Free Album Friday: Bob McCluskey

Bob McCluskey was the main singer and songwriter for the Taoist Cowboys. After that band broke up, he concentrated on recording some songs that he had been working on previously, and some that were inspired by personal experiences he was going through at the time.youngbob.jpg (14432 bytes) Recording only on four track, he played all the instruments and did all the vocals, capturing the songs exactly the way he heard them. He even took the photograph and did the cover art, using white out to write the letters. Entitled Emergency Lunchbox after a childhood artifact he still had in his apartment, it was released to hardly any fanfare and only a few people actually got one. But those that did were hardcore about it and a small cult of fans grew up around it. Emergency Lunchbox is a very personal record of equal parts darkness and beauty. It is available for the first time on cd and for the first time has been digitally mastered. Below is a review of the record from Metropulse featured in their issue of "The Greatest Knoxville Records of All Time". "Out of the ashes of the Taoist Cowboys and the Estradas came this 1994 solo project from their lead writer. Perhaps the most intimate and honest release ever recorded in Knoxville, it was all taped at home on a four track and captures Bob at his best: relaxed, and his mind drenched in self examination and beer. It's songwriting minus any bullshit or pretension whatsoever. Like Nick Drake if Nick had a sense of humor and adventure, and could formulate his ideas clearly. In other words, it ain't like Nick Drake at all except it forces you into THAT mood. Almost flawless in its risk of exposing the writer's flaws. Bob takes the everyday and makes it art and makes it interesting." Metropulse July 9, 1999. Get Emergency Lunchbox free here.