REVIEWS - Balance

 

By Harriet L. Schwartz
PGN Contributing Writer
© 2005 Harriet L. Schwartz

Frank Grimaldi
"Balance"
(Emphatic Records)

Frank Grimaldi takes the intensity of life's highs and lows and delivers them in song. He does so without softening the blow, without apology, and rarely with metaphor. Instead, Grimaldi is direct, vivid and uncompromising.

Balance," the follow-up to Grimaldi's 2001 release "Walking Backward," explores a variety of musical styles, while always remaining fiercely devoted to the lyric. "The Right Thing" eases along, the gentlest of love songs, while the ska-tinged "Love Is Not the Same (What Am I Doing In This Bed?)" gets real about a fading and failing relationship. "Incident on Hicks Street (I Went Away)" reveals a story of childhood sexual abuse, the words darkened by the electronica.

Grimaldi handles all lead vocals with his distinctive style. He also plays bass on several tracks and keyboard on "Paris Is a Lonely Town" and "Fighting In My Sleep."

He co-produced the album with Barry Goldstein of Think Big Productions. Goldstein has composed for Warner Bros. Films, ABC, and Lifetime Television and has also collaborated with Grammy Award-winner Lisa Fisher and A&M recording artist Billy Porter.

Grimaldi is out and proud though still true to complexity. Opening song "City Walls" reveals "The place I come from/Is a time I left behind/The man I have become/Is the boy I used to hide/The feeling I once kept inside/I reveal with pride/Still I'm haunted by/Being ridiculed in another life."

See also track seven of "Balance," entitled, "Faggotry Personified."

Harriet L. Schwartz is a Pittsburgh-based writer who covers music and pop culture.

Review of Frank Grimaldi's Balance
by Robert Urban, January 27, 2005
Balance

New York City is a world-class mecca for independent gay singers, musicians & songwriters. They come here from far and wide to find and express their own unique voices.

Of the many gay musical artists I’ve known and worked with over the years here in Manhattan, most possess a style and sound representative of places other than NYC. I’m always fascinated to discover a true, homegrown queer artist with a genuine New York City sound.

Enter NYC-native gay singer/songwriter Frank Grimaldi, who just burst back onto the rock music scene with his second CD, entitled Balance. This is the long awaited and much anticipated follow-up to his 1996 critically acclaimed debut album Walking Backward. In realizing his latest creation, Grimaldi joined forces with veteran record producer Barry Goldstein of Think Big Productions.

Of the many different kinds of openly gay songs on his new CD, Grimaldi says, “I wanted to show a whole person with a vast range of emotions, which is one of the reasons I called it Balance.”

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to Italian-American parents, Grimaldi’s music, lyrics and vocal approach are steeped in the style of his own hometown. With songs uniquely evocative of gay life & love in an urban setting, he carries on a writing tradition much beloved by fans of American popular music. This “big city” sound is characterized by a certain gritty, bluesy, resolute mood, and colored with wistful streetwise reminiscences and feelings.

Through a treasure trove of diverse singer/songwriters such as Frank Sinatra, the Garlands, Billy Joel, Lou Reed, Joe Jackson, Harry Warren/Al Durbin, John Kander, Jacques Brel and even the Ramones, this gotham style of song is ever-reinterpreted and kept alive, a testimony to the eternal lure cultural centers like New York City have for us all. They are songs in which quintessential Big Apple backdrops like a busy street-corner, a subway stop, a tenement rooftop, a brownstone stoop, or a dive bar all come to mind as the stage from which the singer delivers his songs.

With his trademark bohemian Lower East Side get-up of Kangol-style cap, sweatshirt, faded jeans, converse sneakers, and sprouting a beatnik soul-patch, Frank Grimaldi looks the NYC beat-poet part. Even the cd’s artwork--complete with real life graffiti, brick apartment buildings and litter-strewn back alleys--speaks of his original stomping grounds.

