Film Songs by Stan Ridgway

"Film Songs" was an Australian Tour 1997 Special Release
c & p A440 Records / dis information music bmi

"Stan Ridgway's post-Wall of Voodoo output has, if anything, cemented his neo-noir rep as one of American music's greatest storytellers, the wild and wily Steinbeck of sad whiskey railroads and rusted, ramshackle American dreams." AUSTIN CHRONICLE

"If David Lynch were a musician, he would be Stan Ridgway. Both look at Leave It To Beaver America and see serial killers lurking beneath its porches. Both can infuse a simple everyday object with weirdness and dread, creating a world that's consistently disturbing, fascinating and cool." L.A. WEEKLY

"Filtered through his sardonically insightful wit, these stories become engaging not only for the details he includes, but the ones he chooses not to expose as well." THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE

"Stan Ridgway tells stories from the underside of America. It's the dream gone sour; the dream that never even took root. Tales of losers who battle on and play the game their own way, with a glamour-less beauty and a bath of realism... slices of lives that knew the rules have been drawn up 'someplace else'; characters that have to bluff to get by." FOLLOW MUSIC AUSTRALIA

"Fast moving novellas full of dense musical imagery, peopled with characters from a human highway 61 revisited." THE FACE

"More noises from America's lost frontier. His songs tell stories that unfold gradually and trade in old fashioned narrative devices like character and suspense. It's a move at once conservative and daring - but, best of all, it works." ROLLING STONE

"Stan Ridgway is the Nathaniel West of rock." LA WEEKLY

"Ridgway has the talent to hold your attention by telling a tale in the same intense and clear way that rockers like Neil Young and Lou Reed do. A cool Californian commentator with a sense of humor to match his sense of history." Q MAGAZINE

"Ridgway's tales of the sad, soft underbelly of the American Dream are songs of hope petering into resignation, of idealism soured into cynicism; he's a very adult writer operating in an arena more usually home to the naive and infantile." THE INDEPENDENTS

"Its possible that Ridgway's change of stance reflects a more serious attitude toward his music. Ridgway isn't just a wise guy anymore." L.A. TIMES
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"Stan Ridgway's post-Wall of Voodoo output has, if anything, cemented his neo-noir rep as one of American music's greatest storytellers, the wild and wily Steinbeck of sad whiskey railroads and rusted, ramshackle American dreams." AUSTIN CHRONICLE

"Stan Ridgway is an artist defined in the eyes of many by his quirks -- the rubbery twang of his voice, the dark and angular tone of his melodies, and the herky-jerky attack of his best-known performances. Listen past the eccentricities of Ridgway's surfaces and you'll know he's one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation, and Mr. Trouble suggests that he's trying to make it just a bit easier for folks to dig into the core of his work. Mr. Trouble opens with six new studio tracks that find Ridgway in noticeably different voice these days; his instrument is deeper and craggier, sounding dry and worn on "We Never Close," and his phrasing is by his standards subdued, with less yelp and more plainspoken resonance. The melodies are also a few shades less sharp this time out, with vintage jazz and R&B as obvious reference points on tunes like "The Drowning Man," "All Too Much," and the title cut. The arrangements present Ridgway's melodies in a more organic and straightforward fashion than one might expect, though "Mr. Trouble" and "Gone Deep Underground" give the players plenty of room to stretch out and explore the outer reaches of the music. (It helps that Ridgway's band is in excellent form here, especially keyboardist Pietra Wexstun, percussionist Bruce Zelesnik, and guitarist Rick King.) And Ridgway's songs are typically splendid while subtly reflecting the malaise of post-millennial America, particularly on "The Drowning Man," "Across the Border," and "Gone Deep Underground." All Music Guide


"Neon Mirage, is arguably the most emotionally revealing, musically far-ranging album of the L.A. singer-songwriter's accomplished career." AMAZON

"Listening to Stan Ridgway is always like a musical voyage. As he sings about "your presence in the sand" there's no wonder you'll see a Neon Mirage in the distance. With help from Dave Alvin, Pietra Wexstun, Ralph Carney, Rick King and the late Amy Farris, every lick, note and lyric is post-futuristic and brings to mind the world we're busy ripping apart now. Neon Mirage is without a doubt, Ridgway's strongest effort in years, and one that finds him saddled up and ready to ride with a world-wise bent into the sunset of the unknown - mirage or not. Challenging, interesting, and always highly entertaining. This particular well is long from drying up." ELMORE

"Ridgway's work is always passionate and completely compelling and Neon Mirage is no exception...Stan Ridgway at his quixotic best, telling jagged tales of modern life gone wrong with a casual urgency and a novelist's eye for detail, all set to a soundtrack that soaks up light in a beautiful darkness like polished ebony." CITY BEAT

