CD Review
Tom Shillue: Halfway There
4 stars (out of 5)
Tom Shillue presents monologues of childhood and family with a tone that is confident and controlled. Often following the tribulations of his much younger self, we join the speaker in a ghost-like shadowing of the simpler years, receiving intimate briefings of his puppy love M.O.’s and high school survival tactics, his unspoken pacts with siblings and the neighborhood kids’ mythologizing of his father. Three irony rich tracks comprise Halfway There, the latest installment in Shillue’s one-album-a-month marathon which began with Better, Stronger, Faster in November 2012.
Shillue recites his work at a determined pace with less audience adjustment and variable than most presentations…the comfortable listening experience feels more like a Moth story than traditional standup, and indeed Shillue embraces this distinction with his extremely popular NYC show, Funny Story, and a podcast by the same title which is available at TomShillue.com along with all of his album releases.(Only $1.99 each!)
Shillue’s tone is nearly hypnotic, the sensation of expert storytelling that is both sedating and invigorating, a rest and a wake-up call, reassuring but also a boot in the ass and a kick from the nest. One could sense the heightened state of the crowd, eager to laugh but also hushed to some safe place where memory is apt and reachable.
Three tracks stand alone on the CD, with no real notable intro or exit. Perhaps, this method of simply plopping them in front of a listener contributes to the possibility of releasing 12 albums in as many months, but it also seems to highlight a stark difference between Shillue and conventional standup – these are not aggressive pieces, they give the listener power in drawing conclusions.
Shillue pays homage to the past, in all of its idiosyncratic, long gone peculiarities, but he does not impose as to forwardly speculate what it’s made of us.
