Elliot Schneider - Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basketcase (2017)

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Written by Pamela Bellmore, posted by blog admin

Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basketcase ranks among the more creative albums in a singer/songwriter vein released in recent memory and Elliot Schneider’s seemingly effortless mastery of the form isn’t particularly surprising. Schneider’s musical and life education are inexorably dovetailed into one another and from a youthful encounter with Les Paul in the early 1970’s that nearly led to Paul producing Schneider, Schneider’s later appearances in iconic views and slots like debuting at historic New York City punk/New Wave venue CBGB’s on a Saturday night (a rare distinction only shared by the likes of Patti Smith, Television, and others), and a decision to later step away from the world of popular music in favor of a teaching career. Health scares and retirement from teaching inspired Schneider, in part, to resume the musical career he left behind long before and his four release shows that his talents never laid fallow during the years he spent teaching – he kept growing, developing, and has some claim to being one of the more interesting songwriters working together.

Experienced listeners will know they are in for something special the first time they hear “The Moon Has Flown Away”. The relaxed and buoyant guitar work chimes in over a lightly propulsive percussion track – it strikes a hopeful air that cuts against the darker implications of the lyric. Schneider excels as a writer for the first of many times on Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basketcase. There’s a light poetic veneer laid over this song that never risks cheapening its impact that works well with the musical arrangement. There’s a lot to admire about “Diehard Killjoy” and the lyric certainly draws some blood while still showing off some charisma and humor, but the arrangement never really grabs you like one might hope or expect it to. “Captain Argent” is another of those relaxed, guitar driven numbers with just the right spaces between the notes and a strong enough bottom end that gives the song some additional gravitas. Schneider has a talent for balladry coming through on tracks like “In a Sense Innocence” that never deserts the quirkiness defining many of his lyrical inventions. It has a strong electrified folk vibe and ethereally slanted multi-part harmonies that sweeten any rough edges.

“Overruling Neo-Fascists” brings social criticism together with another of his invocations of a classic rock sound. He does this sort of pose with such stylish regard, never pushing things in a crass way, and the players show taste in how the music is orchestrated. There’s a surprising amount of punky attitude coming into the song as well that Schneider gets over quite believably. Another of the album’s more vulnerable moments comes with the penultimate tune “First Day of Summer”, the second of the album’s more ballad-geared material. The presence of backing vocals isn’t quite as heavy as what we hear in the earlier “In a Sense Innocence”, but it brings a lot to the performance. Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basketcase concludes “I Just Don’t Really Know If You Exist” has suggestions of a ballad, but it comes off as something closer to songs like “Captain Argent”, albeit with a very different lyrical point of view. Elliot Schneider’s new album is a winner from beginning to end and even the addition of some extras, namely old demos and a live recording of Schneider performing with The Pitts, never upsets the balance of this fine recording.