The Postcrypt Coffeehouse is on the campus of Columbia University in New York City. It features live acoustic music with no microphones, and runs a busy schedule of named acts and open-stage nights. ANDY GERMAK is one of the named performers, and this a good quality recording of one of his sets. Someone must have sneaked a decent quality microphone or two in.
There's something stark and autumnal gong on in this album of songs. I can hear a collection of small dry, undecorated beech leaves. Each one is different – but not so different as to shift the mood. There is a restless dissatisfaction with self and the world that might evoke empathy, but which leaves me a little restless and uncomfortable. No bad thing.
Andy's singing has a build and fade that emphasises particular long vowels and occasional words without those inflections adding a lot to the meaning. His guitar playing is steady, full bodied but lacking in distinctiveness. His harmonica style is Dylan without the risks.
In other words, songs like "Kaleidoscope" and "The Cost" in their unadorned state will get the appreciative ripple of local applause recorded here. But maybe it's a different story when they are exported to the international marketplace where, I suppose, I have acquired this CD for review purposes.
I'm very much in favour of the non-corporate networks of independent musicians and the selective and knowledgeable audiences involved in this kind of CD creation and distribution. But the cruelty of the long distance listener usually needs to be softened by personal contact. Whisperin' and Hollerin' quite liked the last EP that Germak issued, but I'm not sure how this CD will fare if you haven’t already picked up interest from the fuller sound on the studio release. The small city where I live has a dozen acoustic artists you have never heard of who, on the evidence of this CD alone, are as distinctive and interesting as ANDY GERMAK. I'm guessing that you would want more connections with Andy's life and work before you really wanted to own this.
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Personally I would want a well-travelled New Yorker (as Germak now is) to tell me more things I didn’t know and to pull out more surprises from that endless stream of singer songwriter possibilities. His earlier contribution to SUZANNE VEGA'S Vigil album (the Greenwich Village Songwriters Exchange's response to the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001) clearly marks him out as an independent minded character.
But do check for yourself. This is real music, and you can get some to try on for the evening.
mp3 clips aplenty at:www.andygermak.com
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