Allister Bradley

Imagine ambling into a dimly lit hotel bar in a city you’ve
never visited before.You order a stiff drink and flop into
some tattered velvety chair in the corner.You’re bored, alone
and in an unfamiliar place.
Just this one drink, you tell yourself, before you retire to
the lumpy bed in your room and try to drift off amid the glow
of infomercials. But then you hear some pretty piano chords
coming across the room, and you look over to see a young man
with shaggy blond hair tapping out a tune.
It’s soft, melancholic music that barely breaks through the
din of boozy conversations, but it still grabs your full attention.
“I’ve played it cool, called it smart,” the musician sings.
“Been untrue, I know I’ve broken someone’s heart.”
You wander over, drop some bucks in the tip jar on the
piano lid and settle back in your chair to listen all night.
This scenario is entirely fictional. It’s what my wandering
imagination concocted as I listened to the new album by local
singer-songwriter Allister Bradley.
Whether Bradley has ever played a hotel bar for tips, I
haven’t got a clue. But it certainly wouldn’t surprise me.
You know the Billy Joel song Piano Man? If it weren’t
about Billy himself, it could easily work as a biography of Allister
Bradley.
This new album is Bradley’s second — somewhat punningly
titled Too — and it is a portrait of a sensitive, talented
songwriter who has clearly been influenced by the likes of
Joel, Sting, Elton John and the rest.
Though the album begins shakily with the so-so sad song
Not Today, it gains momentum with the standout track Me
and the Ghosts of St. Andrews.
By momentum, however, I don’t mean excitement. This is a
low-key album full of love songs and crying-by-the-windowon-
a-rainy-day laments.
At times it teeters perilously close to muzak, but is saved
from that by the nice interplay of piano with guitars, drums
and surprisingly pleasant doses of accordion. Bradley’s style
of music is certainly not for every occasion, though if you’re
planning a quiet introspective evening at home — or in a hotel
bar — it would make for a fitting soundtrack.
Check out Bradley’s CD release concert at May 29, 8 p.m. at
The Gig Theatre. Tim Louis and Bunmi Adeoye open. Tickets
are $20 at the door.
chunter@therecord.com - The Waterloo Region Record