Americana/Folk Rock/Grassroots
40 Watt Bulb
Ben Wilinski
Dave Owens
Davis?
Ian Hilmer
James Apollo
Steven Green
Moedell
Alex Clark

HipHop
Toriano Sanzone

Rock/Altnerative/Pop/Punk
Filthy Divine
Moaning Lisa
The Bottlehouse
The Common Place
The Gaskets
Holiday

Jazz/Blues/Avant-garde
1Fish2Fish
Chill 7
City Mouse
Fat Rudy
Lonnie Knight
Skinny Lou Kingston
Solution
Test Type Trio

Comedy
Andrew and Aaron

Comps
Fat City Music Samper
Punk Comp ‘Cheaper than Doing it Yourself’
Tornado Relief CD

Ian Hilmer

The first disc by Ian Hilmer opens with a guy strumming a single chord complaining about, among other things, sitting on the couch too much.

“Look out the window, I stare at the walls, I can’t seem to think of anything at all.”

Oh no, I thought. Shouldn’t he have waited until he had a thought before he began writing songs?

But my, how we elders pre-judge our couch dwellers, for Hilmer’s debut compact disc, “Kicking Time Cross Country” is perhaps the best release yet by the folks at Mankato’s Two-Fish Studios.

Fortunately for the next dozen songs, Hilmer gets off the couch and hits the road, raising dust, enjoying sunsets and escorting plenty of other images along the way.

The bulk of the album’s songs are prime examples of the less-is-more path to success, which in the case of local discs, can be defined as keeping impatient listeners listening.

Acoustic guitars, a touch of vocal harmony and a slide guitar make songs such as “Grey Line Sky” and others far more inviting than one would expect, and it bears comparison to Iowa songwriter Greg Brown’s recent arrangements.

The transition between putting emotion into the written word and translating those emotions via the vocal cords is a tricky one, and on the naked truth of a compact disc, the flaws are always magnified. Hilmer, amazingly, never wavers from an entirely convincing and competent delivery.

Perhaps that’s the secret ingredient here: Despite the fine musicianship he and others portray here (Paul Durenberger’s keyboards and B-3 organ are highlights), the bottom line is whether we’re buying any of this stuff or if another band pooled its money and made a CD because it’s cool to do so.

Hilmer delivers 100 percent, singing with a voice custom-made for the theme he’s chosen of solitary souls whose salvation is just a turn of the ignition away.

When he strays from the basics, he gets intelligently adventurous — “Let Me Down” has the audacity to include horns and results work well. Only when he gets into the upbeat stuff does the mood falter.

The fast-paced, full-band treatment of “Radio Song” sounds a bit too much like it’s trying to be one. The song — jumpy, funky, whatever you want to call it — does evolve into a small bit of admirable rhythm guitar jamming, but this is the type of thing that makes more sense on a stage at full height of a good evening. Here, the song’s effect is ultimately akin to watching a concert on TV rather than being there.

That mild disappointment quickly fades into the disc’s outstanding track “Hate City Rivals,” which could be one horrific parade march with its one-note metronome beat, ominous tone and repeated chant of “shoot, shoot that rebel king down.” Without war-is-hell sentimentality, it features Hilmer’s vocals decrying “A cause with no end to serve forever/temporary madness of a sacrificial lamb,” punctuated by a sing-along chant regarding the rebel king.

And the anti-drug tune “Wired” is just a cruise-control tune for this ride, fitting in with the upbeat, Bo Diddley-meets-calypso beat we’ve heard far too much of from local bands.

A few of Hilmer’s songs do plod along, but more often the mood he sets up through the instrumentation turn any plodding potential into a distinct, dusty mood, and the difference is significant — audible pleasure vs. indifference. Hilmer’s disc is a pleasure.

-Joe Tougas, The Free Press

Ian Hilmer
Kickin' Time Cross Country
1. Swim
2. Grey Line Sky
3. Scared
4. 20 Odd Years
5. Kickin' Time Cross Country
6. Let Me Drive
7. On The Inside
8. Like You
9. Radio Song
10. Hate City Rivals
11. Ashtrays and Chainsaws
12. Wired
13. Then One Day

Management:
info@noalternative.com
729 South 2nd St
Mankato, MN 56001
507-344-8985

Sneak Peak from fall release:
Dig a Hole (mp3)

Ian Hilmer
Live At The Venus Lounge