It is well known to those who know me that I LOVE the Mother Hips. So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that I’m all over Tim Bluhm’s solo work as well. “House of Bluhm” is a marvelous solo record from the Hips’ guitar slinging, singing, wandering rock soul man.

Tim Bluhm
“Spooked Cat Blues” (mp3)
from “House of Bluhm”
(reapandsow, Inc.)

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Let me count the ways! In the 1990′s post-Nirvana grunge-fest, when everyone and their monkey had a grunge band and a demo tape and a junk habit they’d like to be interviewed about, there were still sincere bands driving coast to coast rocking the music they loved, even as the record industry took a swan dive into the toilet. The Mother Hips was one such band. Creative integrity is a given for them, not a product of a band meeting or a marketing strategy, but something that flows from them like blood from an open vein.

The Mother Hips
“Time We Had” (mp3)
from “Kiss The Crystal Flake”
(Camera Records)

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I’ll never forget how the ‘Hips walked on stage the first time I saw them. They had a quiet reverence about them, slithering into a little improv as they warmed up the stage and the crowd, deceiving me for a minute that they were, well, a hippy jam band! But no, jam bands don’t write songs like this, full of hooks you want to hear again, eargasmic vocal arrangements you want to sing, and diamond sharp Beatle-esque bridges. Play the record. If you’re not in a convertible with the top down on a sunny Highway 1 in Cali, you just might think you are!