The Substance of...

One would naturally expect an album authored by a banjo-playing, female folk rock vocalist to be despondent little done-me-wrong pluckings about drunken and brutish men, and the various methods by which they've victimized or deflowered an assortment of protagonists.   On Lady Cannon's debut album, on the other hand, appropriately entitled Whiskey Dear, Martha Cannon and her band offer a sneering array of alcohol soaked Canterbury Tales, where the victims are anyone but her,  and told from anything but the typical gudgeon's point of view.

The summarizing title of the opening track "My Evil Girlfriend Bought One Ticket Instead Of Two", is the listless reminiscing of an alcoholic woman, and her partner's concern for how their geography is enabling her addiction.  The "punchline", if you will, of the song is just too clever to give away, and so suffice it to say that not only does the narrative belie its title, but the heart wrenching statement it makes about the lengths a person will go, and the things they will forsake, to stay enslaved by addiction is brilliantly well illustrated.  This in mind, Lady Cannon's writing is anything but one-dimensional; she has a unique method of chronicling first, second and third person perspectives - all within the span of the same song!  At no point does it confuse, disorient or shroud her meanings in the least; as easily as "a drunk man's words are an honest man's thoughts", Martha Cannon's pickled lullabies pursue the stream of consciousness that follows the curiosity of any abhorrent tale: you want to know how every character  feels, acts and reacts.  In that sense, every track on Whiskey Dear is a miniature novella, where everyone's pains are exploited - and not just those of the teller.  And often times, you wonder just exactly which character's story this is anyway?   

On the grind-starting, then trip-along little jaunt that is "Any Woman But Me", Cannon fleshes out the commonplace soap opera of the woman who constantly returns to her despicable and abusive lover.  Her family has tried many a time to console, comfort and advise, but have since turned their backs on her, discounted her as hopeless, just as she has herself.  And so it's agreed upon unanimously, from loved ones to one's self, in the refrain: "As drunk as he is, and as lovely as you are, he can only break your heart."  She'll keep going back, because this is how it is, "living large, breaking hearts, and playing guitar..."

Lady Cannon's semantics deal heavily in the destructive grip alcoholism can have.  It's not a new message - especially in rock music (both on and off the stage), but what really gives Cannon's arsenal its wicked payload, its staggering kick, lies wholly in her stance.  She is not the victim, she's the villain.  She's the trollop, the insidious marauder and the bar stool fallen angel - and she has no shame in playing that role for the sake of the theme she's addressing.  Even on the lucid "Still In Love", she sings as a woman who recognizes what her indulgences have done to her marriage and her family.  She says "let's put the babies to bed and I'll hold you like I used to..." but then later, just when you think she's come around, is maybe finally removing herself from the need for a drink, she adds "let's turn down the lights, and open a bottle of wine... like I used to..." And there's the "oh no" moment (neatly accented by husband Joseph Cannon's down-scale guitar bridge, sounding like an engine growling to life), and it's then you know she's so far gone, that even by the effort of what might have been only a semi-enlightened epiphany, she's still lost in hopeless darkness.

For all its troubling, very theme-insistent content, Whiskey Dear is by no means a downtrodden collection of suicide recipes.  The Lady tells with her chin up high, and her tongue in her cheek, and so the feel of the album is curiously upbeat, and the songs as addictive as the addictions they revel in.  The record's very defining title track, metaphorically describing a whiskey addiction as a torrid affair with a lover whose embrace she yearns for only in her most desperately wanton moments, is a portent and sardonic depiction of the dysfunctional relationship she's made with the bottle.  "I'm starting to care that you still want me, you still want me in the morning - when my hands are shakin'" Cannon sings cagily, "and I think I'll take you back, but only if you're on your knees."  The song is a speedy and jangly number, laden with the kind of blithe and irreverent guile that, if you've become at all familiar with her, defines the Lady Cannon's songcraft. 

Though the subject matter that sets the stage for the music on Whiskey Dear might seem a bit tedious and dogged by description, especially to those less willing to smile at such afflictions, it can at the very least be heralded as the least depressing, depressing record in any similar context.  Martha Cannon's disposition on the topic of substance abuse might be a little heavy handed, sure - but the bon mot really is that hers are victims who choose to be victims, and she's mocking the fallacy in that.  The unfortunate souls she incarnates might just do themselves justice to take a lesson from this, realize that fixing a drink doesn't do much to fix anything.  She states a bold, unrelenting and deliberate editorial on the matter, the sum of which makes Whiskey Dear a fantastic accomplishment, and ultimately what separates Lady Cannon... from a lady who cannot.

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