On the surface, Sasha Colette may appear to be an innocent country girl with a pretty voice.And while that evaluation is certainly accurate, her newest release—with the magnificent Magnolias backing her up—signals that it’s high time we start taking this young lady and her band very seriously.
Having recently transplanted herself into the Huntington, West Virginia scene that’s embraced her, Colette and company would have been hard pressed to find a title more appropriate than Ridin’ Away.
It’s an EP release that stretches—in more ways than one—far beyond it’s 17 minutes.But more importantly, it explores deeply rooted themes of country in songs about goodbyes and cowboys and fables of the faux-west that Colette identifies as Appalachia.
While the first two tracks (“Leroy” and “Hi Ho Silver”) zip by without ever quite grabbing hold past clever fictional storytelling, “Red Bandana” opens up, yet somehow goes introspective. Towards the end, Jeremy Short’s tasteful solos and Colette’s gut wrenching repeated ending lyrics steal the moment: “I pull my heart out every night and go for broke.”It ends strongly, yet almost too suddenly, giving way to the soulful title track.
“Riding Away” strikes as the rawest song on the record, even though it sounds the most produced. It's a tune heavy on vague storytelling, moments of precise tension and release, and solidified with a memorable chorus; there’s a ton of Americana stations that would eat the track up if given the chance to play it.
But it’s with “Goodbye Buffalo” and Short’s melodic slides that stretch nearly as wide as the miles covered and emoted through Colette’s geographic nostalgia.Sure, it’s a personal acknowledgment of her recent move to Huntington, but it’s a universal subject that isn’t lost on Colette herself; there’s a real resonance in this reflection.It’s not sadness over displacement, but rather a coming-to-terms proclamation.
If there’s any disappointment in the record, it’s that it’s simply too short and doesn’t dare to give Miss Colette the chance to display her vocal talents to the extent we’ve seen in a live setting. (Don't confuse this statement--they're damn good, but certainly not nearly as captivating as watching and hearing her perform.) Maybe it’s humility or a dedication to serving the song, but let's just hope Ridin’ Away serves as a springboard for Colette vocally, rather than a template for live performances of the songs enclosed.
Together for almost 20 years in Jucifer, Edgar Livengood and Gazelle Amber Valentine return to The V Club Thursday night.
There’s always stuff that has to be left out when putting articles together. There’s only so much space in print, but we don’t suffer the same limitations here. So in these cases we like to excerpt the quality nuggs from interviews and run ‘em as an exclusive here, as a supplement to the article there.
In advance of their show at the V Club tomorrow, we thought it would be awesome to take some questions from our Herald-Dispatch interview with Jucifer’s Gazelle Amber Valentine, and post them here.
Herald-Dispatch: How is the RV and gear holding up? You two somewhere between Shreveport and Birmingham? Enjoying the few days off?
Gazelle Amber Valentine: So far so good! Yeah, we’re headed towards Birmingham. The days off were a booking agent screw up, but it’s working out pretty good because we’re right in the middle of making a million arrangements for the European tour we’re about to do, and we had a few interviews to get done. About 500 miles of driving too.
----- Herald-Dispatch: You two famously live the life of a nomadic rock band, calling nowhere in particular home. How much work, how stressful is it, driving all over, unloading all your equipment and having to maintain a schedule?
Valentine: ...Trying to catch up because on days we play, we literally don’t have time for anything besides making the show happen.
On “off” days we have to do a million dumb regular chores -- laundry, bills, fixing stuff, cleaning up, getting groceries -- and very-rewarding-but-time-consuming things: interviews, making records, planning tours with booking agents, friendships, family. And sleep. Deep, desperately needed sleep.
Stress... yeah, lots of that! Dealing with traffic, on the highway all the time with drivers who almost get you killed, then when you arrive maybe dealing with rude people. People from the venue, or from other bands, who are freaked out by all the gear, or just have bad attitude to begin with.
Strangers who threaten to kill you because you’re taking up street parking -- truth!
Booking agent screw-ups that cost you money or piss off people that are important to you. People you have to work with not being professional when you are -- so frustrating. Being too hot, being too cold, getting soaked and trying to protect the electronics when it’s pouring rain. Always worrying about things breaking, because you’re using them all the time; so it’s always just about to happen. And when things break, it’s a different obstacle course every time to get them fixed.
Whatever it is, you still have to power through.
----- Herald-Dispatch: Do you think being married makes this kind of lifestyle easier at all? Do you two fight about a bunch of nonsense like a lot of married couples, or does being on the road, dedicating yourselves to the band like you do, together as a couple almost 20 years, kind of keep that stuff blocked out?
Valentine: ...We fight sometimes, but it’s not nonsense like ‘why didn’t you get me a tennis bracelet’ or ‘I need my time with the guys’ or some bulls--- like that. When we fight it’s either we’re trying to agree on how to make our situation better and have to hash through our ideas. Or we get snappy because we’re under so much stress without enough food or sleep. But we have this core of loving each other that gets us through those things. Neither one of us has any use for that drama kind of relationship: we’re not playing. We’re honest. In the end the constructive arguments help us reach better decisions, and the stupid ones we just forget. We got each other’s backs!
----- Herald-Dispatch: The one big thing of course since 1994 and recording on old four-tracks is the advent of the internet. Talking about getting something like Nadir out to your fans, how cool is it to have that kind of positive feedback every day like you do on your Facebook page?
Valentine: It’s pretty awesome! Very cool to have that instant response. Not just for songs and albums, but also to know people’s experiences from your last show. It’s good to be able to write with fans too, like on Facebook and twitter, to help them find out where to get stuff or when we’re playing their town. We like getting to know people. And it’s really interesting to actually see who we touch, if that makes sense?!
Of course the downside of instant-reaction web is those trolls and haters everybody gets in comments sections. It’s part of the internet effect that people without the balls to confront anybody in real life can get away with slander and hate speech because they’re hiding behind a screen name.
----- Herald-Dispatch: I’ve talked to a few musicians who have been operating since the pre-internet era, and they talk about the pros and cons. The pro being you can reach waaay more people with a youtube clip or something. The con being that kids in particular are more picky, more savvy if you will, about music.
How important has the internet been in building this fan base you’ve got? Or do you think you’d still (like you did) be able to operate on non-stop touring and word of mouth? I know that’s a long-winded question, but talk about operating in the internet age and even winning over newer, younger, Jucifer fans…
Valentine: They’re probably more picky, but not necessarily more savvy. At least when they get their info from the web.
