It will take only one listen to Colin Gilmore's excellent new CD "The Day The World Stopped And Spun The Other Way" to hear that he's got his own distinctive sound. It's a disc with a variety of influences and styles - like most great Texas singer/songwriters, he just can't stand in one place - but it all comes across in a way that is refreshing, wide-eyed and thoroughly listenable. Besides the musical mixed bag, what immediately hits you is a lyrical sophistication that belies Gilmore's relatively young age. "Every Tear" imagines the tough times his grandparents went through growing cotton in West Texas in the early part of the 20th Century, while "Good Times Stay" describes the universal desire for unending happiness. Colin, who is the son of renowned Texas singer and songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore, spent his early years in Lubbock and, looking back, he realizes that at the time, he thought there was little of value about the place. "There were only football players or complete thugs and I was one of the thugs," he recalls. "It seemed that there was nothing there. Just stuff to rebel against. I was a poor kid in a rich kid's school because of the area I was in. Everything thing had a nice shiny smile to it, but it was really mean underneath." It was around that time that his older sister Elyse turned him on to punk. "To me, punk was the opposite of what I saw in Lubbock. So growing up I had my dad's music and his friends' music, like Joe Ely and Terry Allen on one side, and on the other, I had the Sex Pistols and the Clash and they didn't seem to meet." He pauses to smile, "But then I found out that Joe toured with the Clash and all of a sudden I saw all my worlds coming together." It wasn't until years later that Gilmore developed an appreciation for Lubbock and an understanding of how his experiences there shaped him into the man he is today. Moving to Austin just before starting high school, an act he compares to a small town kid moving to New York City, opened up a whole new world for the younger Gilmore. He started playing in one punk band after another, with mixed results. "It was fun and entertaining," he claims, "but I felt that there was something missing for me. I realized that just because someone is playing in a punk band doesn't mean they're capturing the feeling that sparked punk rock. The same goes for country or any other style. It bleeds into all areas of life. If it's too careful or too not careful, it just doesn't seem right to me. My passion ultimately is that I have visions and feelings and the only way for me to express them is through music. I feel you've got to bring the spirit of God to who ever is listening to you, even if it's not in a religious way. Good music can effect you in the same way whether its gospel, punk, country or rap." He makes that sentiment plainly obvious on "The Day The World Stopped And Spun The Other Way" with a cover of The Clash's "White Man In Hammersmith Palais." While the majority of the tunes surrounding it have roots-pop underpinnings, he remains true to the Strummer/Jones sentiment of the song with a punk-reggae beat. "That's one of my favorite songs of theirs," Colin relates. "The Clash was known for fighting racism and crossing barriers in music, both racially and stylistically. Mixing punk with reggae, it reminded me of (hometown hero) Buddy Holly mixing country with R&B." While the songs are the real stars on this CD, Gilmore has engaged some of Austin's best talent to get across his musical vision. Mark Hallman, who has worked with Ani DiFranco, Tom Russell, Eliza Gilkyson and too many others to mention, served as producer and featured guitarist Rob Gjersoe (Flatlanders, Jimmie Dale Gilmore Band, Robbie Fulks), Bukka Allen (Terry's son - Robert Earl Keen, Will Sexton, Beaver Nelson) on accordion and keyboards, bass player Kris Nelson and Rob Hooper on drums. Australian country singer Audrey Auld lends her voice to a few tracks including a sharp take of Terry Allen's "The Beautiful Waitress." While Colin is his own man musically, some of his ideas surely come from the Zen-like thinking of Jimmie Dale. "It's been said that a person can go around the world and not see anything," he states, "while another person can go around the corner and see the whole world. For me, it's the tiny things in life that make it worth making music." He adds that he just wanted to make a "feel-good album that was true to my life and that other people can relate to." Give it a listen and you will see that he's not only achieved his goal, he's easily surpassed it.