"Rueful reflections from one time Wall Of Voodoo singer. Mortality and the absurdity of human existence are among the thematic strands running through Ridgway's new Neon Mirage, a dazzling effort that takes its place among autumnal efforts by Zevon, Krisofferson and Dylan. A stately grappling with identity and meaning." UK UNCUT

"Stan Ridgway's Neon Mirage is arguably the most emotionally revealing, musically far-ranging album of the L.A. singer-songwriter's accomplished career." AMAZON

Probably the most compelling portrait of American social life to appear on a rock 'n' roll record since Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska." "The Big Heat" (1986) Greil Marcus in ART FORUM

"Take some of the nocturnal knowledge inherent to Los Angeles that Jim Morrison so famously tapped, add a bit of Dean Martin's way cool swing-a-ding-ding...and you'd be getting close to the subliminal wow of Stan Ridgway. ..It's a completely stunning work, full of strengths and surprises that even while we've come to expect them from Ridgway, they still ring home here with an inescapable heart.. and the world it describes and lessons it imparts are the kind that are downright prophetic." BENTLEY'S BANDSTAND

Wall of Voodoo leader Stan Ridgway is in a reflective mood on "Neon Mirage" one of the finest outings in his idiosyncratic career. Featuring the outstanding roots rocker Dave Alvin and prized session violinist Amy Farris, Ridgway looks for permanence in a forever-changing world. DETROIT FREE PRESS

"In a career that's found him consistently attempting to defy any and all pop parameters, Stan Ridgway's never faltered when it comes to revealing his more exotic intentions. He showed that inclination early on with Wall Of Voodoo, and subsequently pursued it through the retro jazz affectations, dark cinematic-like musings and scary film scores that have become so intrinsic to his solo ambitions. Neon Mirage shines a new light on Ridgway's inner psyche, while also inviting his listeners to fearlessly peer inside. " BLURT

"It's been over 25 years since Stan Ridgway and L.A.'s seminal Wall of Voodoo released Call of the West, and that calls for a drink. The album's dusty, Barstow-to-Bakersfield, Ross Macdonald-meets-Edward G. Ulmer in a Death Valley Detour to nowheresville title track and grimly optimistic film noir narratives still reverberate across the musical Route 66 Voodoo frontman Stan Ridgway paved, roadkill and all..." Ridgway's post-Wall of Voodoo output has, if anything, cemented his neo-noir rep as one of American music's greatest storytellers, the wild and wily Steinbeck of sad whiskey railroads and rusted, ramshackle American dreams." AUSTIN CHRONICLE

"Singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway's new solo album is a glorious hard-boiled Hollywood road movie for the ears. " THE WIRE

Ridgway has become his own wireless theater. Spanning nearly 30 years in song, master storyteller Ridgway pulls out new and old work to dazzling effect. MUSICMUSE

"Stan Ridgway is a brilliant iconoclast with a catalog as strong as that of any more famous songwriter you'd care to name with terrific solo records like Snakebite, Anatomy, The Big Heat, Black Diamond, Partyball and Mosquitoes and more. Thoughtful and mature, the new Neon Mirage is a rich palette of colors, provided by his keyboardist Pietra Wexstun, longtime guitarist Rick King, woodwind maestro Ralph Carney, and the late great Amy Farris on violin and viola. A song cycle inspired as much by loss as by living, Neon Mirage strips his signature sound down to the bare essentials, while still remaining as eclectic as always. The tunes in turn act as windows into Ridgway's soul, a view he's rarely offered before – even if the curtains aren't all the way open...With voyages into territories old and new, Neon Mirage is one of the best albums in Ridgway's long, auspicious career." THE BIG TAKEOVER

"In fact he's an ingenious writer with a grip on low - life imagery that hearkens back to that of Burroughs, Bukowski and Brecht. If a modern American counterpart to Bertol Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weil exits, it's the music of Stan Ridgway." SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"Some know him just as the long lost singer with the great Wall Of Voodoo, others as one of the great unsung maverick geniuses of our time." MELODY MAKER

"For Stan Ridgway life is like an old detective movie, full of furtive con men and tough dames who hide their daily crimes in the gray mist of the city. This is mature music, short on sentimentality, long on imagination and style." PEOPLE MAGAZINE

"Stan Ridgway has a cast of thousands at his fingertips, and a wealth of tales in his head. A rare and famous talent. Not part of any club or click, just a maverick in his own right." LONDON MIDWEEK

"Stan Ridgway is one of the most unique and talented songwriters around." RECORD MIRROR

"Haunted by America's pulp serial past, Stan Ridgway has become his own wireless theater." THE FACE

"Stan Ridgway is equal parts Raymond Chandler and John Huston, Johnny Cash and Rod Serling." NME

Stan Ridgway and Pietra Wexstun are now on BandCamp. New directions in music for your listening pleasure. Music and Song, Soundtracks for Film. Electronic experiments. Obscure song covers. its all part of their weird world. yeah gee. Join them. Resistance is futile.

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