Triage

A slight change of direction here. Often cited as the album of his career, Triage is a rocky ride. The filmic "Secret Silken World" shows off Baerwald as the Charles Bukowski of rock, detailing seedy characters, and features Mr. A of A&M, Herb Alpert, on the equally cinematic trumpet. For "The Got No Shotgun Hydrahead Octopus Blues," well, Baerwald is angry, to the extent he wasn't afraid to issue it as a single! Recorded in 1992 when America was in the grip of grunge and introspection, Baerwald makes an effort to keep up with the times by doing a white man's Public Enemy on "Nobody." Triage differs from previous work in its adoption of samples and even power tools (!!) as instrumentation. "The Waiter Plus AIDS" and "Armageddon" have comical moments in their lyrics, particularly the latter, where Baerwald recounts a lover informing him "...you know you're gonna die," to which he replies "Yeah, but not yet." Fans of Bedtime Stories will be relieved by the inclusion of "China Lake," one of Triage's lighter moments. By this time Baerwald was certainly looking to the future and had hooked up with Bill Bottrell, Dan Schwartz, Kevin Gilbert and Brian MacLeod, who made up part of a group known as the Tuesday Night Music Club. Its frontwoman was Sheryl Crow — but that's another story.