JOE Mannix-WHITE FLAG-BONGO BEAT
Fall & Winter 2003 Issue 57

No, not "that" Joe Mannix, TV buffs! This one is the New York singer/songwriter whose band Mannix released a strong double album of west coast rock, Come To California, in 2001. This solo effort is a horse of a different color, though, combining muted jangly songcraft with the kind of beautiful folk melodies that were floating around Greenwich Village in the mid-60s. On occasion, Mannix sounds like a direct descendant of Phil Ochs, Jackson Browne, and Times The Are-A Changin'-era Dylan ("Everyman"), hitting on a heartfelt populism, replete with mournful harmonica. Other times, as on the subterranean folk-rock of the title cut and the urgency of "Higher Intervention," Mannix delivers a kind of eloquent but forceful spiritual plea. "I'm running out of desperate things to do," he cries in the latter, over a bed of crackling electric guitars. For folk-rock fans, and anyone who appreciates a bit of (nonstrident) social conscience in their rock'n'roll. by Luke Torn