Ed Askew's "Little Eyes" should've launched a career. At the very least it should've launched a massive cult following and astronomical eBay bidding wars, maybe a passing mention in one of those old San Francisco Rolling Stones. "Little Eyes" sounds like Bob Dylan, and not Blood on the Tracks Dylan, but blush-faced Freewheelin' Dylan*.* Which can't be, of course, but it's a nice thought to have during the opening moments of an album.
All that minor fame couldn't have been either, as Little Eyes languished unissued after Askew put it to tape in 1970 up until De Stijl drug it up. This is not entirely surprising: Askew's debut, re-released in 2005 as Ask the Unicorn, was an obscure record on the obscure (now revered) ESP-Disk label. It is difficult even to confirm if Askew was Ed's given name or a cute label befitting his appearance and sound. Still, with his ESP-Disk flailing, Askew sat down to "capture his live sound," a hilarious put-on given that Unicorn didn't exactly sound like a Phil Spector joint.
The Dylan parallels are superficial and obvious; Askew's high-tenor sounds like yarn looks and he works on the trebly tiple-- ten-stringed (sometimes twelve) national instrument of Colombia-- that sounds a lot like a poorly recorded acoustic guitar bleating knotty rhythms. There is a harmonica. Unlike many artists to whom the tag is applied, Askew's sound actually fits in pretty well with the "freak folk" sound and aesthetic, or at least he looks better there than in "next Dylan" fatigues. Little Eyes accrues a vaguely psychedelic sheen both through Askew's lyrical fascinations-- cosmos, nature, things phantasmagorical-- as well as through tonal slurring: remember the last time you listened to an album with no bass tones of substance, how the whinnies and pitters suck and distort.
Surprisingly, Askew's best when he forces this issue, partly because his attempts at standard folk/blues constructs-- "Waiting in the Station", "My Love is a Red, Red Rose"-- make him sound either unnecessary or amateurish. So it's the narrow, strangulated sounds of "The Face of Fire" or "Oh, All the Gold and Green Eyes" where Askew excels. On "Old Mother Moon", the only track to noticeably feature any instrument other than a tiple or a harmonica (Askew plays a piano), Askew sputters his words with weird accents and in unconnected patterns, such that it sort of sounds like someone trying valiantly to turn the Velvet Underground's "The Murder Mystery" into music for a doctor's office. The title track, as smitten as Askew ever seems, alternates simple harp with prim romantic verse: "Ohhhhhh what have I/ I see you/ In the sun/ But the sun never sets and the moon never shines/ Little eyes."
The six live tracks added to the end of Little Eyes-- only "Red Rose" is repeated-- are a nice bonus and mostly indistinguishable from the "studio" material, much of which was reportedly recorded in one take anyway. Sixteen tracks, though, of a folksinger who neither frightens nor soothes, who's never angry and only a little in love, chafes. Askew plays a tiple and sounds a little bit like Bob Dylan, and for three in a half decades people all but forgot he existed; "Little Eyes" is the loveliest of songs, its creator a fanciful what-if.
