Collector of Cactus Echo Bags

Band: The Lonesome Organist
Album: Collector of Cactus Echo Bags
Best song: "The Lonesome Organist Theme" is great.
Worst song: All the songs are pretty short -- the longest is two and a half minutes -- so, even if you don't like it, you'll like the next one.

I don't remember which show Jeremy Jacobsen I saw open up, but I do remember the exact reaction I had when I saw him as the opening act: "Wow, this is totally awesome and totally unnecessary."



The Lonesome Organist is the side project of Jacobsen, keyboard player for 5ive Style. It is entertainment at its most vaudevillian. Seeing it for the first time -- I've seen Lonesome Organist thrice -- was a revelation. This straggly-looking dude strapped a guitar on, sitting next to a series of keyboards and a drum set. This it wasn't.

After the second time I saw Jacobsen's act, I bought Collector of Cactus Echo Bags at the local record store. Needless to say, it's a different experience. It's not bad, per se. It's just not much of anything. The songs range from silly circus music ("The Wind Up Bird") to bluesy, fake-JSBX-style rambling ("The End of the Road"). Clocking in at just under a minute twenty, "The Lonsome Organist Theme" is the album's highlight, as Jacobsen plays a reverb-y guitar while dancing around the organ keys and singing that he is, indeed, the lonesome organist.

I have no idea if Jacobsen is still trotting the Lonesome Organist thing around. I hope he is. It's worth seeing. Great live gimmick, just OK album.