The internet has created a skewed hierarchy for information. The most popular answer equals the correct answer, even if it isn’t. The newest info is the truest info in search-engine land.
Most people believe what they read. So they end up taking someone’s mistake or outright lie and spreading it, until it has so many “hits” it becomes the “best answer.” Misinformation self-perpetuates.
In the good old days of print media and paper books, people actually had to know the topic (and go through an editor) before they could publish. Online, any moron with an opinion can state it as fact. The truth is subjective. When every single person with internet access contributes to the information pool, the sources are flawed.
So I think instead of being more savvy, everybody’s more gullible! Fake news reports like Jon Bon Jovi being dead, for example, are perfect proof. Lies, repeated by people who think they’re repeating truths, which are then treated as news and shared ad infinitum.
The picky factor: somebody I follow on Twitter was talking about this recently and described how they used to buy an album, and if they didn’t immediately love it, they’d work at loving it. Because they liked the band and they’d spent money on it and here they had this LP or cassette or CD and they had to either find something about it to enjoy or throw it away.
That attitude is pretty much gone because of the internet. Everything can be gotten for free, and without any physical object to make you feel guilty for not trying harder. Everybody checking out a new band, types ‘em in on Google, listens to ten seconds of the top resulting video or song clip, and decides. Bam. Woe unto bands if that ten seconds isn’t what the person was hoping for. They haven’t invested anything and they’ll drop that band forever unless somebody they trust tells them to look again.
So when you reach people this way, is it really a good thing to reach more of them?
I think, unless you have a kind of referral, somebody who explains what songs or videos their friend should check out, knowing that person’s taste, the internet can be a pretty bad tool, even turn listeners away from something they might like.
We’d probably still be ok without the internet, because we did it for so long before. For bands I don’t think it really even came into play that much until MySpace got big. Which was like, 2005ish?
The best thing about the internet is our ability to just directly write to people. Fans, other bands, writers, whatever. It’s so much easier to let people know where you are, what you’re doing, how they can help if they want. We wouldn’t have necessarily felt like we could start our own label without the internet.
Winning over new people is part of the pros and cons deal. Because of that more shallow approach to discovering bands that the internet developed. You know, back in the day underground music was such a precious thing. Now that anybody with a computer can put their album online, even without knowing how to play any instruments, that reverence is gone. People are really quick to dispose of bands or make weird assumptions.
We run into a lot of younger people assuming we were influenced by bands that were actually influenced by us or at least came way after. Newest is truest. If they dive in and find whoever sludgy drone-y band with big amps, or some duo -- whether it started in 2008, or 1998 -- that’s their reference for anything they discover in the future. There’s no history lessons when people get into music. There’s just random clips and bits of information, lots of it without any explanation for what it’s part of. What came before. What came after. Again, people experiencing information hierarchy as truth. Anyone’s achievements can be erased in that context.
I think the internet has heavily tipped ALL learning in that direction, and word of mouth from people who actually know is the only antidote. So hopefully some of them (probably older) stick around, follow technology, engage and proliferate truth. If not, the movie ‘Idiocracy’ is really our future. And soon.
At the same time it’s so much easier for our fans to show us to their friends. That’s where I think the internet really helps; people can immediately show each other stuff, and a lot of them have a pretty good network with other people that have similar taste. So your audience can build really exponentially, really exactly the same way it did without internet, but a lot faster. The word of mouth takes seconds and broadcasts worldwide.
Like, we just went to Russia for the first time last year, and we already had this great fanbase who had our albums for us to sign after the shows and knew song titles to yell out. They could only have found out about us through the internet. That’s an example of the positive aspect to the new digiworld.
----- Herald-Dispatch: And you’re still working on the new full-length, right? But playing some new songs off it? How have the fans reacted and what’s been the general response to the new stuff?
Valentine: Yeah, we need to go back in for a couple weeks to finish it, it’s about half recorded right now. We’re planning on finishing it in the summer. We’re gonna record a little bit in Italy and then go back to the studio in Canada where we did the first half to finish it up. We’ve been mixing in some of the songs at shows and they seem to be inciting a lot of fist pumping and circle pits, so that’s a good sign! Of course there’s also gonna be some stuff on the record we won’t play live, but people who know us are used to that by now, haha.
----- Herald-Dispatch: What’s the best/worst thing or anecdote you can relay about how Jucifer’s mass of sound affects people or objects?
Valentine: Hm. Best thing that happens to people -- so they tell us -- is orgasm. Too much information? Worst thing would be pee, shart or vomit. And people drop their drinks on the first note sometimes.
Stuff falls out of ceilings a lot. We like to say we include a ceiling cleaning as part of our service. If there’s dust, soot, loose tiles. One time a building we played in had an outer wall of 19th century brick that was already in pretty bad shape, and some of that wall fell.
Every once in awhile bottles or glasses fall, but we always tell the bartenders to push em back if it’s the kind of room that’ll really compress the sound, so it doesn’t happen too much.
----- Herald-Dispatch: When we talked last I asked about your book “The Grease,” is that still in the works or on the backburner?
Valentine: I haven’t been writing very much because our schedule’s just been insane. But I wrote a chapter about David Gold from Woods of Ypres when he died. His death touched off a lot of feelings and thoughts that were in me related to creative need and the sometimes self-destructive devotion that artists have to their art, which is the main theme of the book.
At first I thought I’d write a kind of eulogy to post online but I realized I didn’t feel I had the right to be commenting publicly at that moment since I didn’t know him, and I didn’t want it to be me getting publicity off of his tragedy. So I’m just keeping it for the book. I’ll probably be writing that book for a few more years, but that’s ok I think. It’s a big topic.
----- Herald-Dispatch: Aside from the new full-length, what if anything awesome are you two looking forward to in 2012? Big fests like Roadburn or anything like that?
Valentine: Oh yeah definitely stoked for our first Roadburn, and our return to the SWR Metalfest in Portugal. Both of those festivals and lineups absolutely rule.
We’re hitting the UK before Roadburn which is awesome because we had to skip it the last couple times we crossed the Atlantic. We have a really good support band for those shows, Bastard Of The Skies, and we’re also gonna play with Orange Goblin and Black Sun while we’re there so psyched for that. Then a full tour of Europe, which we love, a bunch of new cities this time.
And we’re going to the Ukraine for the first time and going back to Russia and doing a longer tour with some new cities there too. Very excited for all that! And stoked to go back to Canada and all the rest of the US that we haven’t hit yet this year.
