THE MUSTER POINT PROJECT

A Slight Return on Many Favours

The Muster Point Project is the eponymous debut album of the Muster Point Project. Not to repeat myself, but the Muster Point Project is the latest guise of my friend of 30 years, Kevin Franco.

Kevin is not one of those guests to rest an elbow on the mantelpiece, his back to the wall, at a cocktail party filled with strange invitees; he was born to mingle and he knows everybody.  I called him “The Ticket Fairy” when I lived in Calgary. “Kevin, the Stones are coming.” “I know, leave it with me.” He’s also a restless entrepreneur which means I’m never quite clear about how he earns his living. The lone winter I skated with his midnight shinny team Kevin’s nickname in the dressing room was “Sparky.” A recent venture was positively Dylanesque, the marketing and artisan manufacture of boots of Chilean leather.

Kevin introduced me to Wilco. He promised the CD of A.M. would blow me away. He was right. A song on that album reminds me that I’ve spent a lot of time in Kevin’s various vehicles, always on the passenger side. There was always a glorious noise emitting from grilles in the dash or doors. Snippets anyway, two minutes of Blind Boys of Alabama or Taj Mahal before he punched a button to change the tune. It took me 15 years to track down Gregg Allman’s “I’m No Angel” based on a lyric fragment about tattoos I heard for the first time in Kevin’s car. He’d recorded the cassette and was still at a loss: “Come On in My Kitchen?”

This sort of music is the soul of The Muster Point Project. This is folk music in every sense of the term, certified genuine indie, written and recorded by an antenna on the great northern plains. How my friend managed to sit still long enough to compose and lay down nine tracks built around his guitar chops mystifies me. Probably pandemic productivity. Still, Kevin has probably and unknowingly spent his entire life to date working up to this, his first album. His second one will be a much trickier proposition.

Kevin being Kevin of course, The Muster Point Project is available as an eight-track cassette immediately because he’s just not wired to wait patiently in line for a vinyl pressing. Kevin has asked me to write the liner notes for his eventual black circle release. I hope that comes to pass, a fair exchange as he designed the cover of my first novel Murder Incorporated for Falcon Press. Kevin has always championed my writing - then again, he’s a speed-reader. Muster Point Project tracks are streaming on YouTube, digital downloads and more information are to be had at www.musterpointproject.com.                        

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of enthusiastic endorsement since 2013. My novella Of Course You Did is available. Visit www.megeoff.com to find your preferred format and retailer.