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Bergo '45 Song of the Week #83 - Calvin's Pick for 2/1/15:
http://www.bergo45.com
"Stillborn In New Jersey" by Eldridge Rodriguez from This Conspiracy Against Us (2007)
Midriff Records

"Do you know this guy? It'll only take you two minutes to get acquainted." - Calvin Lewis

This is a weekly dive into the musical mind of Bergo '45. Each week, a new song is chosen by a different member of the band. Check out the playlist to see all of the past selections. Grab a towel and give it a listen....

Eldridge Rodriguez is the songwriting moniker Boston, MA artist Cameron Keiber uses as a catchall for musical projects. His music explores classic themes such as man vs. nature, religion and race, entitlement vs. theft, willful ignorance, aggressive stupidity, forgiveness and redemption in a smart mouthed, sometimes vulgar and irreverent way. His album's tone swings from indie pop to ballad to gospel to noise and beats. It's self described modern blues. The studio and live band consists of Clayton Keiber, Dennis Grabowski and Dave Grabowski.

Keiber is the co-front man and founder of Boston, Ma's The Beatings. He formed the band over a decade ago and continues to play and write with the band. He also runs Midriff Records with his brother Clayton.

In 2011 Eldridge Rodriguez was nominated in the Best Male Vocalist category in The Boston Phoenix's Best Music Poll.

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This Conspiracy Against Us is a bizarrely beautiful record. Eldridge Rodriguez sings like a cross between Nick Cave and Thom Yorke, plays guitar like a rabid Tom Waits, and writes like the working class lovechild of Rivers Cuomo and Jeff Tweedy. Each song on here is downright perfect, from the cutting “Stillborn in New Jersey”, to the spectacularly emotive “Lexington, KY”, to the post-punk “Why I Fear the Ocean”. Despite varying influences from The Fall to The Cure to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to Gang of Four, This Conspiracy… stays coherent all the way through. There are no missteps here. Everything falls into place. The album gets depressive, but it is lush throughout. Rodriguez rises above the throngs of singer/songwriters who stick with happy pop songs and pushes what a singer/songwriter should be with straightforward lyrics and simplistic guitars – and no one else sounds like him. Eldridge Rodriguez is simply too talented to ignore.

- Garrett Lyons, Verbicide Magazine

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