Stuart McLean's fifth album is at once more of the same and different. More of the same in that it offers more of his storytelling monologues centered around the family headed by Dave and Morley, recorded live for CBC Radio at various concerts. Different in that there are fewer and longer stories on this two-CD set, consisting of six monologues that each run from approximately 20 to 25 minutes, totaling up to a nearly two-and-a-half hours altogether. This gives him and listeners the chance to really dig into individual stories, and while the themes, as usual, are built around benign mishaps, the focus is more on the human quirkiness of the characters rather than cheap laughs generated from the incidents themselves. A particular highlight is "Kenny Wong's Practical Jokes," both because it moves the spotlight to a character (Kenny Wong, who owns a restaurant near the record store Dave runs) not previously featured on the Vinyl Cafe series of CDs, and because (unlike all of the other stories on this collection) it doesn't appear in either of McLean's books, Vinyl Cafe Unplugged and Vinyl Cafe Diaries. It's one of the better CD anthologies of McLean's performances and stories.
© Richie Unterberger /TiVo