Hey: This reviewer makes reference to Kasey covering "Water in the Fuel." Does
anyone know if that's on a record and which one? It is a good tune, but I didn't
know Kasey covered it.



http://www.smh.com.au/news/CD-reviews/Fred-Eaglesmith-Dusty/2005/01/06/110483222\
8841.html?oneclick=true


Fred Eaglesmith, DustyBy Bernard Zuel
January 7, 2005








When you fly with the Eagle you don't hang around with the turkeys. Fred digs
deep and dark for a work neither country nor folk.

FRED EAGLESMITH, Dusty (A Major Label/Didgeridoo) * * * *

Among the barrelling country-rock, hillbilly hooning and dry-witted descriptions
of oddball men and women, Fred Eaglesmith has always pierced the listener with
truths.

One example is the collapsing marriage viewed from a distance in Water in the
Fuel, so beautifully covered by Kasey Chambers. Eaglesmith's songs about
ordinary, usually working-class or farming folk don't parade their emotional
wreckage - Canadians don't do that sort of thing. But it's there, it hurts and
it works, even if some people will never get past the rocking sound and the
gags.

For any Eaglesmith fan, Dusty will first come as a shock. This is as stripped
back as he has been: his voice prominent but rusting at the edges while
rudimentary keyboard rhythm tracks, organ, cellos and simple instrumentation
populate the background.

It's neither country nor folk - it just is what it is.
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This is also as bleak as he has been. These stories rarely mention it directly,
but they reek of a time where on top of the daily hassles of working, wanting
and getting by is a patina of gnawing despair. It's a sorrow aimed at a world
more fixed on anger, retribution and empty religious sentiments than offering
hope.

At times, Eaglesmith reminds you of the darkest songs of Townes Van Zandt,
although there's something of Leonard Cohen as well in the unvarnished strength
of these songs even at their most deceptively simple (I-75).

Through it all he deploys his eye for small detail, as in the title track:
"There's tobacco inside your cuffs/And you drink too much/But it's never
enough/People stare at you as you stand and cough/Might be the weather, might be
the dust/Rain, rain, rain in a western sky/Teardrops in your heart, gravel in
your eyes."

It's good, isn't it?








Richard O Jones
Creative Director
Clownflower Alley
'a ministry of joy'


http://clownflower.com
(513) 894-4569
BossClown@...



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