You Think You Really Know Me

Gary Wilson - You Think You Really Know Me

You Think You Really Know Me
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CD Details

Artist: Gary Wilson
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2002-04-23
Music Label: Motel Records
Soundtracks:
  1. Another Time I Could Have Loved You
  2. You Keep On Looking
  3. 6.4=Make Out
  4. When You Walk Into My Dreams
  5. Loneliness
  6. Cindy
  7. You Were Too Good To Be True
  8. Groovy Girls Make Love At The Beach
  9. I Wanna Lose Control
  10. You Think You Really Know Me
  11. Chromium Bitch
  12. And Then I Kissed Your Lips

Music reviews of You Think You Really Know Me

Music Review: One Star...for the packaging...
Rating: 1 Stars

This past April, Neil Strauss devoted an entire "Pop Life" column in the New York Times to Gary Wilson and his "wonderful, odd album" called "You Think You Really Know Me", originally released in 1977. He said the music combined "elements of pop, proto new wave, jazz, avant-garde compositions and electronic music, [and] sincere lyrics, alternately sweet and angst-ridden, about the women in his life and his fantasies...." Notorious for his "outrageous, improvised performances" at CBGB's and Max's Kansas City, the album went on to develop a cult following while Mr. Wilson just went away. After a brief stint with a band called The Blind Dates, he disappeared completely. Having become the stuff of legend, the people at Motel Records hired a private detective to track him down.

I was genuinely intrigued and scoured the music outlets for two weeks after the album's scheduled release date - from eclectic little record shops to Tower and Sam Goody superstores - hoping to hear a few songs at a listening station before shelling out any money for a possible ringer. The problem was no one carried it and, I realize now, that should have been the tipoff. But by the time I found it at Amazon I was so psyched I ordered it immediately, despite the fact that no 30-second sound clips were provided. Coincidence? Or another foreboding indication that something was amiss with this recording?

Shortly, I received a beautifully packaged CD that included a well-designed 24-page booklet complete with historic photographs of Mr. Wilson's zany stage shenanigans and ad-libbed buffoonery. One memorable set showed him screaming in a white suit splattered with either fake blood or the juicy red pulp of projectiles hurled by an angry audience. The booklet closes by saying, "This edition of 'You Think You Really Know Me' is not a reissue as much as it is a re-introduction to an artist who almost got lost in the shuffle. Hopefully, through our efforts, this collection of great songs will bring you one step closer to really knowing Gary Wilson."

My advice it to take one giant step back.

The combinations of musical styles lauded in Mr. Strauss' article simply did not materialize for me. I wasn't expecting Talking Heads, The Ramones or even the Sex Pistols, but after my initial disappointment, I was outraged and perturbed by the frenzied incoherence of a discordant hodgepodge of sound effects and instrumental confusion occasionally held together by a lazy and monotonous lounge-act piano-organ. To paraphrase an old joke: Look up the word "cacophony" in the dictionary and you will find the definition illlustrated with a picture of this album. The first half of a 3-minute song titled "Loneliness" is a series of whispered grunts and groans followed by what sounds like someone with a very healthy bladder urinating into a toilet. Wilson has no singing voice to speak of so lyrics like "What are you tryin' to do to me, put me on a sick trip or somethin'...? come off as pathetic and absurd. The lyrics, by the way, are not reproduced in the booklet. Coincidence...? Oh, never mind....

The only thing this CD has going for it is its brevity; the twelve songs run some 33 minutes, which is still about a half-hour too long. If you get suckered by the hype as I did, I urge you to make every effort to find a listening station before you buy. If what you hear rubs your Buddha then, by all means, indulge yourself.

Mr. Wilson disappeared for twenty-five years after the first release of this album and I have the feeling history is about to repeat itself.

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