THE LAST ANGRY MAN
[Reprinted from TV Guide]
The Great Lost Tonio K. Album has finally arrived on CD. America, your long national nightmare is over. The story so far, for those who came in late: Tonio K. (name derived from a short story by Thomas Mann) was one of those angry young man singer/songwriters, like Elvis Costello, who flourished briefly in the wake of the original '70s punk explosion, but with the added distinction of being American and strongly influenced by the Dadaists. His first album, 1978's Life in the Foodchain, is one of the great unsung classics of its day; it features cameo appearances by Joan of Arc, and contains a Ramones-style song called "H.A.T.R.E.D.," which ends with the sounds of the band being blown away by a machine gun and contains the immortal line "Well, I wish I was as mellow/As for instance Jackson Browne/But fountain of sorrow my a-- motherf----r/I hope you wind up in the ground." Not a man to rest on even such remarkable laurels, Tonio went on to release several other albums throughout the '80s to much acclaim, if modest sales. (All are now out on CD.) But in 1990, when A&M declined to release this star-studded masterpiece, he withdrew from a performing career and concentrated on becoming a successful songwriter for hire, a feat he manages handily to this day (hits for Wynonna, Vanessa Williams, a track on the Batman Forever soundtrack).In any case, Olé is pretty much peak Tonio—witty, musically inventive and loaded with bile about the human condition; this is a guy, after all, who once said he was "looking for a girl who could laugh at the fact there's nothing funny." The other good news is that the guest stars actually make a difference. Paul Westerberg, for example, gives a nice Replacements-ish boost to "Stuck," while Los Lobos's David Hidalgo contrives haunting harmony on the poignant "I'll Remember You." T-Bone Burnett's production, which is vaguely reminiscent of Tom Waits circa Rain Dogs, is the best Tonio's had since Foodchain; you'd never know this was a 7-year-old record. Buy two copies and help get him out of retirement. Free Tonio K.!
—Johnny LaRue