Stan Ridgway
Born: Barstow, California.
To set the record straight, Stan Ridgway is a songwriter. Before that creates visions of sad-eyed-coffee-house-acoustic-guitar-Romeos’, wailing about ex-girlfriends making off with their favorite plaid shirts, it should be made clear: Stan is NOTHING like that. If you need a comparison, he’s more along the lines of guys like; Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Lee Hazlewood. Still, it's best if you’d just think of him as Stan.
Stan is no newcomer to the music scene. You may recall that his 1986 solo debut, The Big Heat, contained "Camouflage" and "Drive She Said," both international chart toppers. (That’s "international" as in everywhere but the U.S.) And its follow-up, Mosquitoes, has been heralded as "one of the greatest albums of the eighties" by lots of folks who get paid to say stuff like that.
Before then of course, there was that band he started and sang with for several years. Evolving from a Hollywood Boulevard office dive soundtrack company for trashy, exploitive drive - in flicks and sci-fi movies, they sprang full blown from the punk days of the late seventies, all neo-Neanderthal, Carl Orffian harmonies and electronics, married to twangy western guitars and stories from the underbelly of America's promise. One of their records, "Call Of The West," produced a hit and was played often on MTV, something about Mexico as I recall. People still seem to like it. The group was called Wall of … err … something or other… I forget. Anyway, let's continue, shall we? That was then. This is now.
Stan is a storyteller; his songs often read like movie plots. His characters are deep and developed; of course, not all of them are people you would want to have dinner with. He holds a flashlight to the shadowy side of human existence – our flaws, secrets, and obsessions – all with a sardonic edge that skirts morbidity. His is a balladeer style that recalls the great traditions of folk and old time country music.
"I grew up listening to Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. And I love that sound – that lonesome individual with a guitar and a mic. Telling a horrific tale over a simple, beautiful melody. There are a lot of horrible things in folk songs and country music. People get cut up and lovers kill each other. It’s all a mask and metaphor for things the subconscious doesn’t want to deal with. But it’s also entertaining; that’s the beauty of it."
Ridgway’s work often draws comparisons to Raymond Chandler and film noir, flattering comparisons that miss an important part of the picture. A Stan Ridgway song is like a three-minute movie, with settings so vivid that they’re tactile. Pop the CD in and a dry desert wind blows across your face, a long stretch of highway opens before you, or maybe a dark alley winds its way through the inner city – all painted from a broad pallet of styles. Listen to his catalog and you’ll pull out strains of jazz, folk, country, rock, and even hints of exotica.
"It's all about setting the right tone and atmosphere to tell a story," Stan explains. "There’s a lot of alchemy going on here. Sometimes it’s setting a location, but other times it’s finding a sound that contradicts the story – maybe an uplifting sound that accompanies a murder. It’s about revealing and concealing; the devil is in the detail."
Holiday in Dirt is a collection of rare and unreleased material that Stan amassed over the years. A few tracks are culled from soundtracks and others from foreign b-sides. Most, however, are "orphaned" tracks that simply didn’t fit on earlier albums; but don’t let that throw you. The tracks on Dirt, many of them among Stan’s finest work, sound as if they were written for the same album – this one. And, in Stan’s subconscious, perhaps they were. "My Beloved Movie Star." "Act of Faith," and "Operator Help Me" function like musical novels – the kind you can’t put down.
This year also marks the re-release of his standout 1995 record "Black Diamond". Released through a distribution company that went belly up soon after it's release, it made this gem near impossible to find. Now it's out again and there are more stories from America's dark corners to haunt us.
Mr. Ridgway lives and works in Los Angeles with his wife and musical partner Pietra Wexstun, (of the group Hecate's Angels.) Besides his work in popular music, he still occasionally performs with his side group, Drywall, an experimental pop exotica combo and has also composed soundtracks for several films.