posted 02-18-2002 05:30 AM               

Maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s that I listen to a lot more public radio these days, or maybe my musical karma got tired of listening to the same CDs over and over again. Whatever the reason, 2001 was a great year for finding new musicians. One of my favorite finds was John Mayer, whose Room for Squares is a close second to Pete Yorn’s musicforthemorningafter as my favorite for the year and is making a strong case for inclusion among my all-time favorites.

This is Mayer’s first album with a full band; he previously released a solo acoustic record, and you can hear those acoustic roots here. The guitar line and percussion do a great job carrying the basic melodies, whether they’re slower, somewhat dreamy or languid tunes like “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “City Love” or more energetic songs such as “Love Song for No One” and “No Such Thing,” the first single. Mayer then builds around those melodies with organs, pianos, violins and other instrumentation to create a sound that’s very light but still rich enough to engage the listener. Like David Gray, Mayer can use a few notes to perfectly capture a particular emotion, and then let that emotion color the rest of the song. “3x5” is a song about a traveler whose experiences reconnect him to the world, and the simple fragment that connects the verses seems to sum up the gravity of such a moment, suggesting motion and urgency and the relentless passage of time; it’s the music that I connected with most strongly, but it’s only one of a number of notable musical achievements.

Mayer’s lyrics may be even more accomplished than the music. He has a sense of humor about himself and the world that doesn’t prevent him from being emotionally honest and insightful; at his best, he combines the two. “83”’s nostalgia is summed up in the closing “whatever happened to my lunchbox/when came the day that it got thrown away/and don’t you think I should have had some say/in that decision?” And I don’t think anyone could come up with a better follow-your-heart exhortation than “No Such Thing,” where Mayer says, “I want to scream at the top of my lungs/I just found out there’s no such thing as the real world/Just a lie you’ve got to rise above.” (Mayer delivers the phrase ‘at the top of my lungs’ in a high-pitched call that somehow sounds good while still inspiring the tone-deaf among us to sing along in delight.) Direct and witty at the same time, Room for Squares is an outstanding example of intelligent songwriting, and I can only hope it finds the audience it deserves.

posted 03-12-2002 02:51 PM               

Of course, last year he was playing a bar in North Philly and this year he sold out Philly's TLA in roughly eight seconds. Good for him, but not so good for those among us who missed out on the tickets.

posted 07-21-2002 08:47 PM               

There was such a throng of teenage girls there to see John (and John alone, not the rest of the card) that we were knocked out of the running for an autgraph early on. Dave grumbled at the mob "I didn't see you guys at the North Star eighteen months ago!" He's referring to our first encounter with John at a local Philly bar where he opened for Glen Philips.