‘Nadir’ is coming out in a limited edition cassette licensed for the UK by English label Future Noise, and also gonna be out on LP soon. We’ll premiere the video for “Crossless” too. Lots of excitement!
----- Herald-Dispatch: Doing what you two have been doing for so long, aside from the music itself, is impressive, and speaks to your devotion to each other and Jucifer itself. But is there going to be a point where you two will settle down? Or not?
Valentine: Motion is life. Action is life. Until the light takes us....
--- Jucifer plays The V Club Thursday night with Hyatari and Deckard...
After a decade apart, Chris Tackett, Kevin Allison and Alex Kendall are back as the Huntington-based psychobilly trio The Heptanes.
Reposted from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch
Together again with the original lineup for the first time in over a decade, The Heptanes March 3rd rehearsal at The V Club was all of the above: effortless, energetic, and, electric.
“Once we started playing, we were firing on all cylinders,” singer-guitarist Kevin Allison said over the phone. “Even though it’s been ten years since we all played together, it went well, despite the electrocution.”
Electrocution?
“I’ve got a vintage amp and it’s actually got the original plug on it,” Allison explained. “I had a ground thing rigged on it, and when I started to play the vibrations knocked it loose, and I went to sing, and I got electrocuted right through the mouth,” he said with a painful chuckle.
“I’ve had that happen several times. You can taste your fillings, it sucks.”
Drummer Alex Kendall said that despite the time apart, he, Allison and original bassist Chris Tackett hadn’t missed a beat.
“When the three of us get together, it’s effortless,” Kendall said over the phone. “It’s not that we’re great, or that we’re amazing, it just clicks.”
There’s definitely some effort put in, though. Tackett has to drive in from Lexington, and Kendall has a bum ankle leading up to the show, not a pleasant experience for a drummer. Still, the show must go on, he said.
“As soon as I heard about [the show], I think my response was, ‘I’d like to see who’s going to stop me from playing this show,’” Kendall said laughing. “Regardless of whatever health problems, I’ll take a shot of whatever steroid or miracle drug, or if they have to lower me into a giant metal casing to keep me upright, I’ll do whatever it takes to make this show happen.”
The Huntington-based psychobilly trio reunites for a St. Patrick’s Day show Saturday night at The V Club with Deadbeats and Barkers and AC30.
Formed in 1999 out of Allison and Kendall’s work together in Fuzzbucket, and their mutual appreciation for The Stray Cats, The Heptanes, after recruiting Tackett, released their debut, “Phantom Cadillac” a year later.
The attraction of rockabilly, the energy, and fun, was apparent to Allison and Kendall even in Fuzzbucket.
“It’s actually kind of funny, because the way we came upon the idea was kind of like how The Stray Cats did,” Allison explained. “They had their band the Bloodless Pharaohs before The Stray Cats, and they’d do a few rockabilly tunes before closing out their set. And we’d kind of do the same thing in Fuzzbucket.
“In fact, one of one of the Heptanes’ tunes, “U.P.D.,” was written when we were in Fuzzbucket. We’d play it at the end of the shows, and people would just get up and dance, and I mean, it was funny because we’d play the whole night, and then we’d play that song and everybody would go crazy,” the singer-guitarist recalled with awe.
Gigs were booked, fun was had, but, like so many other bands, they couldn’t keep the band intact.
“To be honest with you, with all the other times we’ve done the band without the original lineup, it never really felt right,” Allison admitted. “To have it back to the original lineup, it’s pretty cathartic, I have to say.”
While the show on St. Patrick’s Day is a reunion for the band, both Allison and Kendall stressed their desire to have old friends and fans of the Huntington scene from the 90’s reunite, too.
“With the band and the whole scene we had going at the time, we’re trying to get people who went to Calamity Café or Gumby’s back in the day to get together,” Allison said.
“You’ll see on my Facebook page I’m trying to pump this thing up and bill this as a Huntington reunion,” Kendall added. “I’ve heard from a lot of people who are coming to town, booking rooms to get back together and see everyone again. I’m hoping for a big reunion of the old school people.”
Allison recalled first being exposed back in the 90’s to the preeminent, pioneering psychobilly artist, who also just happened to be a West Virginia resident.
“I saw a flyer one day on campus for a Hasil Adkins show, and I thought ‘Oh this sounds interesting.’ So I went and checked it out and it blew my mind. To me, in my heart, part of this music, psychobilly, was created by HIM, HERE. He had a huge impact on the whole reason I got into rockabilly.”
It’s that excitement, both for the music The Heptanes play and for the experiences shared with friends and fans over the years in Huntington that Allison and Kendall say they hope to recapture Saturday night.
“It always feels good to get back out there and do it,” Allison said. “I think the reason we were popular back then, was, it was a very straight forward version of high energy rock and roll.
“For us, the basis of a Heptanes show was to entertain people,” Allison said, summing things up. “There’s no big message. People just want to enjoy themselves when they go out, and that’s what it’s all about. We all still enjoy it, and that’s why we do it.”
If you go: AC30, The Heptanes, Deadbeats and Barkers Where: The V Club, 741 6th Ave., Huntington (304) 781-0680 When: Saturday, March 17, 10 p.m. Cost: $5 Info:www.vclublive.com
Matt Thomas (top left) brings Uglyography to The Empty Glass tonight…
When WVRockscene was in its infancy, an important discussion was had between the H.M.I.C. here, and another nice dude who ran an alternate, West Virginia-based site dedicated to covering local (and beyond) music. Haha it’s crazy to think that you can’t find my name hardly at all on this site, the first thing you see on this site when you revisit it now, is the true identity of your host, narrator blogging, guy.
But as far as West Virginia-based sites dedicated to covering local music went, it was an important philosophical chat. Should WVRockscene focus more on covering local bands, or expose readers to bands we like who might not ever even play here?
Well, for what it’s worth, the first approach kind of won out. But since “the dark ages” of mid-2007 or so, not really blogging or doing stuff for newspapers, up to now, we’ve kind of just naturally fell into the habit of being in touch with bands who might pass through periodically. Exposing these bands, and more importantly developing kindly acquaintanceships, to our fellow Mountain State residents is something we take seriously, and really like.
So, speaking of time periods, the “quirkadelic,” Hampton, Virginia-based act Uglyography came across our radar. Time travelers they may (or may not, hilariously) be, we caught up with front man and bassist Matt Thomas in advance of their stop at the Glass Wednesday. Seriously check out the tunes and their site, you will laff…
WVRockscene: You guys set to hit the road for a week or so? Got everything packed? Is this your first big out-of-state run of shows?
