Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

There's a school of thought that proposes that Jim Morrison didn't die of a heart attack in a bathtub, but instead staged his own death to see what the reaction would be. This rumor was a lot more prevalent in the early 1970s than it is now. There was, in fact, an album that was released in the mid '70s titled PHANTOM'S DIVINE COMEDY which, rumor had it, was actually Morrison. It didn't sound much like him, and it sucked, but I still have it in storage. Just in case.

The difference between Andrew McCutcheon's WELCOME TO PERIPHERY and PHANTOM'S DIVINE COMEDY is that McCutcheon sounds like Morrison. In fact, he sounds like The Doors. I mean, he's got the whole shtick down, right down to Robbie Kreiger's guitar licks and Ray Manzarek's organ riffs. The problem is that, even though "Tease" sounds, I swear, like a WAITING FOR THE SUN outtake, neither it, nor the reminder of WELCOME TO PERIPHERY, passes the s.f.w. test.

McCutcheon starts things out with "Periphery," which comes off like Beck fronting The Doors, and is maybe the most interesting track on the CD. It goes on for about a minute too long, though, and besides, who needs another Beck, since the one we've got, the original Beck, is still alive and well and quite prolific, actually. McCutcheon repeats the mistake with "Hello" and includes a couple more Beck pastiches as well ("I'm Alive Now," "Twisting and Reeling") Morrison isn't alive (or at least probably isn't. Or at least he isn't recording anymore. Never mind), and the subsequent Doors' releases without him established that the whole of that band was greater than the sum of its parts. But let the dog lie. "Darkening Light," "Never Break a Psycho's Heart," and "Second Sun" almost come off like those brilliant National Lampoon parodies that were sporadically released in the early 1970s. Almost. But they knew to quit. McCutcheon doesn't, as would be obvious, if nothing else was, by the composing of a track entitled "Hug Your Inner Beast." Where's my Mausberg?

Oh yeah, one other thing. One picture on the CD jacket shows McCutcheon playing guitar right-handed, but another picture shows him playing left-handed. What does this mean? Morrison was left-handed. And so was Paul McCartney, before he died, too. Hmmm...