Hedging my bets
I don’t believe you’re a crook
But this ain’t my first rodeo
That’s the oldest trick in the book
Brian Michael Henry has always carried himself like a man who wandered out of a downtown piano bar with a head full of pulp paperbacks and a pocket full of strange phone numbers, and his latest EP, Hustler, feels like the notebook he dropped on the sidewalk sometime after midnight. Five songs, five little dossiers on desire, decay, and dicey situations.
Musically, Henry keeps one foot in classic songwriting and the other in a pile of synthesizers that hum like old appliances. The piano still knows how to carry a tune, the guitars lean in at the right moments, and his baritone moves through it all with the calm of someone who has already seen how this story ends. He’s pulling from Lou Reed, Magnetic Fields, a little Jim Steinman drama, a hint of OMD gloss. It feels like a late shift, and you’d best bet he’s clocked in with some spicy reading material.
Photo: Alice Teeple (at the Hotel Chelsea)
“I read Jean Genet’s The Thief’s Journal last year, and it got me to write the title song,” says Henry. You can hear that book breathing all over Hustler. The title track follows a figure who never stays still long enough to be pinned down, living on charm, paperwork, and the practiced art of keeping one foot out the door. There’s affection in the gaze, but also a shrug, as if love were something you could file away under “pending” and revisit when the cops stop circling the block.
Faster, sparked by Jackson Pollock’s spectacularly ill-advised final drive, barrels forward with a grin that’s just a little too wide to be trusted. It plays like a convertible with a stuck accelerator, summer air whipping through while someone in the passenger seat tries to turn heartbreak into a punchline. You can almost see the headlights stretching out into forever, which is usually a sign that forever is about to end.
Then Henry strands himself in My House, a song born in some snow-choked corner of Illinois where even the furniture seems to have opinions. The place creaks, stomps, and remembers things nobody bothered to write down. It’s domestic life turned hostile, where the dog won’t come inside and the stairs sound like they’re carrying someone who forgot to leave. You get the sense that the house isn’t haunted so much as irritated, which might be worse.
My Book arrives with Henry’s own confession: “He came back to my place. He was so hot. But when we got down to it, I discovered that he had a fetish for being neglected.” The situation escalates into something both absurd and oddly tender, the kind of encounter that makes you question whether desire is a straight line or a series of detours through increasingly strange neighborhoods. Henry tries, fails, and reports back with a shrug that doubles as a punchline.
By the time we reach The Oldest Trick, the romance has turned transactional, though nobody seems particularly upset about it. “It’s about a John who has a really sweet relationship with his hustlers. At least I think it is,” Henry says, and that uncertainty is half the charm. Money changes hands, illusions get negotiated, and somewhere in there, you catch a glimpse of something like sincerity, blinking in the fluorescent light.
Hustler is brief, a little crooked, and full of characters you wouldn’t necessarily trust with your wallet, but you might follow them anyway, just to see where they end up.
Listen to Hustler below and order the EP here.
Hustler (EP) by Brian Michael Henry
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The post “This Ain’t My First Rodeo” — Brian Michael Henry Pays Homage to Jean Genet and More With “Hustler” EP appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
