Taken from his slightly under-rated recent album “A River Ain’t Too Much To Love” , “Rock Bottom Riser” finds Bill ‘Laughing Boy’ Callahan in typically rare form once again. Over cautiously-picked guitars, delicate filigrees of guitar and nervously pattering drums, he pledges his love for his family (“I love my Mother, I love my Father, I love my sister too”) before he proceeds to – I think – drown as a token of his affection. Way to go Bill. Naturally, it’s about as suitable as a single as the Velvets’ “Sister Ray”, but since when has that made any difference, right?
We also get Bill in best blank baritone mode for “ I Feel Like The Mother Of The World” from the recent album, but if it’s hard to imagine the great man with child-bearing hips (let’s not dwell, eh?) then make directly for the two exclusive new tracks “Bowery” and “Fools Lament”, both of which are prime mordant Callahan. If it’s to be taken literally, “Bowery” concerns the complex relationship Bill’s father had with Bill’s grandfather and touches on pain, futility, homelessness, the disappointment of family ties and, er, more pain, culminating in Bill noting “and when he came up from the river of Methadone, he took his last breath on the Bowery.” It’s hardly occasion to raise a smile, but beautifully poised and surely one of Callahan’s very best, as is the closing, waltz-time “Fools Lament” where a great, restrained performance from the band fits Bill’s fatalistic ruminations like an envelope around a cheque.
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