For the millions of gay men (this writer included) who left their small hometowns for the freedom, safety, and perhaps purposeful anonymity of big city life, Balance's opening track “City Walls" is a particularly poignant anthem. The lyrics weave queer life and city life together in a day-by-day narrative tapestry that’s immediately recognizable to queer urban dwellers everywhere.

The fast pace and rude attitude of stereotypical New Yorkers is aptly captured in the bitchy, rockin’ “Shut-up and Listen.” This song literally flies by in less than two minutes time, yet epitomizes the brashness of citified lovers quarreling.

That certain town-without-pity, lost-in-the-city, ships-that-pass-in-the-night loneliness one can feel in the struggle to find meaningful love in a big, tough town, is expressed simply and beautifully in male-to-male ballads like “The Right Thing,” “One Night Kiss” “Love is Not the Same” “Blueprint” and “The Same Mistake.”

It is the sheer variety of love songs on Balance that make Grimaldi really shine. Each is written in a different rock/pop style, and each is made even more moving by Grimaldi’s own understated way with words and music. He has the ability to deliver lyrics that appear naïve, protected and matter-of-fact on the surface (the typical hardened New Yorker), but reveal an almost unbearable vulnerability and emotional honestly underneath.

Although Grimaldi’s romantic ballads are clearly gay-male identified and same-sex directed, they are so well written, mature and sincere as to have a universal appeal to listeners of any sexual-orientation.

In the cabaret/blues tune “Bad Habits,” we are given cosmopolitan world-weariness in the tradition of classics like J. Kander’s “New York, New York," Billy Joel’s “New York Frame of Mind," and with its gay hustler lyrics, perhaps a naughty touch of Dietrich ala “Black Market” and “Laziest Gal in Town” thrown in: “Cheap talk and cocktails/smoked all my cigarettes/got three loaded ashtrays/and a mountain of regrets."

Grimaldi might sing about regrets, but his fans won't--at least not after picking up a copy of Balance.

On February 7th, Frank Grimaldi offers the first live NYC club Balance tour concert at the legendary C-NOTE Blues/Jazz Bar in the East Village, NYC.

 

Frank Grimaldi
Balance
By: © Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck
12/30/2004
Artist: Frank Grimaldi
Title: Balance
Genre: Rock-Pop-Alternative
Label: www.cdbaby.com/cd/grimaldi2
Website: www.emphaticrecords.com

Frank Grimaldi’s brand of alternative pop is both humorous and dark. He uses himself as an example for the range of human emotions in a carefully crafted musical Balance to get his point over to the listener. The CD cover pictures Grimaldi as an ancient Greek messenger. His history may not go back that far and the songs titles do not indicate an ancestry that predates the first Olympics, however, it applies to the world we live in today.

When Grimaldi brings his voice down to the lower register it reminds me of the rock ‘n’ roll chameleon David Bowie. The changes and paces he puts the Vox Humana through take a little getting used to but it does grow on you as the album plays through.

Perhaps the most striking and surprising take on the proverbial look in the mirror is what grabs you the most. All of us that have been the victim to the character defect of hypocrisy and tracks like “Faggotry Personified,” are certainly blatantly honest. I am sure the singer really does not actually characterize this ugly state of being; he is merely talking about all of the hideous results of being that way. It is an eye opener for sure. Here is the first verse- I live in a glass house/I’m the cat that called the kettle black/ I’m your closest enemy/I’m the fattest monkey on your back. Now you can get a clearer picture of why I am pointing this particular song out. That is not the only song that rips and tears at the fiber of your being, there is much more in the 14 tracks on this CD.

The musical styles range from rock to electronica sounds then to rap, which is quite an array of styles, and its all done very well. Is this different? Yes, without a doubt. While the music is not anything new and revelatory, it is energetic and enjoyable. The lyrics sting like a pissed off scorpion and the music sounds like a backdrop to life’s stage, reminding us we are all just actors playing our roles in daily life.

