There’s a problem with digital music – you don’t get a sleeve to give you a hint that a musician is beings serious or if he is just doing a pastiche. Accordingly, I’m just not sure that Monty The Space Poet – and we are talking the genuine Monty The Space Poet from Chester County, Pennsylvania of course – is attempting to be taken seriously here or he is just attempting a sign of times parody of the socially conscious musican through the ages (or least since the late sixties anyway).
“Richard Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”, for example, sounds like an earnest, if twisted, cross between The Lovin’ Spoonful and The Mamas and The Papas and on “America Rocks” Monty effectively presents the result of a car crash between Bruce Springsteen and the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
However, it’s a tough sell here as nothing in the execution of this EP suggests the kind of care and attention that such a concept would actually need and the end result isn’t exactly pleasant to listen to. Perhaps Monty will become a cult figure due to exposure on the Internet? Stranger things have happened.