If you’re not smiling fifteen seconds into We Live In Rented Rooms by East River Pipe, you have no soul. “Back room deals,” sings F.M. Cornog. “The whole world is built on backroom deals. You better get used to it.” It’s business as usual for Cornog. He’s made a career of singing about the maladies of society. The drifters, the drunks, the homeless drug addicts standing at your favorite off ramp with a cardboard sign. Cornog has been there, which is why he sings about what he does. So have I, which is why I appreciate it. You probably haven’t heard his music, but you should.
The list of musicians that covered his songs is staggering: David Byrne, Okkervil River, Lambchop, The Mountain Goats and others. It’s a sad commentary on the music industry that a musician this talented has gone ignored. Cornog likes it this way, though. He has his wife, his daughter, his dog and a forty hour week job at Home Depot. He’s happy. For a person to come from the kind of lows he has experienced, happiness is a pretty big deal.
Cornog’s gift is stories. “Tommy Made A Movie” is about a guy who sits around in his bedroom making movies inside his head. Cornog says very little about Tommy. All we know is Tommy tries to write, but can’t. He sits around watching porn, and thinks about girls. It’s very, very sad. To the tune of simple keyboards recorded in a home studio I feel my heart breaking.
“When You Were Doing Cocaine” is a simple piano ballad about a guy who let his life get away from him. Cornog sings about what it looked like the guy had, and compares it to the reality. It’s the kind of common life stuff you don’t often hear in pop music. Even The Arcade Fire never have it this dead on. You want to know what life really looks like? Listen to an East River Pipe album.
We Live In Rented Rooms is as good an album as East River Pipe has ever made. This Average Joe making records alone in his bedroom has been responsible for some of the most brilliant songwriting of the last twenty years. Routinely, I put on two or three of his records at a time, lay back, and soak it in. Buy this album. Then go buy everything else he has ever released. Start with The Gasoline Age, but don’t stop there.
We Live in Rented Rooms is out on February 15.
Track Listing:
1. Backroom Deals
2. Cold Ground
3. Payback Time
4. Summer Boy
5. I Don’t Care About Your Blue Wings
6. Tommy Made a Movie
7. The Flames Are Coming Back
8. When You Were Doing Cocaine
9. Conman
10. Three Ships
