Review Summary: An enjoyable set of songs, which don't quite capture the intimacy of the band's live performances, but still contain enough earnestness and vulnerability to convincingly deliver their message.
I was first introduced to Derek Zanetti’s one-man band The Homeless Gospel Choir when he opened for the more established folk punkers AJJ. I was impressed at his ability to connect with the crowd as he sang protest song after protest song, keeping a pulsating rhythm going on his acoustic guitar throughout. His songs, as is common in folk punk (at least in my contact with the genre), were often personal, sad, and world weary, yet still maintained some degree of beleaguered hope. He was able to criticize the world around him, while still believing deep down that some things can be fixed, that is while cutting out trite cynicism that at some point became all too common under the political-punk-umbrella. Moreover, watching Zanetti on stage was like reconnecting with a friend you’ve lost contact with: you felt like you knew him, even if you hadn’t picked up the phone to give him a call these last few weeks, months, years. Simply put, this was a man who seemingly was made to play music.
At its best, The Homeless Gospel Choir’s 2014 album I Used To Be So Young captures swatches of that intimacy Zanetti was able to create on stage. It’s not without a few weaker moments and aspects, but overall the album is a more-than-solid collection of songs that fits well into the folk punk catalogue.
The album is primarily acoustic guitars and Zanetti’s voice, however electric instrumentation and percussion are often used for accent throughout. I’m not sure exactly how much the extended instrumentation adds, however. The Homeless Gospel Choir’s live act “consists of his voice, his emotions, and his acoustic guitar”—it says as much on their Wikipedia page (I know, I know). This stripped-down setup goes a long way towards creating the neighborly environment of his live performances. The electricity featured in the studio on I Used To Be So Young doesn’t always blend as smoothly as it could. They occasionally round out the songs and make them sound more polished, but I just feel like something gets lost in the translation.
That’s not to say the heavier instruments don’t have their moments too—the occasional pop punk cacophonies certainly have their place on the album. The best example of this may be the second track “Some People.” It’s a relatively standard sounding pop-ish punk song, but it also does an excellent job of setting the tone for the album (and I think it’s no accident that the song with most additional instrumentation features the lyric “there’s only so much music that a one-man band can make”). The message reverberating through the song is simply this: don’t be an asshole, because “everyone is somebody even if they’re told they ain’t.” Theses notions of inclusion and positive regard are omnipresent throughout the album, so it’s fitting that the end of this track marks the first instance of the oft repeated interlude “Jesus Christ didn’t die for you to be an asshole.” This chorus appears several times throughout the album, once every two songs or so, each time in a slightly different musical style and a different accompanying verse to follow. This repetition creates continuity for the album and drives home that this sentiment essentially serves as the album’s thesis statement. The repetition of this line is one of my favorite aspects of this album.
Another standout track is “Musical Preference.” The song starts out as a humorous song about hating Sublime and Mumford and Sons, but eventually it reminds us why we listen to music in the first place and how the music we choose becomes a part of our identities. How the great thing about singing songs is that anyone can do it: “my friends write songs that inspire me/more than some ***ty Starbucks ‘Pick of the Week’/More than some top 40 song that was made to be forgotten.” Your musical preference is like a thumbprint, it’s something unique to you, and yet the acts of discovering, sharing, and making music all connect us in a meaningful way. (Unless you listen to GG Allin, of course).
Especially towards the end, the album starts to seem heavy handed. “Black Friday” and “Holiday Song” aren’t bad songs, but they come across as less personal than the rest of the album. They address meaningful issues, but they feel a tad preachy, and are ultimately somewhat more stereotypical within the folk punk genre than the earlier tracks. It seems Zanetti is very much aware of this, however. He states as much in “Capitalismo,” the albums closer: “The songs that I’m singin’ ain’t easy to hear/So tell all your children to cover their ears.” Even if the delivery is somewhat sermonizing (which may even be fitting, given the recurrence of the “Jesus Christ” line mentioned above), these are messages that we need to hear, that we need to make ourselves think about.
All in all, this is a tight collection of songs, written with care, and performed by a voice that is no doubt whiny, but is even more clearly passionate. There’s not lyric on the album that’s sung in a way indicates that Zanetti doesn’t mean what he says, and that earnestness is enticing and refreshing. The voice on I Used To Be So Young is at times sad, at times funny, and often frustrated, but it’s that earnestness and vulnerability throughout that makes us come back. You should consider checking the album out, but whether you like it or not, if you notice that The Homeless Gospel Choir is playing show in your town, buy yourself a ticket.
