Young Man - Boy EP

Young Man
Boy EP
Frenchkiss; 2010

Guest Con­trib­u­tor: Michael Dal­las Miller

Few things in rock and roll are more fas­ci­nat­ing than the idea and process behind cre­at­ing The Bed­room Album. Some­how more redeem­ing than The Rehab Album. More hon­est than any Returning-​To-​Humble-​Roots Albums and more grip­ping than Epic Albums. Young Man (whose real name is Colin Caulfield) accom­plished his first short col­lec­tion of spare and sprawl­ing tunes sur­rounded by four walls, used-​bookstore copies of Eng­lish and French lit­er­a­ture, and with the Chicago sky­line as his con­stant back­drop.

The Boy EP is his bed­room album, and like all other Bed­room Albums, it marks a begin­ning; it sets the tra­jec­tory. And, if this writer has any­thing to say about it, this guy’s rocket ship of easy-​going, smooth-​flowing tunes is head­ing to the Planet of High Qual­ity Music. This EP stands is the per­fect exam­ple of how tal­ent will grow and thrive in today’s music indus­try – a music indus­try nearly com­pletely in the car­ing hands of the Nap­ster generation.

The mop-​topped Caulfield, as the story’s been told, was dis­cov­ered through a Youtube video by Deer­hunter front­man, Brad­ford Cox. Caulfield was singing “Rain­wa­ter Cas­sette Exchange,” and Cox declared that it was bet­ter than his orig­i­nal. What makes our gen­er­a­tion of music so incred­i­ble is its per­fect jus­tice and democ­racy. Any­one can be dis­cov­ered on Youtube (think of any num­ber of lit­tle kids play­ing “Johnny B. Goode” or ukulele cov­ers of Jason Mraz), but our artists still must be cho­sen; you still must cre­ate some­thing worthwhile.

Boy is car­ried from minute one to the final note by Caulfield’s high-​range vocals and sweet deliver. What makes the EP nearly per­fect is how he employs the even sweeter hooks and melodies. Opener “Five” estab­lishes the at-​home sound qual­ity and such a time­less swing, you’d hardly believe it wasn’t made by some sun-​dried pop group from 1968. Similarily,“Up So Fast” is a pitch-​perfect clos­ing track and punc­tu­ates each song before it with a humble “!”.

These are easy-​to-​follow tunes, with easy-​to-​grip song and nar­ra­tive struc­tures. But that does not make them imma­ture or sim­plis­tic. Songs like “Play­time” and “Home Alone” float in your mind and seem to shift in mean­ing and weight depend­ing on when and where you lis­ten. They were built with room to expand, to grow with the lis­tener. Caulfield takes the enor­mous theme of Grow­ing Up, rings it out, and drips the essence of youth, youth­ful­ness, youth­ful angst and youth­ful joy into seven well-​crafted pop tunes. The matu­rity of Boy is not in its bold­ness, but the bold sur­ren­der of forc­ing the lis­tener into what can be such an emo­tional cliché.

Caulfields’s future seems bright. He will tour this win­ter in the Mid­west with Lang­horne Slim and oth­ers. And, if this writer has any­thing to say about it, he will tour from New York to Texas in the Spring, open­ing for big­ger and bet­ter groups. He’ll even­tu­ally drive up through Cal­i­for­nia and make it to a small venue near me in the Pacific Northwest.

Young Man may grow up, but his sound will never be senile. He may get hard of hear­ing, but he will never be hard to hear.