Syndicate's best days, by hallucinations: acid trips like Death Valley Rain and Charity merely complement a reality that is violent and dirty.
This double album resembles the Stones' Exile on Main Street in that it focuses on what the artist does best and revisits it with a loose and casual attitude. Not by accident, Wynn's guitar has never been so demonic, replete with the most unnerving feedbacks this side of Neil Young. And Chris Cacavas' organ follows suit.

The Emusic Singles Collection (Blue Rose, 2002) collects the singles that Wynn released on the Internet in 2000. Pick Of The Litter (Glitterhouse, 2002) collects unreleased tracks recorded in 1997-98.

Static Transmission (Blue Rose, 2003) sends an ambigous message. On the one hand, Wynn poses as the most competent heir to the Rolling Stones (Hollywood, Fond Farewell, and especially Amphetamine, one of his classics), but, on the other hand, he is also the only one who can significantly alter their canon without betraying their spirit, as he does in the Byrds-ian melody of What Comes After, in the Beatles-ian Candy Machine, and in the Beach Boys-ian singalong of California Style. Less successful when he strays too far into the languid tones of pop muzak (the chamber ballad Maybe Tomorrow, the atmospheric The Ambassador Of Soul), Wynn is nonetheless a true hero, the folk hero who can bridge not two but all generations of rockers.

What I Did After My Band Broke Up (Works, 2005) is a retrospective of his solo albums.

Cast Iron Soul (Blue Rose, 2007), credited to Danny & Dusty, was another collaboration with Green On Red's organist Danny Stuart, following The Lost Weekend (1985) of 22 years earlier.

Crossing Dragon Bridge (Blue Rose, 2008) abandoned the hard-rocking stance of the turn of the century for a melancholy and subdued mood, excessively underscored by the orchestra in Manhattan Fault Line.

Inevitably, he began to sound like Tom Petty and Bob Dylan, and Northern Aggression (2010) could have been recorded by either of them during a desert session, with rockers like Resolution and On the Mend.