RJ SMITH
A 1998 article called “Flying Saucer Rock & Roll” by RJ Smith in the Village Voice said of him: “Thomas Anderson is clearly the greatest unknown songwriter on the planet.” At that point, Anderson had released three albums and a then-recent EP; more albums have followed in the years since that time. Anderson’s unusual approach to his craft reminds me of another UARA from a while back, Jim Sullivan; and it seems like flying saucers came up in the discussion about him also.
Another song mentioned in the Village Voice article, “Song for Up with People” refers to the troupe of earnest clean-cut musicians called Up with People who were (as RJ Smith put it) “folk minstrels of the ’60s who caravanned their vanilla-wafer optimism to the parts of the country terrified by loud guitars”.
(November 2012)
