Album Notes

A man, a plan, a canal: Ethan Lipton.

Picture the scene. It's DUMBO in Brooklyn, which stands for Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass and has nothing to do with the little elephant. You're at a club called LOW, a short flight of art deco stairing below a restaurant called RICE (which doesn't stand for anything, and does in fact serve rice). You're here to see burlesque hula-hoop dancer Miss Saturn, or perhaps the winsome Delirium Tremens, or New York Times fave burlesque tip Julie Atlas Muz.

When the dancers break, a slim tall figure in Frank Zappa mustachios and a dapper suit takes the stage. Some nights he's got a tuxedoed ukelele player in tow, some nights a small jazz combo. Tonight - it's your first time - he's alone. There's a smile and a few warm words, and Ethan begins to sing.

Ethan Lipton is a playwright and a transplanted Los Angeles writer, and the kind of sharp observer who says the sorts of things most people don't. That's good two ways: it's good that most people don't, and it's good that Ethan does. His songs are funny, lurking, brash, sweet, hostile: honest.

That's how it was for us that first night, and the result is "A New Low," Ethan Lipton's debut CD and a limited-edition hand-numbered memento of a benchmark show one sweet summer evening in June of 2003. We hope you'll join us in the memory. This live EP clocks in just shy of 30 minutes long and was professionally recorded in multitrack on the spot at LOW. It's been thoroughly overhauled, mixed, combed, and primped (listen to samples on the left), and it features some of Ethan's regular fan favorites and a couple of rare gems to round out the collection.

Ethan Lipton's songs ask timeless questions: What can possibly fit into that little Tupperware container? Where does a fellow go in the mornings, and why? Is love through binoculars like love in person? What happens when Jedi knights get loose in the general public? Are we close enough to listen to an Ethan Lipton CD together? How about with the lights out? His tender songs are big-brotherly, in that they are confident and wise and when you're not looking they smack you on the back on the head.

These are the kind of songs you hear and then really want to play for your friends. We recommend this.

We're fond of saying that Ethan is like a well-mannered but brash dinner guest toasting Tom Lehrer over aperitifs at Randy Newman's dinner party. If those names don't mean much to you, here's help: Tom Lehrer was a Professor of Mathematics at Harvard and MIT who translated The Wizard of Oz into Latin and spent a chunk of his life singing classic satirical songs ("Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," "The Masochism Tango," "The Vatican Rag" and the "Silent E" song from The Electric Company are just a few). Randy Newman - well, come on, you know Randy Newman. You do. Brilliant, crusty, insightful, expressive, unique, plays piano. Short people got no bodies. That's the one.

"A New Low" is on Home Office Records (of course). The CD is produced by Chuck Garabedian and Linus Gelber, and features Mike Stumm on ukelele, Eben Levy (guitar) and Lem Jay Ignacio (keys) on combo, and Fisherman (djembe and high hat). Ethan Lipton sings and talks.

Ethan Lipton was profiled on the Weekend Edition Saturday show on National Public Radio in January of 1994; more recently his music has been featured on the inimitable Dr. Demento program, and he is teaming up as of winter 2005 with outsider-art soundtracker Zero Boy for a run of monthly shows in New York City at the Belt Theatre.