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June 9 - 16, 2000

[Music Reviews]

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**1/2 Gurf Morlix

TOAD OF TITICACA

(Catamount)

It figures that a guy named Morlix would be a strong guitar player, but after years as a sideman and producer with exceptional songwriters including Lucinda Williams and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Gurf isn't out to prove his six-string superiority on his debut CD. Instead, he tries to show that he can compete in the wry songwriting department. He does a pretty good job, though a handful of the tunes have lyrics so direct and plainspoken that it's up to the interpretive talents of the singer to make or break them.

Morlix has a folksy delivery and a regular-guy charm that rises to flashes of brilliance here and there. And his pleasant attempts at crooning lie atop country and rock cuts driven by his twanging guitar. Where he really shines, though, is on quirkier cuts like "Dan Blocker," where he repeatedly intones the name of the hulking actor who played Hoss on Bonanza. Apparently, it's something Morlix and a friend "wrote" when they were kids at summer camp trying to fend off a (presumably) large fellow camper. The best cut here is "Greatest Show on Earth," where Motlix rhymes "miles" with "den of reptiles" and offers an evocative take on circus-sideshow freaks.

-- Bill Kisliuk
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