Shipe compared to Elvis Costello!?

You know you’re doing something right when you get compared to Elvis Costello. This from Tuneraker:

“If you are hankering for mid-period Elvis Costello with a fresh lick of paint then ‘Villain’ is the album for you… his brittle voice delivers cutting asides as astutely as Costello in his prime. Yet, like Costello, he can sound vulnerable and desperate the next moment.”

(Click above for the entire review.)

Best Shipe ‘Villain’ review

Rich Quinlan from Jersey Beat is one of those critics who obviously listens to an album several times before carefully penning a review. I’m grateful, ’cause the result was a very generous piece on Villain. I got some excerpts right here:

“…you will undoubtedly fall into the velvet embrace of John Shipe’s Villain… lush collection of highly descriptive tales of love and woe… There will be undoubted debate about which effort truly stands out.
‘Love Belong to Everyone’ is a warm, luxurious effort… The bouncy ‘Another Disaster’ and wrenching “No Use Crying Over a Spilt Life” make a tremendous one-two combination… John Hiatt and Jeff Buckley fans will instantly gravitate to this, particularly the witty and intelligent lyrical play of ‘What Right Do We Have to Fall in Love?’ and the powerful piano ballad ‘Dead Kite’. …atmospherically beautiful and harmonically sensual; a rich combination of musical dexterity and lyrical erudition. This is a striking record worthy of immediate attention.”

Click here for entire review.

Thanks Rich. Means a lot coming from such a fine music writer.

European Radio is generous to Shipe

I’ve gotten some kind e-mails about Villain from DJ’s in Europe. A sampling:

“Excellent… a total winner. This is unique. Viva La Shipe!” –Lord Litter (Radio Marabu, Gemany)

“I have found my favorite Americana CD. The songs are great, with superb lyrics and melody. You don’t normally get all 3 with most.” –Lee Williams (CMR Nashville)

“… all these good songs on all these catching melodies….the Frenchie is knocked down… …high sense of quality , of integrity… It is beyond words.” –Mike Penard (ISA Radio France)

Serena Markstrom Shipe-piece in The Register Guard

Serena Markstrom, from the Eugene Register Guard, interviewed me by phone last week as I waited outside The Gypsy Den for my time to play. It was a long phone call, preparing coverage for the Villain release at Sam Bond’s Garage.

Serena asks delving, insightful questions–questions for which one’s answers can’t be rehearsed. She also does a lot of the talking herself, in a two-sided conversation, which leads to spontaneity and a real context for the interview.

Coverage of CD release parties–reviews, previews, or interviews–ostensibly serves to publicize and promote for the artist and the venue. But if that’s all they do, a journalist can get lazy, rushing through a list of generic questions, the answers to which I’ve given a hundred times.

Ms. Markstrom’s journalist obligation is to her readers more than to the subject. She’s mining for copy that someone might actually want to read. (I’ve heard that she works incessantly.) This raises the bar for a performer’s lucidity quotient.

I found us talking about a lot of things seemingly unrelated to the CD Release. Travel, the local scene, writing, family, growing up in the Northwest. The result is more thorough article than you often see on these occasions. It’s not so much a review as a report, taking for granted the integrity of the artist, rather than evaluating it.

That kind of respect means a lot.