Matt Thomas: Yes, I believe we are all set and ready. Booking and preparing for this tour has been one of the most challenging tasks I’ve taken on for a long time, being a relatively unknown band at most of our stops. Now that all the booking and logistics are worked out, we just gotta pack our bags (and not forget Tums, Band-aids, vitamins and all that other necessary rock star stuff) and we will be rolling!
This will be the first time that Uglyography’s current lineup has played outside of Hampton Roads. In 2009 I toured Uglyography as a solo act and went out of state but nowhere near as far and wide as we are going this time. We hope to do as many out of town shows as in-town from here on out.
----- WVRockscene: What is up with you guys not being from this century? New Uglyography fans will literally rofl when they even dare to begin to read DJ Blake’s hilarious bio. Does that make it tougher for you guys to fit in, not being from this time period?
Thomas: DJ’s time traveling beard has gotten him into a lot of trouble. Jack was the only one who actually wanted to time travel, and the rest of us got here by chance happenings in the universe that have a one in a billion chance of occurring. Since we were all spit out into this overpopulated and overbuilt time together, we figure if we bond together we could give audiences a taste of when we came from and hopefully find our way back there.
We’re not sure what to make of the current state of the music industry but we do hope that audiences will lend a sympathetic ear to a bunch of outcasts who are trying to figure out what it is that people want to hear in this time. This overwhelming dependency on electricity that society has adopted is making it easier for us to play to larger audiences than back in the 1870’s so I do feel we can use that discovery to our advantage. All we really wanna do is find the magic frequency to send us back to our various home times, and so the more audiences we play for, the better chance that magical frequency will be hit. And, we hope the frequency will ring strong with our audiences as well.
----- WVRockscene: Seriously though “Undercover New Machine” seems to have been warmly received since its release in early 2011. How cool has the warm reception and the favorable coverage been to you guys?
Thomas: We could not ask for a better local reception. Most of the Hampton Roads publications that mention music at all have featured something about “Undercover New Machine.” Our CD release was extremely well attended, reviews have been stellar, and the CD was nominated for Best CD in the Veer Local Music awards. The support from the local industry is very flattering and encouraging. Our fan base is growing slowly but steadily and all this promotion and support is adding hot fuel to the fire.
----- WVRockscene: You operated as a solo performer until recently, between the whole time traveler angle and theme, how if at all has your vision of what Uglyography is and will sound like changed as you’ve moved it into a band?
Thomas: The songwriting process was very much the same for both albums (2005’s “Love Boat” and “Undercover New Machine”). Both albums were recorded on my own before I met my bandmates. But these guys are much, much better guitarists and drummer than I am, so the songs now have a whole new dimension to them, while keeping the same quirky songwriting style that I have settled into.
As far as the time-traveling thing, that has evolved as time has gone on. I suppose the seed for the idea came when I commissioned the UK lowbrow artist Doktor A. to draw up the album cover artwork for “Undercover New Machine.” I had a very specific idea of what I wanted, and had been a big fan of Dok’s steampunk style and his line of toy characters called the Mechtorians. He provided me with a fresh new aesthetic including the parchment paper background, a slick logo, and a general 18th century feeling that has been present on the website and CD case since early 2011. Not until earlier this year did we take it a step further and build ourselves a steampunk banner stand and start wearing 18th century attire to add to the theme. I think we have found our niche and will be keeping it in mind as we move forward. It is impossible to say where this is going, we don’t know ourselves.
----- WVRockscene: The lineup, time travelers you guys may be, has just recently changed. How have DJ Blake and Jack Morgan fit into the band since joining late last year?
Thomas: We had the need to replace a former guitarist, and DJ stepped right in and sounded fabulous on his own. About three weeks later, DJ’s friend Jack said he still wanted to try out. My first reaction was that DJ was already set as the guitarist and we would be fine as a three piece since that’s what we had been before the switch. But after hearing Jack play “More than a Miracle” at an unofficial audition, I was sold! The “dueling guitarists” as I like to call them, complement one another perfectly and the sound is really big and full now. And all of my band mates are great guys. And, we all get along and have a great time together, which is probably the most important thing when it comes to making a band successful.
----- WVRockscene: Anything cool in 2012 you guys are looking forward to? Shows or recording new stuff?
Thomas: We have a project slated to begin in April. We will be collaborating on a couple of songs with a local hip-hop artist called Shakespeare’s Ghozt. He has performed with us one time so far, rapping his rhymes over top of a couple songs from “Undercover New Machine.” We want to perform with him as much as possible and will be producing new recordings of those songs along with him. We will probably record a few others while we are at it and hopefully release an EP later in 2012. So yeah, good things are on the horizon!
----- WVRockscene: You guys are playing seven states in as many days on this tour, is this your first trip to play in these places? Obviously you’ve never played the Glass, hoping to turn some people onto your band in the current time period?
Thomas: This will be our first time at six out of seven of the venues. I played at The Hideaway in Johnson City back in 2009 and really liked the people and atmosphere there. We are looking forward to meeting all you fine modern folks this time around and hopefully return again to see you before too long! That is, if we haven’t hit the magic frequency and traveled back to when we came from.
Every so often, a Facebook status update comes along that, deep down, you know sounds too good to be true.
This was exactly the case late last night when we noticed (via their ReverbNation page) that the Lexington, Kentucky-based prog rock band Dream The Electric Sleep was playing at TBA in Charleston tomorrow, Thursday, February 23rd!
It was weird because we knew they were scheduled to play the V Club that night for a This Ain't No Disco show with our friends in Sly Roosevelt.
We knew this because we'd saved Jimbo Valentine's most awesome flyer to our desktop to remind us of the show daily. Maybe there was some scheduling snafu, and DTES was coming to Charleston, making it entirely possible that we could make it to said TBA venue, see the band, and then maybe camp out at the Transit Mall or something.
You know what they about stuff that sounds too good to be true. Just as we expected, after confirming it with bassist Chris Tackett, something silly happened deep inside of ReverbNation, and it confused Charleston for Huntington.
But make no mistake dear readers, just as you've come to expect subpar coverage here, Charleston's loss is Huntington's gain Thursday night. Dream The Electric Sleep and Sly Roosevelt have each been working on new stuff, and we'll look forward to hearing that when it is ready. DTES singer-guitarist Matt Page has dutifully and descriptively been keeping fans abreast of the writing and demo process on their site, even after the band released Acoustics and B-Sides, but the blog is something very cool to see if you're a big fan of the band.
