“Rise up out of bedlam, blink the dust out of your eyes and have a little faith in the shaking of the dice.” These are the first words pat mAcdonald sings on “A Haunted Guitar” the opening track from his album The Ragged Jagged Way Back Home. It is his first album since lymphoma invited two years of cancer treatments into his life.
The nine songs, written and recorded in order, are also the sound of a man learning how to write songs, play guitar and engineer the recordings. On each successive tune the listener hears mAcdonald re-learning what he had spent his life doing. It is the sound of a person looking onto the abyss and flipping it the bird.
Yet at the same time, mAcdonald is sincerely aware of his gift. He doesn’t take this second chance lightly. The opening cut is a reference to the guitar he played, previously owned by his late brother Bill. The simplistic strumming is a more than just a marker where he plans to go. “River Bottom” is a laundry list of everything to which mAcdonald is waving goodbye: from his vanity and vindictiveness to his television and the whole damned internet; from that whiskey bottle to the oxycontin.
It may not be a stretch to characterize this album as redemptive. For listeners who only know mAcdonald from the hit song “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades,” consider this an invite to seek out his fine (if slim) discography that predates Timbuk 3. Add to that a half dozen solo albums (including an album of Depeche Mode covers) and projects with Purgatory Hill (including former Milwaukeean melaniejane) and Sons of Crack Daniels (with Eric McFadden). Here is hoping for many more.
