The Skygreen Leopards leave the impression that their songs started
out informally, with two guys strumming guitars in a park, sitting
cross-legged on the grass.
Gorgeous Johnny is the sort of midtempo, laid-back, jangly
folk-rock that is purely California, with pre-formed images of the
perfect summer afternoon, and sunlight streaming through palm trees at
the edge of the ocean.
One by one, the songs can sound loose and ramshackle, but there are
only minor variations on the theme: The quirks and eccentricities are
all lyrical. Songwriters Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn take
pleasure in setting a cast of somewhat preposterous characters free to
roam about their songs.
As a song cycle, Gorgeous Johnny is loosely based on the
story of a hanger-on and onetime band member, someone the band says is
“described by most as a phony and a self-confessed dandy.”
“You were the king, but you should’ve been the queen. Oh Johnny, why
can’t you say what you mean?” the band sings on the title track.
Elsewhere is “Margery,” stuck at some laugh-less dead end; in
“Goodnight Anna,” an ex-girlfriend is now “living with a shadow.”
Throughout are people creating complications for each other. While not
exactly a revelation about human nature, the album is a fresh look at
the challenges of friendship and love.
Still, it takes a good bit of attention to try to follow the
characters, because the songs float by, too similar from one to the
next to give the album much of a sonic kick.
This article appears in Aug 20-26, 2009.