And even though, in our heart of hearts, we knew that DTES wasn't coming to Charleston, we know this show Thursday in Huntington should be killer.
After 30 years, numerous lineup changes and seeing countless ska bands they influenced form, Rob “Bucket” Hingley (with guitar) brings The Toasters to 123 Pleasant Street Sunday
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Such is the case for Rob “Bucket” Hingley and The Toasters, the ska band he’s fronted since its formation in New York City in 1982.
After enduring numerous lineup changes, and seeing the popularity of ska bands ebb and flow like the tides over the years, Hingley and his legendary “third wave” two-tone ska outfit keep doing what they’ve been doing, touring and playing shows all over the U.S., and the world.
For Hingley, this is what has kept The Toasters going. On the road to Toledo for a show, bringing ska music to its fans, just like he did after crossing the pond from the United Kingdom back in 1980, is what it’s all about.
“We go and play places where people don’t or won’t reach,” Hingley said over the phone, when asked about The Toasters scorched Earth tour schedule, a show per day since mid-January. “That’s been the secret to our success, is that we’ve been road dogs. That’s paying us back in spades right now.”
The Toasters return to Morgantown for an all-ages show at 123 Pleasant Street Sunday.
Over thirty years, ten studio albums, and countless trends and fads generated by the music industry, Hingley has seen it all pretty much. He said that arriving in New York City, leaving a bustling ska scene in the U.K., finding ska practically non-existent, was a bit of a culture shock.
“There wasn’t any ska scene at all to speak of, which seemed strange to me,” the singer-guitarist said with some lingering bewilderment. “I came to New York in 1980, right at the high water mark of ska music in the U.K, maybe the high water mark was 1979. But coming from that environment where everybody knew what ska was, and bands like The Specials, and The English Beat, and Madness were coming off of number one hits. And coming to the U.S., where nobody seemed to know what it was about at all, even to the point of going to the Roseland Ballroom and seeing hardly anyone there to see The English Beat, it really was like going from feast to famine. So, getting the band started in 1982, finding like-minded people and musicians wasn’t easy.”
Fast forward thirty years, after seeing bands The Toasters influenced, like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, achieve some level of commercial success, Hingley said ska music has went where it’s most loved: back underground.
“The support goes up and down, it depends what the flavor of the week is, the way the industry tends to focus on different kinds of music. The way it is now, it’s kind of back in the underground, and that’s probably the best place for it, because it’s a little more nurturing.”
Hingley recalled with fondness playing Morgantown in the past, and the support ska in general, and The Toasters in particular, were shown.
“Of course, big cities like New York, Chicago, L.A., there’s obviously a lot of support there. But we’re seeing pockets in some of the smaller towns, like Morgantown. That’s a real yardstick of how healthy it is when you can come play some of the smaller towns and still have the support. Back in the day, it’s 123 now, it was the Nyabinghi, they had a lot more reggae and ska bands coming through, and I’m talking ten, fifteen or even twenty years ago, there was a lot more support then. But if it’s coming back now it just shows that ska is rebounding a little bit.”
It’s the spirit embedded inside of ska that, despite any trends generated by the music industry, still attracts people to the sound, Hingley said.
“One thing you have to understand about ska music, you got to take it back and look at where it came from. It came out of the Trench Town ghetto in Jamaica, which at the time was a very, very poor area. And the explosion of ska was associated with Jamaica gaining independence from British rule about that time. It was rebel music coming out of the ghetto. It was an expression of freedom, the same as reggae music.
“It was rebel music,” Hingley continued. “In a way it’s managed to retain that energy, because even though ska music was exploited by the mainstream record companies in the 90’s, it wasn’t really the roots bands and not what I would point to as the real ska bands and the core two-tone bands that were exploited. It was punk bands with horns, or studio creations like Smash Mouth that have nothing to do with the ska scene. But because some record execs put that label on it, that was the flavor of the week. But fortunately that didn’t destroy ska music and the real ska bands.
“I think a lot of kids, when they come into it, they see that there’s fifty-five years of roots and culture, they might start out liking Mighty Mighty Bosstones as a portal, and they can trace that tree all the way back to those early artists from Jamaica. They see that it’s real, and people identify with it. It’s not a Frankenstein monster created in some major label lab.”
Coming back to Morgantown for an all-ages show and exposing a whole new generation of fans to ska
That just goes to show the fact that the style is really resilient, and has something to say to young kids. Because if they didn’t like it they wouldn’t come. It attracts kids from whatever they come from, whether they’re punk rock or metal kids. If you can find a way to mean something to kids, they’ll still come out.”
When asked how much The Toasters have left in the tank, how much longer they’ll be playing out, Hingley said he doesn’t expect any changes anytime soon.
“You have to ask my wife that,” he said with a laugh. “We’ve got a few more years, there are still some places we haven’t been yet.”
--- The Toasters play 123 Pleasant Street Sunday with The Staggering Cardoons, Black Action Cop, Call us Next Tuesday and special guests The Business Fairy and QUOTE. Doors open at 5:30, show starts at 6 p.m., cover is $8 in advance and $10 at the door. All-ages.
The most awesome thing about doing what we do here is just finding out about or getting clued into music that we really like by bands that we hadn’t heard much about, or failed to check out if they passed through West Virginia.
Such is the case for the Columbus, Ohio-based post rock, mainly instrumental but definitely experimental band Old Worlds. Although they’ve played Huntington once previously, at Shamrock’s, we didn’t got exposed to the music they were making.
Well, that has changed. After listening to their debut A Light In The Corner, we thought it was cool so we caught up with Old World singer-guitarist Aaron Sturgill (above pic) in advance of their show Saturday at the V Club...
WVRockscene: Old Worlds has been together since 2008, right? What was the process like taking what you were doing with guitars and loops into a full band with [drummer] Mike [Poston] and [bassist] Adam [Langdon]?
Aaron Sturgill: At first, it was just my guitar, some loopers, and a drum set that I would lug around to every show. I’d jump around and sort of jam on these half-finished songs. Mike volunteered to take over the drums and expand the melodic percussion with bells, and before I knew it, we were a three-piece band opening for The Appleseed Cast. We still rely on loops and samples, both live takes and pre-recorded, but the soul of the band is in these dense orchestrations in which everyone has a hand.
