Listening Guide for Brothers From Other Mothers by Xpress 1) You Can’t Spend Your Money in Hell This is a primarily a blues CD but the first song is not strictly a blues. It’s closer to the style of Dire Straits, the Brit rock group. This song tells a powerful story of how substance abuse and running in the street brings harm to all involved. It is poignant plea to join the struggle to put that life behind. 2) You Only Want To Dance Alone This hard-edged blues opens with a biting, amped harmonica solo. It tells the story of the end of a romance. The metaphor is clear. 3) Ballad of Bernie Madoff First of all, it’s not a ballad, but a sophisticated twelve bar blues with a clever lyric. Acoustic harmonica reflects on the thievery of Bernie Madoff and his transformation from penthouse to prison dweller. 4) Long Tone Blues So who puts an instrumental cut on a blues CD? Xpress. 5) Only For The Memories The jazziest cut on the CD. Only For The Memories features acoustic harmonica solos by Blu and a stellar guitar solo by Dave Myre to support the strong visual images of the lyrics. 6) Taxman (Taxation Blues) No matter your political stripe, everyone can relate to this tale of woe. Everybody gets the blues paying their taxes! The harmonica is drenched in Hammond B3 sounds on this cut. Mid-tempo shuffle. 7) No Right To Sing The Blues Xpress plays a number of original and cover tunes about money. Here’s another original by Blu. It’s about a guy who has more money than he can spend but is still greedy. But what goes around comes around to this mean mistreater. 8) Trouble With a T This is a true story (with embellishments, of course) about a very attractive lady who showed up at a blues jam. She attracted a lot of attention, but she was trouble, for sure. Walking bass line, medium tempo, jazzy feel. 9) 12 Bar Blues What does a very unhappy blues musician do when his baby leaves him? He goes to twelve bars, has a lot to drink and has things happen to him. A fun, up-tempo shuffle tune. 10) Medley: Down From Baltimore and Mystery Train It’s true, Blu heard a train whistle at 4:00 a.m. and got up and wrote a song about it. What to do with this short, mournful blues about the feelings that arose? Put it in a medley with a great, up-tempo, train song! 11) It’s Easy to Keep Going OK, so this isn’t a blues. But the song is fun and has a message. It came about after years of thinking about a statement by a musician whose band was steadily losing steam after the loss of its lead singer. Asked how they kept going despite the difficulties, he responded, “It’s easy to keep going when you’re going downhill.” Finally, Blu figured out how to put it in a song. The verse sounds a little like Country music; the bridge has a jazzy key change and walking bass line. 12) Bonus Track: Hello Out There This slow and rhythmically free solo harmonica piece was conceived by Blu back in his college days as a musical interlude for the William Saroyan play of the same name. The blues harp is processed through an amp and two stomp boxes for a deep and other-worldly sound. We hope you enjoy the music and spread the word that a new band is on the scene. Thank you, Xpress Harmonica Blu, vocals and blues harp Dave Myre, guitar James Cookie Cooke, bass guitar Randy Pittman, drums Please see the CD liner notes for specific info on song composers.