The Ishmaelites
“Comin’ Home to Indiana”
Weirdo Records
(Cambridge, Mass.)
Rating: 1 (of 4)
What hath Sufjan Stevens wrought? The success of his pop histories of Michigan and Illinois has apparently encouraged a history buff in New England to write an annoying, though accurate, study of the nomadic Ishmaelites. Why would Hoosiers care? Because an early 1800s band of the ill-regarded gypsy-like storytellers and town entertainers located near the triangle of Morocco, Mecca (in Indiana) and Mahomet (Illinois). Over sparse bluegrass, country and folk, lead singer Ishi Ishmael (Fake name= commitment questioned) rolls his deep, trailboss-at-the-campfire vocal rapidly through a history of the tribe and its impact on Indiana and the nation, including influences on Booth Tarkington, Eugene Debs and Mary Alice Smith. Ishi, though, is as dull as the song titles: “James Whitcomb Riley,” “Herman Melville” and “The Sterilization Law of Indiana.” (He lacks Stevens’ whimsy). But “Comin’ Home” is not without its bite; in fact, the lyrics are almost too hip: “The Ishmaelite Triangle pointed north to Michael Jackson’s Gary, Indiana/Born atop Harmony Mountain, North Star got the transmits/and it doesn’t matter if he’s black, white or red/Before his trial, he got Mahomet/and Fruit of Islam security; no more being a witness of Jehovah.” I sense we’re listening to a Cambridge college kid singing his way through a history essay for finals. He’ll graduate but the class is asleep. I wish Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter would don their “Bill and Ted” roles one more time and show how history can be an excellent adventure.
— Reviewed by staff writer Scott L. Miley, The Herald
Bulletin