----- rockscene: You list some kind of obscure bands -- at least some that I haven’t heard of -- as influences or artists you like. Following up on the last question, how did, as the band came together, kind of have a meeting of the minds over mutual influences, or bands you all like?
Sturgill: Mike and I used to party hard while listening to math rock like Q and not U, while Adam and I worked together and sort of found each other via The Appleseed Cast. If you haven’t heard of them, they’re a very unifying band, I’ve met people that were raised on pop punk, emo, electronica, post-rock, even classical and jazz, and somehow, The Appleseed Cast is frequently the common denominator on which we can all agree.
----- rockscene: You released A Light In the Corner last year, how much time went into getting that record done and just capturing the sonic landscapes you do as a band? And what’s the response been like to the record?
Sturgill: Adam took out a huge chunk of his life to record this album. We met at his church and in his basement, tracking took about three months, and mixing took another three. We couldn’t afford to pay anyone else except to master it, so the rest was on us.
As far as the soundscapes go, it was just a matter of layering and layering and layering. The first track has the sound of air escaping from an accordion, but with all these time and filter effects applied to it, such that it sounds more like the creaking of an old ship’s hull. In another instance, we set up most of the drums we owned in this big hall, so that Mike and I could do this massive percussion segment (found at the end of “Little Human Beings”).
The response to the record has been positive, although we haven’t seen any true reviews, even though we’ve sent it to dozens of blogs and other media outlets. That’s frustrating. Oxide Tones in Germany, however, was a huge windfall -- they helped us get the album pressed, and have been really, really generous with us.
----- rockscene: Your wife is also in the band, always an interesting angle to see in a band. How did she get welcomed into the band and how neat is it to be able to share the experience of traveling and doing shows with her?
Sturgill: Adding Kylie was kind of a no-brainer. Last year our shows started to incorporate a string section, so her experience in opera fit right in. Both of us collaborating on the music means that we can both just pick up and head out on the road, without losing much of that time that a newly-married couple needs, you know? It’s pretty rad.
----- rockscene: You teach violin? The strings are definitely something that stands out on the record. Obviously that’s something that you could do live but is that something your wife Kylie does on synth? And how cool is it to be able to incorporate the violin into your band?
Sturgill: Kylie and I both teach music out of our home. I do the instruments (violin, guitar, piano), and she does this awesome mashup of voice and whole-body fitness called Method Voice. My site is arcadiamusic.weebly.com.
Like I said, we started using a string trio last year -- but, of course, we want to keep the touring group as minimal as possible. Kylie certainly handles a lot of those sounds on the synth, but we’ve been lucky enough to score Seth Ellsworth as a full-time violinist. He harmonizes with the vocals and synth, and even does some background vocals, which is fantastic. Just an all-around talented guy -- he brings a lot to the table.
----- rockscene: One of the great thing about your songs is that there’s just enough vocals in there to really let you get into the music. So many experimental/instrumental bands can kind of lose a listener’s attention by having vocals. How do you approach writing songs for what seems to be a mainly instrumental band, still having vocals and writing lyrics, etc.?
Sturgill: Typically, if a song needs vocals, we put it in. I know that sounds glib and simplistic, but it’s the same with wonky time signatures -- you can write all your songs with shifting meters and tempos so the audience has trouble keeping up, but sometimes it’s better to keep it simple, a nice 4 or 3 or whatever.
But, this is changing all the time -- in fact, a lot of our newer material, which will be on a forthcoming EP, features a lot more of Kylie’s vocals at the forefront than mine. I’m starting to focus on guitar compositions, and letting her do what she does best. This is something that not very many post-rock bands do well or at all, so if we can figure this out, we might have ourselves a niche.
----- rockscene: What is up with any new material or recordings? Has much changed or have you got much new stuff since releasing what was on A Light In The Corner?
Sturgill: Be sure to check out a couple of songs we did in July for Jacuzzi Suit Records. There’s this awesome remix of “Secret History” by Glenn Davis (Triangle Piece) of the Columbus band Way Yes. We’re super happy with how that project turned out, although it looks like this will be a Bandcamp-only release for the time being.
We’re almost finished writing a five-song EP, which I’d like to see released sometime this year. That’s as much as I can say right now.
----- rockscene: Aside from any new music or recording, anything you’re looking forward to in 2012 as far as shows?
Sturgill: Touring has been a blast, and we’re hoping to keep it up. We have a strong relationship with Jacuzzi Suit in Chicago, and in June we’re heading out for a five-day tour with Survivalist, from Columbus.
----- rockscene: You’ve played Huntington once, at Shamrock’s, how were you received there in particular, but in general by new listeners, people who haven’t really heard you before, and how neat is it to just be able to pull people in with your music?
Sturgill: The crowd at Shamrock’s was outstanding, and it’s always gratifying just to be able to meet new people wherever you go. We’re really trying to share a message, or even a feeling, of love, community, and personal responsibility. The more we can talk to people and learn about them, the better.
Known for chaotic, energetic live shows, David Mayfield (above) brings his “Parade” to the V Club Friday
Reposted from the Huntington Herald-Dispatch
Steeped in bluegrass and country music tradition, with a chaotic live energy and onstage presence that embodies rock and roll, David Mayfield’s musical career has indeed been a long, strange trip.
The 29-year old Mayfield, talking over the phone from his childhood home near Kent, Ohio, said it’s the little things that are most important for him as he’s moved from being a backing musician into fronting his own band. The little things, like sitting at the DMV for four hours, registering your sister’s van to go out on tour.
“I’ll be pulling into Huntington in her old touring van, because mine broke down,” Mayfield said with a laugh.
The David Mayfield Parade plays The V Club in Huntington Friday with Sasha Colette and the Magnolias.
Mayfield said he and the Parade, Wes Langlois (guitar), Shelby Means (upright bass), Kristin Webber (fiddle) and Joe Giotta (drums) have finished recording their sophomore record and hope to have it out later this summer.
For Mayfield, though, who now calls Nashville home, it’s now time to get back out on the road.
“It’s been my whole life,” Mayfield said fondly. “My parents met at a bluegrass festival, and have always played music together. When I was twelve years old, I decided there’s no reason for them to go and leave and play music and me to have to stay home, so I learned how to play the bass. I went out on the road with them, and my sister joined up after that. I dropped out of school in the ninth grade to play music, and my parents sold our house, and we just traveled around in an old bus living that gypsy lifestyle I guess.”