* Evolution Scale: 7.5/10

 

 

 

FRANK GRIMALDI:  "BALANCE": A Review by Jed Ryan PM Entertainment Magazine

     The first thing you pick up when you listen to Frank Grimaldi's new CD, "Balance", is his voice.  This native New Yorker has a distinctively baritone voice that's smooth, soulful, rich, hearty, lusty, and full of life.   But just because his voice is strong and powerful, it doesn't mean that Frank can't express a vast array of emotions.  And it doesn't mean-- as we hear throughout "Balance"-- that Grimaldi can't occasionally sound vulnerable or sensitive; or express a boyish, wide-eyed innocence about life and love.  Frank displays the range of his gifted "voix" immediately in the opening tracks, exuding the same passion whether the subject is life in the big city or the more intimate aspects of love and sex.  The first track on "Balance", "City Walls", is a high-energy, passionate, loving anthem to the Gay Apple:  Although "the G word" is never mentioned, the song perfectly captures the spirit of  gay pride and self-acceptance better than so many of the other tracks that we've adopted as gay pride classics: "I’ve learned to relax here, I don’t question who I am.  I love who I chose to love, and no one seems to care; I have many friends here, the most common thread we share; We left our past behind, To find ourselves living somewhere".  Track 2, "The Right Thing", uses Grimaldi's voice to perfect effect with a mellow, soft, feverishly romantic track that evokes the funk-and-soul smooth grooves of the '70's (Think Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" or Barry White's "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe").  To put it another way, it's a perfect bedroom song.   Other love songs on the CD  ("One Night Kiss", "Blueprint") utilize that same romanticism yet experiment with different musical styles. 

      Aside from Frank's voice and his intensely personal lyrics (more about that later..), the 14 tracks on "Balance" can't be classified into a single genre.  Touches of many musical styles exist on the CD.  Grimaldi describes  his music as "alternative pop", and he counts  Bowie, The Beatles, Robert Plant, and U2 as influences. Frank has said, "'Blueprint' is definitely 'alternative', and 'Everywhere I Go' is more 'New-Agey'."   "Bad Habits" is described by Frank as "a blues song that I decided to "funk up' a little."  He does this courtesy of some musical creative touches and some bold lyrics: "I met him in the men’s room, He spot me for the blow; He said, 'Bro you owe me interest'; How was I to know?   My mind was on over-drive, I could not even think; It had been 3 long days, and I hadn’t slept a wink... Bad habits, give me false sense of pride; (and) I will be paying for this, until the day I die."  While the subject matter is unambiguous, many listeners will may see the streetwise lyrics of "Bad Habits" as open to interpretation for many other vices, including (but not limited to!) hazardous sexual adventures and getting into bad relationships over and over again.  "Love Is Not the Same (What Am I Doing In This Bed?)" has a reggae sound, and its catchy, upbeat feel makes it an audience favorite when Grimaldi performs the song live.  "Blueprint", which is arguably the most overtly biographical song on the CD, utilizes his background-- a man raised in an Italian-American, female-dominated Brooklyn home-- to create an earnest and moving love song-- a romantic plea for understanding from a potential lover: "Where is the blueprint, that tells me how to live with you?  Where is the blueprint, that tells me what to do?"   Grimaldi puts his own unique spin on "Paris Is a Lonely Town", a Harold Arlen song which appeared in the animated film "Gay Purr-ee".  Although the song is (obviously) about Paris, the loneliness expressed in the lyrics reminded Grimaldi-- and no doubt, many others-- of certain aspects of life in New York, which is why Grimaldi chose to re-work it.  The original "Paris Is A Lonely Town" was written in triplets, but Frank changed it to "four time" and injected some unique musical touches.   The result is a new interpretation of the song that's less torchy showtune and more a modern urban story about alienation in the big city-- whether it's Gay Gotham or Gay Purr-ee.  Grimaldi attributes the music's exceptionally polished sound on "Balance" to Barry Goldstein, credited on the CD with, among other things, "engineering and mixing".  "Barry is a perfectionist." states Grimaldi.  "We went over everything with a fine-tooth comb."   The result is that Frank Grimaldi doesn't waste a single note or lyric on his second CD.  On "One Night Kiss" ("We met on holiday, under a moonlit sky over Montreal; I could feel the summer breeze..."), inspired by a real-life encounter ("He was 19, I was 36..." Grimaldi recalls), so vividly re-creates the scenario which Grimaldi sings of, that for a few minutes the listener really feels like they're in Montreal that night too.

