| RAY BARRETT | ||
| Biography |
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Sobriety
Songs
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Released
August 2002
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| Live Dates | ||
| Images | ||
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©FocusLotion2002
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Music |
| Out of the talentless woodpiles of western Queens comes the improbable, troubled genius of Ray Barrett: a band, cult, religion (to some), and profitable intervention. Critics and fans alike agree on one thing: to see Ray Barrett perform live is an unmodifying "experience." | ||
| The band has spent two
and a half years rehearsing, learning, and perfecting songs that range freely
across the broad spectrum of what some people uncaringly term "music."
To Ray Barrett, however, the "music" is so very much more. Some
of their best songs will never be recorded but will always remain part of
the Ray Barrett live shows. |
| "It's so much better that way," one fan has reportedly said. | ||
| Entirely uninfluenced by the vast history of popular music, Ray Barrett eschews radio, television, and most forms of media. The band concedes that making a living through music does eventually involve having to deal, even if obliquely, with an "industry," with publicity, and, yes, with fame and its terrible responsibility. | ||
| "We can handle the pressure," is a sentence from their most recent press release, which explains their philosophy of "passive resignation, or avoidance if can be." It is a guiding principle of the entire band, sustaining them during an unnaturally stultifying tour through Maine and Vermont. |
| "After loading out, one of our roadies, Cliffe, encountered a bear. It was horrible to witness. We had a long talk at our next band meeting, and we all agreed. Bears, man. Wow." | ||
| The songs on Ray Barrett's latest release, Sobriety Songs, sculpt as if from molten wax (or mercury) the unexamined purity of "The Mind In Pause." This phrase will become the emblem of the band's tour merchandise, and will feature the universal ideogram for temporarily halting the progress of prerecorded playback (or for similarly suspending the recording of material later to be replayed). | ||
| "We wanted something instantly recognizable, that a person would see and would remember what it meant very very quickly." |
| Above all else, Ray Barrett stands tall. The music, the band, the expression through sound. Those who see Ray Barrett live already know. | ||