Shane Pullen Music Albums Gig Guide

Shane Pullen quite simply breathes life into some of the most moving songs this man has ever heard. Uncomplicated music provided via acoustic guitar sets the mood beautifully for every song on this CD. The soft strumming and precise fingerpicking style of Shane’s guitar playing is the perfect platform from which to present these insightful and emotional words.

A haunting backing vocal compliments selected songs and adds to the sound scape of these numbers. Shane appears to have mastered the art of creating a precise mood in his music. He has the ability to project a feeling through his guitar and voice, as well as a note or melody. Somewhat hypnotic at times, this CD has the ability to trap you in its spell despite the most pressing tasks at hand.

This CD sings to your heart and speaks to your head. It is truly a whole of mind, body and spirit experience that I urge everyone to touch and feel for themselves. Below, I have done my best to interpret the songs and their respective messages. This is my opinion only and everyone is welcome to discuss this further via the home page.

1. Passenger
An up-beat number strummed on the guitar. Complimented with haunting backing vocals, this song speaks of living life in the moment and discovering the real you, which may or may not be hidden deep inside yourself. We are small in respect to the universe and time, so we should live and think everything we can while we are here.

2. Happiness
Strummed on the guitar with perhaps a phaser, chorus effect to create an eerie feel. This is rumoured to be in relation to Martin Bryant and if understood in this way, this song is a moving look through the keyhole to madness. This song is bravely written and emotionally challenging, encore!

3. Things I Never Show
A wonderful fingerpick on the guitar sets the scene yet again. Shane truly is a master of his instrument. Assisted by some soulful backing vocals, the sound scape is created masterfully. You are encouraged to go and seek true love, to embrace true love as life itself.

4. Open Up Your Mind
Never has a song title been so explanatory of the song. Except for maybe Oh My God. Lead guitar assists in setting the mood for this little gem, one of my favourites. “You’re just walkin’ by the windows that line your life. You should stop a while and look outside.” Says it all I think, worth the admission price on it’s own, it is both a thought provoking and emotionally challenging piece of literature. Author, author.

5. The Way
The title track is both cheeky and deeply frightening. A short but sweet finger picked number. It is minimalist in both music and lyrics, yet speaks louder than most other songs on this CD. Cheeky, “I race rocking chairs not too far from here”. Frightening in the fact that it cuts to the truth of some very important issues in our world today.

6. Thick Enough
An upbeat number strummed and picking bass notes. This is all about “broken love”. The writer appears to be confused by his rulers’ interpretation of “love”, and probably “justice” and “freedom”, but I will leave it to Shane to elaborate.

7. Buttercup Feelin
A singing guitar strum accompanies this floating, dreamy piece. Again the mood begets the song, which speaks to me of drug use, and the trade off against future judgement. The song itself is drug enough for me at the moment. A real toe tapper and thought stimulator.

8. Less Zen
Rhythmic strumming sets a solis base for this solid number. Shane asks us to use our third eye. Perhaps this is not a bad idea in the tumultuous world of today. Listen and learn, this man is a poet with a very sound message.

9. Dear Nick Drake
A tribute to the obvious, strummed out briskly on the guitar. I am not aware of Nick Drake but from the song glean that he is/was a musician/writer of some note (I will find out and post on this page). How well has Shane Pullen got a handle on the language most of us struggle with; “You got a skin too few”, “…we breathed your music in…” Another one of my favourites, play on, play on.

10. 3 Days
A harsh sounding guitar strum sets the scene for a song that looks into a harsh topic. Prisoner reform is a subject that often divides communities and indeed, society as a whole. As is often the case, few people have an understanding of the individual who is most affected in these cases. One of the few is Shane Pullen, who appears to have an insight into parts of life most don’t even realise exist.

11. Love Song
I guess it is no surprise that when Shane Pullen puts pen to paper regarding love he makes the statement with every sinew of the piece. This guitar strum and pick is as provocative and speaks the words of the song with it’s feeling. The music in this number has a heart and soul of it’s own. This love song explores the life long commitment and discovery that is love. “Life is a song for lovers of life” “So lovers of life. Live life in a song”, enough said.

12. Oh My God
I am honoured and somewhat embarrassed to write a review of this particular song. I am tingling and tearing up as I prepare to write this piece. This song deserves an entire review in it’s own right, and I am humbled by it’s brilliance and emotion. A soft finger pick on the guitar and the journey begins. This song is the inspiration behind “a man screaming as softly as he can.” Shane Pullen takes 4 minutes and 25 seconds of your time and makes you feel like you have been to heaven and hell and back. The scary thing about this trip is that it could be done for real without ever needing to leave this dimension. Listen to the passionate plea for peace in the name of all gods. Listen to the anomaly/oxymoron that is “religious war”.

Just think
Skeet

It takes only a brief search on the internet to work out Shane Pullen’s been doing what he does best for well over a decade and although he has more than a mere cult following and despite the impact of “Oh my god” on independent music circles around the world, some people still have to embarrassingly cough out that they’ve not even noticed him.

It is a particular pity for such people, not because they’ve missed out on a master solo guitar entertainer’s deft weaving of musical styles, from the sparsest minimalism to the closest harmonies and from elegantly simple strummed rhythms to finger picking with the complexity of nature. And not because they’ve missed out on a musicianship so refined as to make this all look and feel deceptively easy when he launches you away with the mood he manages to convey for each piece. Reasons enough for anyone to consider finding a better rock to live under, yet this is but the tip of the iceberg. Despite the (truly rich) rewards of Shane’s years of hard yakka and experience, his significant prowess as a musician is just the icing on the cake, and like sex, the icing can be most enticing indeed, but the true bounty lies much deeper than this.

The greatest gift in Shane’s performances and recordings are his ideas – Shane’s songs are not merely plucked from his own soul, he has poured out the soul of a world that has forgotten how to voice its most primal grief’s. In the charade of bureaucracy and new-speak we find ourselves penned in, Shane has managed to unveil the façade and shed more than a little light upon the nature of our unease with modern life. His uncanny knack for hitting the nail right on the head can sometimes feel like he’s got you straight between the eyes and there’s a spine-shiver or two for anyone regardless of their sensitivities. For the less than perfect amongst us, Shane provides a veritable banquet for thought as he invites us to consider in turn our relations with those we share life with and the ramifications of how we choose to conduct them, how we impact on (or fail to intervene for) the lives of those we know nothing about, the value (or lack thereof) of obsession with the human condition, our duty to persevere un-distracted by the charlatans that would hoodwink us, the very nature of Love itself and our relationship with the Divine.

It is technically possible to merely place one of Shane’s recordings on the stereo and close your heart to the messages therein. With the seemingly endless variety of styles and techniques he employs there is no danger of anyone getting bored, in fact he could be considered to be a perfect party musician and i’ve seen his performances and not been suprised at all to hear the acclaim his musicianship earns. But it would be a pity indeed to be that close to greatness, just to walk on past ignorant of the deeper experience. By my reckoning it would be pretty hard to over emphasise the rewards waiting to be discovered for those willing to think about what Shane Pullen has to say. If you still rank amongst those yet to enjoy his gifts then get out and watch him play live if you can, otherwise get hold of an album and see what i mean. Then spread the word.

Review from PLK