St. Frankie Lee – Let’s Get It On

contributor: Hoyt Emerson October, 28th 2009

We no longer live in a world where our degree of separation from the world of stardom is based on miles and money. On the contrary, we have more access to the life of stars then we ever have before. And what life has been more romanticized and revered than that of the rock star? It seems like everyone wants to be one. And with the proliferation of home recording we are seeing an abundance of self titled “rock stars”. Especially in a city like Portland, it can get easy to get caught up in the “Big Fish In A Small Pond” status that many local acts have garnered, only to see little to no response outside the town limits. It’s a sad side effect to the seemingly awesome streamlining of artistic tools.

Now to digress before a tangent starts, let me side step to St. Frankie Lee. They finished their self made, self packaged album, Let’s Get It On (unfortunately there is no cover of the Marvin Gay classic), and have begun the long road of promotion and performance. With a sewing machine stitched cover, hand printed CD’s and hand written inserts its a tried and true handmade product.

It’s obvious that St. Frankie Lee has big ambitions for this record within it’s first moments. “A First Song” is a collage of A.M. radio and T.V. excerpts with strings arranged behind it. It seems like a great opening curtain to the album, but the first few “actual” songs such as the “Apology” and “The Boom” have great concept but poor execution. Now to be fair, this is not meant to say they are bad songs. On the contrary, all of the material of Let’s Get It On is strong and honest. No, these first songs instead feel shaky and the performances don’t feel confident. There is still, however, 11 songs on this album and while the first few may turn some ipods off, the 5th track, “His & Hers” shows St. Frankie Lee finding their stride. We all of a sudden hear Derrick Martin singing in his most honest way, a seething, frantic high tenor a la Violent Femmes, and Chelsea Campbell belting out a strong melody over lo fi production and horn sections. It’s as if the album moves two years into the future, where now St. Frankie Lee feels much more comfortable with themselves and the material from then on out shows. “Sweatshirt” is a jumbled mess of jangly acoustic guitar, bouncing double bass and contagious melody while the album ender, the appropriately titled “A Last Song”, is an anthemic church organ and close harmony gem.

Just because you can record a song at your home doesn’t mean you are a rock star and it definitely doesn’t mean people will like what you’ve created. St. Frankie Lee have taken it upon themselves to try to win you over with this record and if you can stay patient and let this album open up, you’ll find all the best parts of it.