Bob's first tentative musical steps were taken in Cork,
Bob Bradshaw’s latest solo release, Enjoy Your Confusion,
is an ambitious collection of 14 heart wrenching songs
about love, loss, highways and whiskey, identity and
communication, all colored by his dark Irish wit. His style
is an intriguing mixture of Elvis Costello, Wilco and
Kurt Weill - with a twist.
The twist is Bradshaw’s background and, like the title
of his album, ‘Enjoy Your Confusion’, he’s a bit of a
paradox himself. He’s an Irish Alt-country musician,
who taught himself guitar by following chord shapes
in an Eagles songbook he found tossed behind a
local bar in Cork and, he says, by “marinating himself"
in the traditional Irish sounds of his native soil.
As diverse and strong as Bradshaw’s musical skills are, he has always
felt that his lyrics were the strongest parts of his songs. A
nationally published fiction writer, short-listed for a Hennessy
literary award, he spent what he now calls a year "doing time" writing
a novel before deciding that music was what wanted to do with his life.
And with that decision, Bradshaw strapped his guitar over his shoulder
and headed for Portugal. He sang Irish traditional songs in a bar for
the first summer, then ended up performing throughout Germany and
Scandinavia in the warmer months and wintering back in Portugal. With
his travels, he broadened his range with songs by the Pogues, U2 and
Bruce Springsteen as “they carried well in the streets”.
In 1990, Bradshaw moved to the States, landed in New York City and
traveled across the country to San Francisco, picking up along the way
a deeper understanding and respect for American county music. “I had
not been able to take country music seriously during my European days
but it began to make sense and as I traveled across America. As Charlie
Parker is supposed to have commented about country music, ‘Listen to
the stories’,”, Bradshaw said. It was then also that he began listening
to the American roots/folk music that would permeate his songs: John
Hiatt's ‘Bring The Family’, The Bands ‘Music From Big Pink’, Elvis
Costello's ‘King Of America’.
Discovering like minded musicians, he started an original band, The
Resident Aliens, recorded an album of original music and quickly became
a San Francisco fixture at local clubs and bars.
After a few years and needing a change, Bradshaw released his first
solo album, ‘Some Assembly Required’. He reflects, “I really wanted to
treat the songs properly, using the wide variety of instrumentation the
songs required rather than just boxing them together to fit a band
sound. I think that the musical diversity - the different textures and
moods - on my albums is one of their strongest points.”
This same spirit pervades ‘Enjoy Your Confusion’, produced by Bob's
main song-writing partner Scoop McGuire, which features a surprising
array of instruments: Irish fiddle and bodharn, Argentinian bandoneon,
American dobro and pedal-steel, marimba and harmonica, all
complementing Bradshaw’s acoustic guitar and the albums solid rhythm
tracks. Accompanying the rootsy tones of the music are his poignant
lyrics that stress the joy, sorrow and daily dark humor that epitomizes
real life, as realized in “Tell Me A Story”,
“Tell me a story won’t you?
She reaches for him in the dark,
You think it’s over don’t you?
I guess you think we’re done.
And as the fire goes down,
She’s still waiting for the spark
That tells her she’s someone.”
In the Texas Playboy swinging sound of “From the 2-Step to the
12-Step Once Again”, Bradshaw demonstrates his humorous side,
“You’ve been asking where I’m going,
At nighttime leaving you alone,
You say for me to tell you no more lies.
You been seeing I am dressed,
Up in my Sunday best,
Just to go out bowling with the guys.
Well, I think it’s time you knew,
This bag don’t hold no bowling shoes,
It’s for dancing that I’ve got a yen,
Oh, yes, I am a walking bomb,
The seconds tick and I go from,
The two step to the twelve step once again.”
In summary, Bob Bradshaw’s second solo album, ‘Enjoy Your Confusion’,
blends together a variety of musical styles, Bradshaw’s Irish/American
background and his intricate lyrics to create a multi-layered album
that bends and catches a listener’s ear in a way that few albums do
today.
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