Greenwich Village is for many a living memorial to the artistic greats; its with an air of reverence that one walks down the street and visits the hideouts that served as home to the crop of horrendously talented youths in the 1960s.  One cannot help but be inspired by this atmosphere, and Tim Young is one such man.  Born in Pennsylvania, he moved to the Village in the late 1970s, where he says one ‘could still feel the cool vibes from when Dylan and company ruled on MacDougal Street.’  Further showing his admiration for his idols, he mentions time spent at the Kettle of Fish pub, an old haunt of Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac before him.

Although he has now moved his gigging focus to Mid-town's renowned Hell’s Kitchen, Tim Young’s song writing skills clearly benefited from immersion in the Village’s musical heritage.  His 2002 release, No Stranger, was a well-received instrumental but his real gift seems to be in spinning a yarn or two.  And that’s what he gets to do on 2005’s Red, sixteen songs that dare the listener not to get involved.  His voice is one of his strongest assets, commanding yet empathetic as he invites the listener into his world.  Of course, it does not hurt that his message is backed by skilled musicianship.  Highlights for me include ‘Dreams’ and the NPR featured ‘The Road.'

I won’t lie; at first I was confused that a singer-songwriter was calling himself the Hell’s Kitchen Rock ‘n’ Roll Legend.  But I was forgetting one of rock’s fundamental elements: honesty.  After all, it’s all about laying out your heart and soul and Young clearly does this in every song.  It does not matter how hard you bang the drums, if your hearts not in it, the audience will know.  In this way, Tim Young truly is a rock ‘n’ roll star.
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INDIE ROUND-UP for April 7 2005

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CD: Tim Young, Red

If you pine for the time when people could simply write songs and sing them, not caring whether someone called them rock, pop, folk, blues, country, or psychedelic - if you miss, I suppose, the late 60s and early 70s - you'll particularly appreciate this batch of heartfelt songs from New York City troubador Tim Young. Young's unschooled, urgent vocal delivery and lo-fi aesthetic combined with his solid and energetic guitar playing and fertile creativity places his music at the intersection between urban folk, heartland rock and outsider music.

I mention outsider music because Young's vocals sometimes get so enthusiastic they become what one might call unmusical. But even with his flaws Tim Young is impossible not to like. Many of the songs are well-crafted; all illustrate the human condition in its complicated glory and shame. The title track, for example, uses nearly surrealistic lyrics to say something that seems both unclear and deeply important:

One time I wanted red hair
I wanted it black I wanted it red
I'm alive I'm not dead
Go on get lost see if I care...
I live in the clouds under the cemetery
So dark in here I can hardly see

"Disaster" sums up this dark take on life in more straightforward fashion: "I've done drugs I've gone straight/nothin' ever eased the wait." But in contrast, another track I really like is the love song "Reason."

In his wide thematic variety, Young doesn't always hit the mark; "Torture" sort of is. (Well, it's not a pleasant listen anyway.) But the unlikeable moments on this long, sixteen-song collection are few. If you like this music at all, you won't mind listening to a long CD of it. If you need a sonic reference point, think Eric Burdon or Them, but with a softer, more lyrical side and a touch of country. Really, Tim Young mixes genres until there is no genre, just songs. And while there may not be anything on this disc as catchy as "Gloria" or "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," there's a full hour of meaningful music.
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