Mayfield, after graduating as a youth from bass to guitar and mandolin, said he learned firsthand the responsibilities of being a performing musician from his parents.
“What my parents really instilled in me, is we’re providing a service, just like an electrician or a plumber. People spend their hard earned money to go out and be entertained. That’s the biggest thing I got out of the family band experience, was learning that people are coming out to the V Club because they want to be entertained and put their problems and cares behind them for a few hours and kind of go on a journey. It’s something more than just some people standing on stage singing a song. It goes to different places.”
Mayfield and the Parade got their start going places thanks to immediate support from alt-country rockers The Avett Brothers.
“I had been playing with Cadillac Sky, and we decided that we were going to break up,” Mayfield recalled. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I played some of my original songs for Seth Avett, and he was real encouraging. He said ‘You’re a good enough songwriter, these songs deserve to be heard. You’re more at home on stage, you’re more of a performer. You shouldn’t count out going out on your own.’ Then when I put the band together, I think I had the Parade together for about a month, and the Avetts invited us to open their big New Year’s Eve show. And then, when it was time to make the record Scott and Seth both came and sang harmonies on like, half the album. So right out of the gate we had a great opportunity.”
It’s those opportunities, playing big festivals like Bonnaroo, or opening for Willie Nelson or The Avett Brothers, that, in just barely a year together with his Parade, blows Mayfield’s mind.
“It’s been nuts, you know? I’ve been doing this for so long, either as a side man, backing people up, or making records for other people. And just in one year to have been offered so many big opportunities, it’s pretty surreal, and terrifying at the same time.”
Describing the live show, Mayfield said it approaches something like controlled chaos, without much control, maybe terrifying, but definitely, a thrill.
“It gets pretty crazy from time to time. We played one festival, I climbed up on the scaffolding and threw an electric guitar into the ground like a lawn dart, and then, kind of fell down a little bit. But other than that, it’s just normal bruises and scratches from an acrobatic, crazy, two-hour set of nonsense,” Mayfield said with a laugh. “We like to keep the spontaneous energy in the air. At one of our shows you really feel like everything could all fall apart at any moment, and someone could die.”
With equal parts humility and responsibility, Mayfield, asked about the Parade’s budding fan base, said it’s still all about the music for him.
“It’s definitely exciting. One guy come to one of my shows and he had my face tattooed on his arm. I had people telling me “Breath of Love” was their wedding song. I still feel a little like ‘Why me? Go listen to that guy, he’s better than I am,’” Mayfield said laughing. “It’s definitely flattering, but it also gives me this sense, of pressure really, of keeping up to those standards, and to not let people down.”
The David Mayfield Parade w/Sasha Colette and the Magnolias When: Friday, February 10, 10 p.m. Where: The V Club, 741 6th Ave., (304) 781-0680 Cost: $8 adv., $10 door Online: www.vclublive.com, http://thedavidmayfieldparade.com/, http://www.reverbnation.com/sashacolette
Following The Demon Beat closely ever since Tucker Riggleman sent us a copy of Heavy Nasty out of the blue, it’s been super neat to note any and all changes as it relates to songwriting or production. As they’ve moved from the debut, through the self-titled EP, Shit We’re 23, 1956, and most recently, Bullshit Walks, they’ve maybe taken a slightly more bluesy bent and incorporated it into their version of plug-in-and-go garage rock.
One neat thing about the band is that they’ve put music out on a few split releases, allowing fans to get something of a fix in between the more proper, full-length releases. If you were, like us, lucky enough to snag a physical copy of their Caustic Eye split with Bud Carroll & the Southern Souls, or just listen to that and their 2011 Antler Tapes split with The Shackletons, you know that the splits are both something for you, the listener, and, a chance for the band to get songs out.
So it was simultaneously exciting and not a surprise that The Demon Beat would team up with their Harrisonburg, Virginia-based friends in Elephant Child to put out a split 7” on Funny/Not Funny Records.
The distortion, the feedback, the raw, desperate energy and almost bootleg feel of the production on the previously unreleased “Teenage Wasteland” and the fuzzy, pummeling charm of the alternate version of “Change The Subject” (heard on the Antler Tapes split) make this a whole ‘nother Demon Beat split worth having, and the hot, live feel of the production is great to hear.
The Demon Beat have always benefited by being able to have singer-guitarist Adam Meisterhans record DIY, and from mixing to mastering to getting any and all songs out to their fans, the production has never left anything to be desired, but it is refreshing to hear something like this.
Elephant Child’s six-minute jam “Under The Bridge pt. 2” buttresses the shorter Demon Beat songs and ties the two bands together nicely in some sonic sense. If you haven’t got into these dudes yet, now’s the time.
Plus, Jordan Hudkins’ cover rendition of Dave Bello will no doubt make this split a collector’s item. If you pre-order the split (limited to 300) on the Funny/Not Funny site, you get an immediate download of it, and that ain’t bad.
If you're like us and tuned in to hear Sleepwalker last Monday but didn't hear it, friends everything will be alright thanks to the internets.
U92 has started a pretty cool lookin' Wordpress site for Morgantown Sound, complete with Soundcloud embeds of the shows. This is waaaay better than you, say, in embarrassing ghetto fashion, hypothetically, recording Bonfire onto an old SP-808, then bouncing it back onto the digital recorder you use to interview people for articles so your old laptop will recognize the files. Just because you like Bonfire a lot.
Anyway, you may have checked out our recent thing on Sleepwalker, and heard their debut EP The Dark One. If you missed the U92 show and were looking to hear it on someone else's site, why not check out their set below?
Set list:
Ice Skater – 1:15
Red Balloons- 3:43
6s – 9:43
Shifting of the Poles – 14:05
I Can Tell – 17:10
Burn Up in a Car – 25:00
Emile Ajar- 28:45
John’s Lament – 31:10
Dirty as Hell – 34:19
Sasha Colette and the Magnolias will break out the red bandanas Saturday night for the release of their new Appalachian prairie themed concept EP “Ridin’ Away” at the V Club in Huntington.
Reposted from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch
Things have definitely changed for Sasha Colette over the past year.
The 23-year old singer-songwriter has relocated from Eastern Kentucky to Huntington, and now has a new band backing her as she prepares to release “Ridin’ Away,” the follow-up to 2011’s “Leave It Alone.”
Sasha Colette and the Magnolias will release the prairie-themed “cry for wide open spaces” concept EP “Ridin’ Away” Saturday, January 28 at the V Club in Huntington.
