Gurf Morlix

• Blaze Foley's 113th Wet Dream [Rootball, 2011] A-
• Finds the Present Tense [Rootball, 2013] **
• Eatin' at Me [Rootball, 2015] ***
• The Soul and the Heal [Rootball, 2017] **
• Impossible Blue [Rootball, 2019] *
• Kiss of the Diamondback [Rootball, 2020] *
• The Tightening of the Screws [Rootball, 2021] **
• Caveman [Rootball, 2022] A-
• I Challenge the Beast [Rootball, 2023] ***

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Blaze Foley's 113th Wet Dream [Rootball, 2011]
Eccentric even for a city that brags about its eccentrics, Austinite Blaze Foley inspired Lucinda Williams's "Drunken Angel" and had the best luck of his star-crossed career when Merle Haggard made "If I Could Only Fly" the title song of an excellent 2000 comeback album that didn't sell much. By then he'd been dead a decade, killed by the gun-toting son of a friend he was standing up for. His legend hasn't been helped by master tapes that kept getting lost, stolen, or seized by federal agents, but on these 15 songs his guitarist friend Gurf gets to cherry-pick and hook up with a drummer. Irresistible as John Prine for an opening section capped by the homelessness ditty "No Goodwill Stores in Waikiki," they sink into a slough of despond that starts feeling right comfy before the record rises up with "Small Town Hero," in which the duct tape abuser gets the last word on the high school sports star. Foley never mistook his dysfunction for a cause or felt sorry for himself about anything but women, and even there not much. He made his bed wherever. A-

Finds the Present Tense [Rootball, 2013]
Lucinda's ex-guitarist "wallow[s] in 'em all night long" and wrote the one about "guns in schools" long before it had a news hook ("My Life's Been Taken," "Bang Bang Bang") **

Eatin' at Me [Rootball, 2015]
One of those guitarists whose songs aren't quite sharp enough to make you love his grizzled handshake of a voice--but believe it, they're getting closer ("Dirty Old Buffalo," "50 Years") ***

The Soul and the Heal [Rootball, 2017]
Bruised and bleedin' for strictly personal reasons, he heals by putting his all into humanist hymns ("Love Remains Unbroken," "Move Someone") **

Impossible Blue [Rootball, 2019]
Guitar sharp as ever, voice rougher than ever, he tops 4:30 on seven tracks out of nine because his dolor overfloweth, as why the hell shouldn't it? ("Spinnin' Planet Blues," "I Saw You") *

Kiss of the Diamondback [Rootball, 2020]
The love life not sex life of a gnarled not gnarly 69-year-old who knows the difference ("If You Were Perfect," "I'd Stop the Rain," "We Just Talked") *

The Tightening of the Screws [Rootball, 2021]
The opener is called "Touch You Inside," and while it's definitely addressed to a specific woman, this gruff sufferer has you the listener in mind as well ("A Better Place," "Lost in the Shuffle") **

Caveman [Rootball, 2022]
On sheer output alone--Morlix has self-produced 13 albums of original songs since he split with Lucinda Williams prior to Car Wheels on a Gravel Road--the Austin songwriter-guitarist-vocalist-producer is a wonder. But till now he never came close to equalling his 2011 tribute to Austin legend Blaze Foley, with six consecutive 2013-2022s Honorable Mentions hampered by both the gruffness of his sprechgesang and the hitch in his groove. This one maintains throughout, dipping briefly in the middle but soon picking up where it left off and then finishing strong. "Hodgepodge" rhymes with both garage and espionage, the idyllic lookback "1959" ignores Frankie Avalon et al as only a guy born in 1951 could, and "Make Me Your Monkey" volunteers as well to be her "tool" before it even masters the chords to "I'm a Believer." A-

I Challenge the Beast [Rootball, 2023]
As a one-man band who handles drums as well as guitars and keyboards on record, Morlix has not so much juiced up as muscled up his beat and become a wiser singer as his voice aged ("Miss Nellie's Place," "World on Fire," "I Wanna Come Home") ***