One Giant EStep Back

By Beth Winegarner

In the darkly-lit coffeehouse scene of New York City, a small band of writers emerged from the late-night poetry slams and wide-eyed caffeine dreams. A few of them appeared on one of the few things MTV ever got right, an "Unplugged" special featuring powerful spoken-word performances that brought to mind the heyday of the Beats. One, with tangled black hair, feral eyes and rubbery biceps stepped to the microphone: Maggie Estep. Loudmouthed, foul, clever and brutally honest, she backed her boyfriend-slagging poem with roughed-out rock 'n' roll.

She even managed to upstage onetime punk Henry Rollins.

Since then, Estep has released her first book, Diary of an Emotional Idiot and a spoken-word album called No More Mister Nice Girl. Her vision and work has been consistently fresh, funny, revealing and sharp. That's what makes her latest CD, Love is a Dog From Hell, such a disappointment. Although it has a few great moments, much of Estep's performance is tepid, lame and annoying. She's capable of much better.

The album opens with "Master of Lunacy," a sing-song chant about Estep's latest scheme: chaining her ex-boyfriend down so he'll never be able to date again. The churning music, tinged with demented chimes, adds tension as the story develops to the point where its narrator is standing over the chained man's bed, asking, "Who is the master of lunacy?/ Is it you? Is it me?" But then the tale takes an unpredictable turn when he wakes and says: "God, I've been waiting an awful long time for you to do something like this/ I just wanted to be sure you really loved me through and through/ And I think this act proves to me your devotion and sincerity." The chorus cleverly takes on an entirely new meaning.

Unfortunately, the drawback of the opening track is that it's a retread of Emotional Idiot. The second track is "I'm An Emotional Idiot," detailing the back-and-forth emotions of someone who can't form a healthy romantic relationship. That these pieces are so self-referential suggests Estep's well of creativity might be running dry.

Other tracks rank high on the annoyance scale, such as the floating, sing-song chant of "Gum" or "How to Get Free Hamburgers," a rumination on the starving-artist syndrome which would work better as a scathing critique of one's agent; instead it's a roaming, irrelevant rant. Estep refers again to previous work not only in "Hamburgers" but "Stalk Me," where she sarcastically dares listeners to make her life a living hell. "I once wrote a poem called 'Fuck Me,' so stalk me," she says. "Oh, sure, I'll shack up with you/ I love stalkers, especially when they hate me/ But you knew that/ That's why you stalk me."

Estep has included a few little guest cameos here, most of which are (unsurprisingly) about her. She has guitarist Pat Place imitating a conservative old bat criticizing Estep in "Mrs. McCormick," for instance, and a young boy trying to say "Maggie's sick" in "Miles Howard Chandler." In "Portnoy's Complaint," friend and comedian Mike Portnoy reads from his childhood psychological evaluation; it's mildly funny, but purposeless on Love -- even though the album seems to lack purpose anyway.

I did say there are some great tracks here, and there are. In "Fireater," she sings (singing isn't exactly the right word; Estep's voice is unremarkable, but she can carry a tune) a ballady piece about identifying with the folks in the freak show at Coney Island. "I wanna watch the fireater/ I wanna know where he puts it," she intones. Here, the hushed rhythms shushing past in the background add subtle, almost vulnerable drama to the piece.

Estep turns wildly positive for once on "(Writer Guy) I Want Mangos," sounding like something out of a SARK! poster: "I want to go out in trousers/ I want a tidal wave of blue... I want mangos/ I want to jump out of my skin," she calls out. Behind her, guitars rise and crash, sounding a bit like a Cracker riff. It's exhilarating, except for the hackneyed, self-gratifying chorus: "Gimme gimme yeah trucks of love/ Gimme gimme yeah yeah gimme what I need."

Love is a Dog From Hell was meant to be a great disc, a work that would bring Estep miles closer to stardom. Its well-produced, slick feel has the desire for breakthrough written all over it. But even the references to past masters -- such as the breathy, cramped cover of Lou Reed's "Vicious," the title of "Welcome to the Monkeyhouse" taken from Kurt Vonnegut or the album title itself, named after a poem by the late Charles Bukowski -- shows a lack of originality.

It's obvious Estep is subverting her potential here, performing half- assed retreads rather than giving us the real thing. Her Poetry- Goddess past and poetry-slam roots deserve better.

This article was originally published in Addicted to Noise.