Jim White had a religious upbringing in the South—and has surfed professionally, driven a cab in New York, and supposedly "been a Milan fashion model." Anyways, that's what the bio says, heralding the film Searching For the Wrong-Eyed Jesus which is based on his music.  But I'm reviewing the bravely titled Drill A Hole, and so I'll be focusing on that.  Later.

            I've known a lot of cabbies, no models and few surfers.  One ex-driver, a long lost friend of mine, a short handsome Mexican musician who talked about literature and music as if he had really slept with William Burroughs as he claimed, said that he wanted to create a style of music known as 'whoosh.'  He told me this before we dropped the acid together so I didn't laugh. He actually had bizarre musical equipment and a deep knowledge of artists I enjoyed—Cage, Eno, Glass, etc.—so I could have been being put on, or not.

            His poetic miniatures were very well written, but I never really heard his music, so I can't tell if he was just absurdly self-mythologizing that as well, if he was any sort of genius on an instrument.  But I was helping a friend who did a zine put together some sort of complimentary cassette compilation, and I asked my friend to chip in the results of any ideas he had in our requested form—a length: five minutes.

            "Can I give you four separate pieces, with a minute's worth of space altogether between them?" I believe he responded.  Yeah, my brother, whatever you feel like—knock yourself out.  I thought this was a bit inane of a response, but what the hell.

            The last thing he said to me about music was, "Hip-hop is the most revolutionary form of pop music since the Beatles." I thought that was the most interesting thing he had said.

            If my friend actually lived up to his self-image, he might have made music similar to Jim White's.  But White's music, as white as his voice sounds, and as effete as some of his studio effects are, probably has a lot more soul than the experimental textures my friend would have come up with.

            Is that because Jim has allowed his third full-length to be produced by roots-rock journeyman Joe Henry, who balances out the abstract-ethnic influences (very interestingly, reportedly inspired by White's upbringing listening to gospel music in Pensacola, Florida) that has landed him on David Byrne's Luaka Bop label?

            Waits will probably come up in reviews of this—one day I will track down Tom's original blues source for "Gun Street Girl" (Rain Dogs) which a lot of artists inspired by him seem to have been rewriting this year, as White does on "Borrowed Wings," adding a pinch or two of the title track of Swordfishtrombone—but distinct from a lot of those imitators, White's music offers some differences that makes it better than them.

            There's space and breath.  White has learned to let his songs have pace, to allow the listener to walk though them slowly as his musicians and guest stars (Bill Frisell, the Sadies, Marc Anthony Thompson, and more) cut a groove.  Nothing ever ends up swinging too hard, which is a pity, but his adept storytelling in no way feels forced in the crisply produced stew of smooth folk-junk-art-pop.

            As for the songs themselves, White writes pretty tight little soul-inflected numbers, with Beat poet mystical lyrics with admirable specific details, and keeps the weird little funky percussive embellishments unobtrusive.  Perhaps it is too Protestant, but at least the Latin passion doesn't engulf, the Filipino hog wash that floods the contenders of less professional forms of this kind of late night street soundtrack cabaret.

            The best moments on this album are the most direct—Aimee Mann's delightful backing vocals putting the opening track ("Static On The Radio") over, the restrained but alive funk of "Combing My hair In A Brand New Style," the aching Paul Simon-style lamentation closer "Phone Booth In Heaven."

            I didn't bring up Paul Simon on accident either.  White may have a cracker trailer park gospel music-infused childhood to draw from, but like the legendary Jewish singer-songwriter, he is a stranger in a stranger land, knows it, reports his feelings on it, but writes more around it than through it.  It reminds me of when Randy Newman said he really dug Simon, but he couldn't write like that—he actually had to write about what he was writing about, not create an atmosphere of meaning around a few every day details.

            I'm going to enjoy Drill A Hole for a long time, it's very good, but I wonder what would happen if White actually sunk his teeth into something actually happening and tried harder to tell more than just what it tasted like.