alt-rockers Foals headline the Shrine Expo Hall behind their new double album, “Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost,” (a good reminder). (This review was originally published at Hard Rock Nights.Laura Peters of Psychic Love (Photo courtesy of the Echo/Spaceland)

Mark Camp: bass guitar on “Good Enough”.Rich McCulley: guitar on “I’m Gonna Fly”.Todd Herfindal: guitar on “I’m Gonna Fly”.Matt MacKelvie: background vocals on “Waiting For Love” and Guitar Solo on “Someday I’m Gonna Be Famous”.Michael Cox: keyboards on “So Happy I’m Cryin”.Timothy Drury: keyboards on “Waiting For Love”.Tommy Rickard: drums on “I’m Gonna Fly”, More Than I”, Streetlights Burning”.Steven Walker: drums on “Good Enough” and “Unlucky At Love”.Pat Leon: drums on “Reaching For The Stars”, “What About You”, “I’ll Bet It Hurts”, “Better Than Goodbye”, “Someday I’m Gonna Be Famous”.Tommy “Mugs” Cain: drums on “So Happy I’m Cryin” and “Waiting for Love”.Brett Walker: lead vocals, background vocals, acoustic, slide, electric, and bass guitars, keyboards.You can check out “Straight Jacket Vacation” and buy it at CD Baby. Still, he was an accomplished musician and a skilled songwriter who leaves behind a solid body of work, including this album.įind out more about Brett Walker on Facebook. Brett Walker never attained the kind of big-time (and double-edged) rock-star fame he sings so eloquently about in the final track, “Someday I’m Gonna Be Famous”: “maybe I’ll end up crazy, or maybe I’ll end up sane, or maybe I’ll end up just like Kurt Cobain / In the meantime this song is all I’ve got to give, I’m just buying time ’till I make it big”. “Straight Jacket Vacation” isn’t the most original album ever, but it’s heartfelt, well-crafted and has a warmth that feels genuine. My two favorite tunes here are “Waiting For Love”, a song that Walker wrote for Canadian AOR-band Alias back in 1991, though it’s been stripped down and redone here (and improved, I think) and the edgy modern rocker “I’m Gonna Fly”, with a darker and harder rocking feel than the rest of the album. Other highlights include the album’s opening track, “Reaching For The Stars”, an upbeat and uplifting tune that is followed by the tender “What About You”, a track that glows with Walker’s vocals, and conveys a sense of real love and longing: “have you ever walked away from something true?” There’s a lot of sweetness and light in the music, and while some of the tracks feel a bit bland and by-the-numbers, the good ones – like the catchy “Better Than Goodbye” and the wistful, Beatles-shaded “Good Enough” – really shine. It’s uniformly excellent with a rich, earthy tone, and he sings with an honest, sincere feeling that gives the tunes an intimate vibe and charm. The strongest part of the music is Walker’s voice. Regardless, “Straight Jacket Vacation” is a good, solid album with wisps of various influences floating through it: The Eagles, The Beatles, Bryan Adams… The music is mostly Americana- and AOR-flavored soft-rock tunes: often catchy, sometimes breezy, usually with a laid-back and hopeful undercurrent. Knowing Walker’s fate adds a deeper, darker shade of meaning to snippets of lyrics like “I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to tell you” (on “What About You”) that might otherwise have just passed me by unnoticed. Listening to and reviewing an album released posthumously does feel a little bit strange, and yes, it does affect the experience. As a song-writer, Walker also collaborated with bands like Survivor and Alias, and artists like Journey’s Jonathan Cain. Even if Walker’s name might seem unfamiliar to you, chances are you’ve heard his music anyway: it’s been featured on a multitude of TV-shows, including One Life To Live, All My Children, One Tree Hill, Felicity, Malcolm in the Middle, Baywatch, and Sex and the City. He was 51 and died unexpectedly in his sleep. Musician, singer, song-writer, and record producer Brett Walker died in July 2013, only a few days after he finished recording “Straight Jacket Vacation”, his second solo album.

Brett walker acoustic