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Thursday, 08 December 2005 09:03

That said, Wynn and his band, despite emetic “classic rock” comparisons, make music as contemporary and cool as anything that isn’t (but should be) playing at the moment on local radio stations.

Last month, Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 struck Twangfest 7
like a tsunami, and to extend that trope, if their sonic fury at St. Louis’s annual celebration of Americana didn’t re-create the 130-foot waves generated by the 1883 eruption of the Indonesian island volcano of Krakatau, it wasn’t because they weren’t trying.

On July 8, music fans who missed that Duck Room blast (which likely had Blueberry Hill diners pogoing in their booths, involuntarily or otherwise) can savor Static Transmission, Wynn’s new release. It’s a disc worth savoring. Wynn’s work, in its wit and maturity, invites comparison to that of Bob Dylan, as on a funky hidden track that ends Static Transmission; other numbers, like the opening “What Comes After,” tonally echo John Lennon, and “Candy Machine,” with its deliciously nasty guitar, recalls Lou Reed, the musician to whom Wynn’s most often likened. Beyond having written or co-written everything on the 11-track CD, Wynn plays guitar here, and abetting him are keyboardist Chris Cacavas and the trio that accompanied him at Twangfest: guitarist Jason Victor, bassist Dave DeCastro, and drummer Linda Pitmon (easily the most watchable percussionist in the known universe). They’re a hot quintet indeed.

That said, Wynn and his band, despite emetic “classic rock” comparisons, make music as contemporary and cool as anything that isn’t (but should be) playing at the moment on local radio stations supposedly devoted to that bastard subgenre and its relatives. In that regard, listeners should crank the fifth (and longest) track here, “Amphetamine,” a thinking fan’s thunderous, goose flesh–inducing paean to the guitar-driven power and glory of life at its wildest, cars at their fastest, and rock ’n’ roll at its finest. Wynn reportedly wishes to return to the Lou; spin this disc and learn why those in the know hope he does.