Album Notes

to call the times in which we now live strange is an understatement
change is always with us
but massive changes are taking place
we are caught up in & being swept along by currents
over which we have little control
the old structures - economic & social - are dying out
slipping away
fading from view
replaced by new ones that we must adjust to

some of us are hopeful
some of us are overwhelmed & lost in desperation
all of us are uncomfortable
pulling back into ourselves like poked sea anemones
retreating to the essence
to what we sense in our hearts & minds is right & real
losing the fat
getting down to bone

that’s just what i am trying to do with this music
rip away preconceived notions
& scrape it down to its marrow
words & rhythm
kick, snare & syllables
hanging time on a line
then wrapping it in sounds of right now
modern & unique

all that is important is to feel life as it happens
show it
own it
knowing only one thing for certain

there’s no going back


chuck perrin april 2009





Down 2 Bone
title track
Sort of reminds me of Michael Penn, this is a great rocker - amazing production, love the synthesizer, love the way the lyrics work against the chording. One of the best songs I've heard in a long time. Superb.
Bart Mendoza - FYI Top 10 June 2009




Troubadour review - Written by Sven-Erik Seaholm August 2009

Chief among Southern California's musical hotspots is Dizzy's in San Diego's historic Gaslamp District. The much respected venue is home to some of the best jazz, pop, and folk concerts around, and its motto, "Where the Music Matters Most," has become nearly as ubiquitous a mark of quality as its founder, Chuck Perrin. Because Perrin spends much of his time supporting the work of other artists, it may be easy to simply think of him as a great club owner and promoter, not realizing that he is also a compelling artist of amazing depth and insight. Down 2 Bone will undoubtedly correct this oversight.
To quote the strikingly beautiful website (www.down2bone.com) that serves as a visual companion to this very fine album, "Down 2 Bone is a concept that features: Cliff Almond: drums, instruments, arrangements; Chuck Perrin: vocals, compositions" and what wonderful songs and arrangements they are.
"Life is a chain of choices / Some are good / Some are not," Perrin sings over an ever-evolving sequence of aural settings that amble from ambient lap steel guitar to retro lounge beat-box to noisy lo-fi acoustic guitar that becomes angelically hi-fi on the closing chord. "The trick is / To keep on choosing / And make the best of what you've got."
Perrin's dusty, simultaneously aching and soothing voice suggests a time-worn wisdom won only through experience. Many of the songs are inhabited by characters who are looking forward, some back over their shoulders...but it all feels like a collectively deeper look inward. An effort to illustrate the very things we all share at the essence of who we are as people and how it all binds us together.
When Perrin sings "A piece of sky to call my own / A crust of land to build a home / Someone to love my whole life through / Tell me please / Is this too much to ask?"Perrin seems to be reciting a wish list for the American Dream, but the next verse reveals even more humanity by suggesting an almost spiritual reach: "To work each day / Do my best / To sleep each night with no regrets / To welcome change so I can grow..."
Just as Perrin's pen paints a narrative landscape for his protagonists to inhabit, so does Cliff Almond on the production side of things. This is a work of extraordinary textural and hypnotic beauty, surrounding and supporting each of these songs with a masterfully balanced mixture of gloss and grit. The incredibly high level of musicality required of Almond to actually pull this all off is matched only by the confidence and courage of Perrin, whose voice is often filtered and altered into a myriad different shapes along the way.
Throughout this fine album, there is a treasure trove of beautiful imagery and human heart soaked through every song...and at the center of every one, an essential truth.