Honeyhoney: Hurting/healing music
The proof of a perfect album may be how often a person can repeatedly listen to it without starting to hate it. If so Honeyhoney’s First Rodeo is beyond perfect. I’ve listened to it a million times in the last two years, and it’s still fresh and bracing as a shot of tequila.
Honeyhoney is a partnership between Suzanne Santo and Ben Jaffe. First Rodeo is their first album. It was released in late 2008 (which makes it just about time for their second album — come on guys!).
Check out the video for their song Little Toy Gun. It will probably sell you instantly (don’t be distracted by the flashes of Kiefer Sutherland; he directed it):
Here’s my justification for why this album is my fave thing EVER:
Singer Suzanne Santo is glorious
Her voice voice is like clotted cream and sandpapered velvet. She works the raw emotion with sincerity, but there’s always a hint of humor lurking behind it — especially when singing lyrics about consorting with elderly sex workers.
She also posts You Tube videos interviewing her cat. Adorable.
Ben Jaffe is rather glorious himself
I’m a sucker for jangling guitars, and he’s got all that going on. But he’s also got his ego under control enough to write really restrained songs with spare, moody instrumentation.
They write fantastic songs together
Technically, I guess this is pop music, but some songs verge into alt-country territory and jazzy blues-ish-ness. Much of the music sounds like a cross between the title music from Deadwood and Nancy Sinatra.
The lyrics are terrific too
Their lyrics are great poetry: evocative and emotional, evoking all the hurt and yearning that is so painful to feel but heavenly to sing about. These are sing-along lyrics. You can wail them when you’re feeling down and the rents in your soul will close up just a bit.
Here’s a taste of some lyrics from Sugarcane:
Your eyes were red
Mine painted black
A thin blue dress
Slit down my back.
You held me close
And you cry cry cried
‘Cause we both knew I wasn’t coming back.
I’m salivating for them to come out with a new album, and keep checking their website for the news. In the meantime, I’ll just have to listen to First Rodeo a few more zillion times.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
I will look into them… Mmmmmmusic!
I hope you like it. It’s good stuff!
kinda average. Sounds like a sped up version of “the Way” by FASTBALL. If anything, the video makes me a fan of Sutherland. Go Kiefer!
Well, YMMV Mike. It’s in the same key but otherwise it doesn’t sound at all like an elderly, one-hit-wonder AM radio tune to me.