Album Notes

CD review: Dakota Sid and Travers Clifford
By Paul August

“Quietly Raging,” the title of the new CD by Dakota Sid and Travers Clifford, offers a quiet guitar and mandolin as bedrock to lyrics of protest, local history, religion and Americana adventures.
Songs meander through the American landscape: Detroit City, New York, and Tennessee. “Folks out in California…living in the Sierra mountains / got beachfront property.”
Sid sings of cataclysmic fears with a sense of humor. “Nuclear waste all over the place.” Religion is laced with skepticism. “I’m a’praying to you Jesus, even though I don’t believe….sometimes I just need to pray” And he leaves us with his obituary: “Just leave my body on the mountain / feed the bears some grizzled meat.”
Songs reflect various subcultures. “…you tried to kick that biker and got your foot caught in the spokes.” And pose philosophical observations. “We’re never here to pick the crop, we only plant the seed.”
One song is about his “beat up back road car” called “Sally.” But he’s never far from a social comment. “Look at that air so plain to see. / That ain’t the way air used to be.”
There’s a consistent whimsical tone here. “I don’t care much for sushi, or tubs full of folks in birthday suits. / I’d just as soon be howlin’ at the moon in my jeans and cowboy boots.”
The songs are deceptively simple. He follows monosyllable words with a polysyllabic double whammy “…wet boots and underwear. Incriminating evidence.”
His socially conscious similes sparkle with imagery. “….wallowing like a seabird in the Exxon oil spill.”
He sings about his local history. “The Ballad of Wild Bill Ebaugh,” sounds more like a fascinating documentary than a country tune.