Reviews
Artist:HermanDune Album: Notes From Vinegar Hill
Label: Santa Cruz
Tracks: 12
Website: https://www.hermandune.net
French-born, Swedish descended and LA-based, David-Ivar Herman Dune released his debut album 20 years ago, this, named for the San Pedro neighbourhood where he lives, is his 14th. Recorded in lockdown on with Caitlin Rose on backing vocals, Jon Natchez providing horn arrangements Spencer Cullum III on pedal steel and Hawaiian slack guitar with Ivar's partner Mayon adding additional vocals, it spans a range of musical styles, opening up with the late romantic Dylan-styled 'Say You Love Me Too', the lyrics namechecking Lucinda's Car Wheels On a Gravel Road as he sings "I think now I know how it feels when your heart explodes".
From here it switches to the old style campfire cowboy tones and plinkety piano of the passingly mortality-themed 'Heartbroken & Free' ("When I fold please carry me/Under the yellow peach-tree") and then on to the five-minute plus pedal steel coloured waltzing 'Freak Out 'Til The Morning Dew', set at 2.37am to a backdrop of the California fires as, referencing Betty Draper and Bettie Page, the song seems to unfold around a lyric of heavy-eyed insomnia, musician's block ("The piano won't take my notes") and a general comment on how "The country's too crazy to stop".
The chugging quasi-rapped 'Ballad of Herman Dune (High on Rye and Lost at Sea)' exudes a kind of contentment, however, musing on just cruising round ("driving Downtown with the Basement Tapes"), "sipping on Gin&Juice", and "Picking words along the way/Take them to my piano at the end of the day/Hope they line up into a tune", throwing in another scattering of references, this time to Snoop Dogg, Eva Green and Harley Quinn, and, if you know your LA geography, Termial Island and the LBC.
On the other hand, the slow and steady swaying 'LA Blues' (a twinge of Oribson here perhaps) is a post-break up number set amid the phoniness where "Someone always wants something from you/When you live in Hollywood". But not, however, one for wallowing in misery as backed by dreamy cooing and a resonator guitar solo he declares "I forget all about you/There's more important things to do", like "looking for Nicki Minaj".
Next up comes a duet with Rose on the banjo, harmonica and dobro accompanied, kick drum thump and handclaps (it just lacks a washboard) of the goodtime stomp beat semi-title track, 'Vinegar Hill', another of his playful romantic numbers ("Down by the beacon where the walrus sleeps/I sounded like a promise and she sure looked like keeps/I said I'll keep you in my pocket like an M&M/A fine cut poem or a stolen gem") complete with some oddball musical bleeps and wurbles and, yet another reference, this time to Kinky Friedman.
There's more good times to be had, this time down by the ocean in "jailbird trunks and lifeguard fins" and "breathing in the marine breeze higher than a kite"with the Jonathan Richman meets The Beach Boys seashore shuffle of 'Scorpio Rising' where "The starfish and the Garibaldis show their colors bright/The stingrays and the sea-slugs are just picking up a fight/The dolphins are a ganging in the early morning light".
From the California coastline the album takes off to spend a 'Hawaii Morning', featuring, of course Hawaiian guitar Hawaii Morning where "the air is soft and grey", "the rooster is crowing on the neighbor's porch" and back at the house "The coffee's brewing newspaper's on the stoop", as he muses on recording his songs and that "Sometimes my voice is broken sometimes it's really low". It sounds idyllic.
By way of a change of groove, 'Mookie Mookie' is bluesy, funky little number that patently takes its influences from Marc Bolan and, for those with high trivia scores, throws in a mention of Dita Von Teese aka Heather Renée Sweet aka 'Queen of Burlesque' and even a nod to the whiskey habits of Jessica Jones in the sadly cancelled Marvel TV series.
The 100 seconds of 'Bird of Prey' heads into the backwoods for some old-timey dustbowl folk (one of several songs to mention the colour pink) before the last of the original numbers comes with the slow swayalong, steel haunted country of 'People Say I Could Have Done Great Things' ("Well I've been on the air and on the TV screen/Played like a jester even once for a queen/I Might have wrote a few songs that my daughter will sing") and while perhaps the image of staying home with the cat and drinking beers in the sun doesn't quite fit the picture, you could hear Johnny Cash singing this. It ends then with a tribute to the late John Prine, a steady foot stamping cover of 'Long Monday', recorded in the week he died. These are notes well worth taking.
Mike Davies
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