Peter Stokes Reviews "Yeah, but is he any good?"

with the Poisoned Squirrels, Boulder, CO (Christy Queenan)

From Acoustic Musician magazine, September 1997-  A fine debut acoustic release from erstwhile avant-noise rocker (and founder of the appropriately named Barftones) Peter Stokes. The songs are of the personal conflicts, soul-searching and observation generally associated with 90s singer-songwriters. However, Stokes manages to avoid the usual pitfalls of hyper-sensitivity that afflict most of the perpetrators of this genre (and their audiences) by coming at the themes from a different angle. For example, while The Greasepit is a tune centrally located in the over-exploited territory of sensitive-guy introspection, he successfully uses his avocation of working on cars as a metaphor and an explanation of how he came to be who he is. Without resorting to diatribe or cliche, he also comes up with a very understated but effective confrontation of religious intolerance with Sometimes. Stokes plays acoustic and electric guitar, bass, percussion and oddly-tuned banjo, and has some help from Pat Brickell on guitar, and Beth Amsel, Lorna Hunt, Marty Humphreys, Jeffrey Hill, Kimmer Macarus, and Maggie Simpson on harmony vocals. Songs From The Pit is a strong, laid-back acoustic CD with a twist. *TO ORDER THIS CD ONLINE, CLICK ON THIS TEXT*