There are a lot of goddamn bluesmen in the world, but there are few as bizarre as the ones Fat Possum Records' roster boasts: they're old and they've been through hell; they've got reasons to sing the blues. Not Robert Cage, though. He seems to have lived a pretty regular life.

Cage's dad owned a grocery store in Mississippi, and his first guitar was brand new from Sears and Roebuck, so he couldn't have been terribly poor. His press kit mentions nothing about alcohol or drug abuse, or of a dead family, or even of a wife that left him. Nope, seems like a pretty average guy with a guitar. Which is fine.

However, Cage's brand of not- so- listenable blues is nothing to write home about. Most of the tracks on the record are not terribly interesting, and the fact that Cage mostly grunts out "duh duh duh" for a vocal melody doesn't help. I mean, lyrics have always been what the blues were about-- you had tragedy and your blues told the story. Maybe it's that Cage's presumably normal life has left him with nothing to complain about.

There are a couple of numbers on Can See What You're Doing that have lyrics, and it gives you a taste of how much better the record could have been: "Get Outta Here" is a stompin', backwoods hollerfest that sounds like Elvis on angry pills; "How Do You Get Your Rolling Done" is exactly the type of track that might have inspired Beck's One Foot In The Grave, and the awesome "Easy Rider" is a front- porch soul number that could give even Navin R. Johnson rhythm. But the songs that feature only Cage's horrific wail and half- assed guitar- playing such as "Little Eddie Blues" and "Instrumental #5" are flat- out intolerable.

With a mere 61 years behind him, Cage has plenty of time left to turn that beat around. Who knows? Maybe some of labelmate R.L. Burnside's hipness will rub off on him. Which leaves me wondering what the hell "Liza Jane" might sound like with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on backup...

-Ryan Schreiber