Tribute albums can be dismal affairs. Often they're comprised of hot "it" artists or middling profile wannabes doing ill-conceived covers of songs better than anything they might write themselves for a variety of wrong-headed reasons. Very few are completely successful outside of a stray track here and there.
William James McAuley III, known to various and sundry as pop visionary Bleu, may just have found the most stylishly acceptable and engagingly entertaining alternate form of the tribute album with his project L.E.O. and the debut album under that banner, Alpacas Orgling. Over the past four years, Bleu has been slowly assembling an album's worth of tracks that sound hauntingly like a new album by Jeff Lynne and the Electric Light Orchestra (hence the L.E.O. moniker, although Bleu says he eventually concluded it could stand for "Little Electric Operas"). It is an astonishing recreation, from the majestic sweep of the opening "Overture/Goodbye Innocence" to the infectious bounce-and-bump of "Ya Had Me Goin'" to the "Do Ya"-colored rock of "Make Me."
"Really, what happened was I had been getting into Jeff Lynne because the new ELO record, Zoom, came out, four or five years ago," says Bostonian Bleu from his newly established L.A. base. "I freaked out over it. I totally loved it. And because of that, I sought out his solo album, Armchair Theater, which is awesome. I obsessed over those two. I had like two or three greatest hits packages but I didn't have any of the individual albums, so I went and bought all of the records and just got into them."
Around the same time, Bleu had just released his debut album, Redhead (which had gotten juice from Bleu's appearance on the first Spider Man soundtrack) and was working with former Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson on his as-yet-unreleased solo album. Wilson related to Bleu a story that he had heard from veteran producer Rick Rubin concerning very specific and consistent studio methods that Lynne has employed in all of his contemporary projects to achieve his singular sound.
"I'm really into producers and idiosyncratic production techniques," says Bleu. "I'm like, 'I've gotta try some of this shit out.' So I thought if I'm going to try some of these techniques I should write Jeff Lynne-y songs as well, and it just grew from there." Even with the uncanny sonic resemblance, Bleu is quick to clarify his intentions with Alpacas Orgling.
"I really strongly believe that this isn't a tribute record," he says. "We really used Jeff Lynne as a jumping off point. But at some point after I had done a couple of these songs - I kept making these songs to try out different little ideas - it took on a life of its own essentially. Obviously from song to song, you can hear that some are much more heavily influenced by Jeff Lynne than others. But also it was just an excuse to pull in a bunch of people that I love and love to work with on this one project. And everybody that I asked to do it was, for the most part, 'Oh yeah, of course.' It was just so fun."
Perhaps more startling than the Lynneisms that Bleu has nailed to perfection on Alpacas Orgling is the stunning Impossible Missions Force of talent he's established to populate the L.E.O. project. Jellyfish mastermind Andy Sturmer, Candy Butcher frontman Mike Viola, Self starter Matt Mahaffey, former Papas Fritas drummer Tony Goddess, Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman, Chicago bassist Jason Scheff and singer/songwriter Paula Kelly, among others, all make appearances in various roles within the L.E.O. collective. Many of them recorded their pieces remotely and sent the chunks to Bleu to assemble at his leisure. The result is an album that is brilliantly conceived, cleverly crafted and simply wrought, whether one is a fan of Lynne's or just a dedicated follower of great pop.
As Bleu prepares for the release of the L.E.O. disc, he remains almost hyperkinetically busy. His move from Boston is still only partially complete, he's finishing production projects for the Snow Leopards and keyboardist Eric Barao (who plays with L.E.O.), and he's shopping a pair of albums recorded almost simultaneously with L.E.O. (a live-in-studio set called The Blizzard of '05 and the pop epic A Watched Pot).
So far, Bleu doesn't think Lynne, who currently lives in L.A., has heard Alpacas Orgling yet, but he has several six-degree connections to him through the West Coast music community and he figures it's just a matter of time before he does and he hopes that he accepts it in the spirit that it's presented. Says Bleu, "I'd love a chance to meet Jeff Lynne...Maybe he'll let me floss with his pubic hair or something (laughs). They say he likes to party, so who knows?"
~Brian Baker
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L.E.O.'s album Alpacas Orgling is out now on Cheap Lullaby Records.
http://www.cheaplullaby.com
