Moon Boots: The Chronicle of a Country Crooner

Lorenz (On Vinyl) captures the life of a traveling musician in this nostalgic tale of wanderlust and yearning for simpler times. “It’s gonna be a good show,” Lester LaFleur thinks as he anticipates his latest performance at Olde Doggy’s, the latest in a never-ending string of low-paying gigs in dive bars, restaurants, and taverns throughout Canada. His hopes don’t materialize, as an unappreciative audience consisting of equal parts indifferent and hostile drunks heckles the ever-patient musician, who soon finds himself run out of town by the local authorities after he’s forced to defend himself from an attack armed only with his faithful six-string. With nothing more than the clothes on his back and his trusty guitar, Jolene, LaFleur hitchhikes his way west across Canada, in a breezy, free-wheeling month in the life of a wandering minstrel. Along the way, he shares the road with truckers, ingratiates himself with townies and waitresses, sleeps rough, seeks out cheap high-calorie meals wherever he can find them, and takes life as it comes. The loose-lined art’s expressive, dreamy, and occasionally hallucinatory. Like a Cohen Brothers film by way of Roz Chast, “It’s gonna be a good show” indeed. (Apr.)