Contender

AMG Review of Contender

Alex Henderson
All Music Guide

In the 1990s, rockers and folkies on Manhattan's Lower East Side knew Lach as the booking agent for the Sidewalk Café, an East Greenwich Village hangout that became as important to anti-folk as the Village Vanguard was to jazz. Himself a talented folk-rocker whose influences range from Bob Dylan and Lou Reed to the Clash, Lach entered the studio in 1990 to record the decent, though a bit uneven, Contender. At his best, Lach is a substantial storyteller with an offbeat sense of humor, and he shows how insightful he can be on "The Edie Effect" (which vividly describes the many young Manhattan women yearning for stardom) and his amusing "The John Glenn Song." Lach is often entertaining and thought-provoking, but unfortunately, Contender sometimes suffers from an aloof, hipper-than-thou quality, and there are times when the New Yorker sounds like he's trying too hard to show the world how smart and streetwise he is. But the talent is certainly there, and Contender's best tracks indicated that Lach had the potential to record a truly great album instead of simply a decent one. However, Lach wouldn't record such an album for Gold Castle, which went under in the early '90s and left him without a record deal.