Nick Waterhouse comes from a place that he's never wanted to be. It's one of those places where you can't help but be devastated the particulars, by the very things that you always thought you wanted. They are the vices of women and money. The right combination of them and you're going to be alright. The wrong combination of them and everything gets fucked up. It's all that playing with fire, all that teasing fire, spinning the chamber with a couple stray bullets and firing at the odds that Waterhouse brings most to light in his jazz house soul music.
It's music that belongs in Memphis and New Orleans, with the crayfish and the smokehouse ribs and beans. It belongs with the stiff fragrances of the pretty women who absolutely know that they're gorgeous and deadly. They're willing to use it all, to bet it all, to lure and to manipulate, knowing that they're likely lose very little, even if they make some poor sap pay a hefty toll. It belongs in the back alley, under the dim lights, where confused passions loom and stroll.
There's so much wanting and still so much repulsion to that wanting that makes itself known in a Waterhouse composition that there's no way of telling what is supposed to be felt. It's easy to think that the desire and the lust seem to always win out. They're powerful and they're greedy. The women win too. They keep themselves on the characters in these songs' minds. They are forceful and insistent on that. It's that love potion number nine just drifting through, like a toxic, purple haze. It's enchanting and sexy. The same words really could be used to describe Waterhouse who, even this early in his career, has got himself set up to do some impressive things. All he needs are more women to work him over, challenge his dignity and demand that he foot all the bills.