      It doesn't take long to realize that "Balance" is an intensely biographical CD. "But wait...", you may be saying.  "Isn't everything an artist writes 'personal' in some way?"  Well, yes...and, no.  Too many times, up-and-coming artists will choose to put their music's (1) accessibility to the audience, and (2) "commerical" potential, before their own self-expression.   It often takes years of self-discovery and introspection to really write music from the heart.  What Frank has done-- no doubt, thanks in part to the experience of being a performer in New York since the '80's-- is create an intensely personal CD.  A CD which, I might add, that is instantly accessibly to the listener, and worthy of mass commercial success-- if only so-called mainstream radio stations, shall we say, "had the balls."  The message that Frank conveys frequently through his music is that he's too experienced to play the fool, but too young and free-spirited to keep from taking risks-- a theme that is so well-conveyed in Track 11, "Same Mistake".  The CD is not always pretty.  "Incident on Hicks Street" (I Went Away)" recounts a real-life childhood trauma-- and although Frank uses some trippy special effects to mitigate the impact of the subject matter, the meaning is pretty unambiguous... perhaps suggesting that the goal of "Balance" is Frank Grimaldi's personal catharsis as well as to entertain the listener.  Importantly, "Balance" explores the perspective of a guy who came out-- and lived as a NYC gay guy-- in the '80s (Grimaldi will say that he is "one year older than Madonna"!) This is a perspective that, sadly, we don't often hear too much about, at least music-wise.  Grimaldi states that the majority of "Balance" was written between 2000 to 2002, and was inspired partially by the events on by September 11th as well and partially by the loss of many of the parental figures in his life.  "When the people around you start dying, then you start to think about your own life."  A real treat comes with "Faggotry Personified", with rap segments by JGWMC (Jewish Gay White MC) soce the elemental wizard.  Frank's bold but mannered style, and soce's infamous in-your-face persona form an interesting contrast for any listener who believes that the gay community should "take back" the F-word (The other F-word...) Yet, although they have different musical styles, these guys are similar in at least one aspect: You won't catch either Frank Grimaldi or soce singing pretty little "coming out" songs or generic, pre-fab pop tunes with ambiguous pronouns. This is gay music with no apologies!

Jed Ryan
PMEntertainment Magazine
www.JedRyan.com

 

 

Frank Grimaldi • Balance • self-released • An honest and telling collection of songs are displayed on this release. Grimaldi uses his baritone voice to sound a lot like Elvis Costello and David Bowie over an array of sounds which range from new-wave lounge and ballads, to jazz-funk and rock. His manner comes off confident, yet insecure at the same time on tracks like "Bad Habits" and "Faggotry Personified," where Grimaldi confesses his most personal secrets with a more insistent approach. The music helps keep this album from tiring out too quickly, but in the end leaves only a handful of songs to come back to. (J.C. Carnahan)

http://www.impactpress.com/articles/spring05/musicrspring05.html

 

 

Luna Kafé record review
coverpic flag US - New York - Full Moon 105 - 04/24/05

Frank Grimaldi
Balance
Empathic Records

Frank Grimaldi is an intelligent and poetic songwriter and his music has many faces. "The Right thing" has a relaxed groove and a Bowie-esque lead vocal. Grimaldi has a clear soulboy thing going here.

"Bad Habits" is jazzy and loose and has Grimaldi singing of how we never quite lose our less than sensible habits. "Faggotry personified" weds the personal to the political to a groovy beat. Grimaldi speaks of the clicheés surrounding the image of the gay man as Soce, the elemental wizard raps.

"Love is not the same(what am I doing in this bed)" visits a love affair gone sour. The upbeat reggae stylings of the song make you feel like dancing. Balance is a great record.

Copyright © 2005 Anna Maria Stjärnell

http://www.lunakafe.com

© 2005 FuzzLogic

 

REVIEWS - Walking Backward