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Reviews of The Oxymorons CD

Kerry Blech (The Old Time Herald) Summer 1995

Clyde, Joel, and Creighton are mainstays of the Pacific Northwest country dance scene with Clyde currently in Portland, Joel in Seattle, and Creighton, I believe, based in Corvallis. Each is a multi-instrumentalist and each excels in a number of different musical styles. Most often they appear in public as contra dance musicians, either as this ensemble, sometimes called the Oxymorons, or in various other combinations with other regional or touring musicians. Clyde provided the impetus behind this recording and defined its scope. It consists of 22 dance tunes, mostly traditional, that they have used at dances over the years. While Clyde is a respected fiddler, his true love is the mandolin, which he features on this tape. It is about time a recording of old-time style mandolin was finally made, and this is a good one. Creighton is a solid, yet inventive guitarist. Although, I believe, he plays only an acoustic instrument on this recording, he at times generates an electric guitar sound, ala early Ry Cooder. Joel is a rather notey, melodic style banjoist, which fits with the tunes chosen here and their settings. He is also a primo harmonica player, being among the finest Irish-style chromatic harp players in the world. Fortunately we get to hear a little bit of this on this tape. Clyde is a clean, fluid mandolinist, and again, his style fits the tune selection. A number of the tunes are placed in medleys, as the band might play them at a contra dance. Some of these juxtapositions tend to jar me, but I think that is the impact they are intending, one of those nudges or tricks a lot of contra bands try to do to goose the dancers. There are also a few cutesy arranging/dynamic tricks (that I personally abhor) that are found with regularity and predictability at contra dances, but they do not distract too much from the good portions of this recording. The notes are detailed, with Clyde explaining how he latched on to each tune. [lengthy discussion of sources] This is a fine example of refined, urban old-time music and is an especially good presentation of old-time mandolin (with little or no bluegrass or celtic overtones), an area sorely underrepresented on recordings.