Over the phone, Colette described first life after the move, now living home on the range -- in Huntington.
“I really do like it,” Colette said of moving from Morehead, Kentucky to Huntington in August of last year. “This is the first time I’ve lived in a neighborhood sort of feel. I enjoy having neighbors,” she said laughing. “Me and (lead guitarist) Jeremy (Short) moved up from Kentucky to be closer to the other band members. (Bassist) Chris (Justice) lives in Ashland, and (drummer) Steve (Barker) lives here in Huntington.
“There’s a good circle of musicians here,” Colette continued. “It’s nice to have friends who play music, everybody’s always working on their new projects or whatever. It just keeps me encouraged, the circle of friends. That’s been one of my favorite things about Huntington, is I just feel like I fit in.”
It’s one thing to hear about fitting into a new town, but it’s surprising to hear Colette talk of fitting into her own band. That’s just the change that she thinks stands out since releasing “Leave It Alone” last year.
“I’ve been playing with this band for about a year now, and it’s been really cool. They’ve given me a new form of confidence as far as how as I perform. They’ve helped me improve my vocal performance so much more,” Colette, already known for her soulful and powerful voice, admitted.
“Ridin’ Away” has a distinctly more country music sound than the mix of folk and rock found on “Leave It Alone,” something that’s happened naturally as Colette and her new band mates have congealed into a unit.
“Someone like Ryan Adams, what he does, you can’t place it exactly,” Colette said of the sound on the new record. “This album, not only does it have a nice concept throughout, but it also introduces the band. These guys, they weren’t on the first album. I never really had a particularly stable band before. I didn’t have a specific direction then because I didn’t have anybody steady in my life, as far as the music goes. But this album, the reason it sounds so good and so fitting is, we’re used to each other, and we’re all here to stay in this thing.”
Colette said capturing the sound the new lineup has been working on at Aaron Fisher’s 101 Productions in Sissonville is something she’s proud of.
“Man, the album, I love the sound it has because this is what we do at live shows. The other album, it was difficult to translate that into a live show, it was kind of misleading occasionally. But this album, there’s a lot of truth to it, whether it be from the lyrics, or the sound of the album to the sound of the live show.”
It’s the truth found in her lyrics (which Colette dutifully cites as examples) and on one song in particular on “Ridin’ Away,” that Colette is maybe most excited about.
“This album has a song on it called “Leroy,” and lyrically I am more proud of that song than any song I’ve ever written because the wordplay and just the story behind it, and the truth behind it, the offensive truth. It embodies what, um, what’s kind of going on in some people’s lives. “A simple enough life/giving up your daddy’s name to marry Leroy,” you know?”
The inspiration for one song on “Ridin’ Away” came from others finding out about Colette’s life as a “professional camper” after a Charleston Gazette article on her in early 2011 described her very real nomadic life at the time.
“Like a tumbleweed I been out a roamin’/now my secret’s out and everybody knows,” Colette said, reciting the lyrics from “Red Bandana.”
“When I read [the article] I was like ‘Oh, they put that in the paper!’” Colette said laughing hard. “Some people don’t know how to react to that sort of thing, they think you’re a ruffian or something.
“Red Bandana” is kind of a cry for some wide open spaces. But people are diggin’ the idea of like a prairie-related album.”
So the pack-up-and-go themes explored on “Ridin’ Away,” are not so far divorced from reality for Colette. “You know,” she said, sighing, and thinking about her life, where she’s been and still may go, “I’m still young, I’m twenty-three, and maybe it’ll never leave, but I have a real big urge to just get up and go all the time. I want to question tomorrow.”
But for now, Colette is focused only on her band and changing other people’s lives, with her songs.
“I’m really excited to have the CD to introduce the band to the fans. People really love our sound so much, they want to take it home with them. It can be a life-altering experience, if you listen hard enough.”
IF YOU GO: Sasha Colette and the Magnolias CD release
With Tyler Childers, The Switchmen Where: The V Club, 741 6th Ave., Huntington When: Saturday, January 28 Time: 10:30 p.m. Cost: $8 (includes a copy of “Ridin’ Away”) Online: www.reverbnation.com/sashacolette, www.vclublive.com
Dylan Balliett never ceases to surprise and impress the highly esteemed/regarded editorial staff here at WVRockscene. Ever since we were introduced to Spirit Night quite literally out of the blue back in 2010, finding out about What We Will Be pretty much with everyone else, we fell in love with the songs and sound Balliett quite literally brought out of his bedroom with friend Pete Wilmoth.
From his bedroom, now relocated to Brooklyn, Balliett -- via Shepherdstown, Morgantown and Pittsburgh -- brings his buddies Wilmoth, Ryan Hizer, and Dave Bello back for One Man Houses, the third proper Spirit Night release and follow-up to last year’s Normal EP. But if you expect any of the dreamy, echo-soaked acoustic-based stuff found on the aforementioned records, yes, there’s that (“Everywhere I’ve Gone” is a good example) but dear readers, you are in for quite the surprise.
You may find yourself cussing with excitement when you first hear the plug-in-and-go punk rock and indie sound of “Goodbye Jones,” “Kerouac,” and “Grasshoppers,” (which we made the mistake of listening to preemptively, spoiling the surprise of the new sound) complete with fuzzy bass (via Hizer) and crashing hard rock cymbals. Something like ‘Daaaamn, this is Spirit Night?!’
There’s also a jangly 80’s college radio rock tone and edge on some of the songs, like “Summer Clothes,” like this could fit into that era and sound, maybe pre-Green R.E.M. or something, fronted by someone who sounds like Elvis Costello?
More great backing vocals and harmonies back up Balliett’s alternately sullen or gutteral, shrieking vocals. One of the great things about Balliett’s material is really the visceral, raw emotion laid out in the lyrics. Themes, like those found on previous Spirit Night tunes, include lost or misplaced friendship(s), moving/leaving (all the more appropriate since Balliett really has moved), growing up, and, yes, jerking off instead of falling in love. But the early childhood trauma and murderous rage explored and described on the six-minute long “The Last Time” is really something that we’ll leave up to the listener to discern.
And let’s not call this stuff lo-fi anymore. The subtle childish laughter and wind on “The Last Time,” adds ambience, and random (panned?) percussion found and added to maybe the most awesome song we’ve heard in a long time, “Rubberneck,” (written by Balliett friend and longtime cohort Dave Bello) is a real treat for the listener. Sure, Balliett writes cool songs with great lyrics, but it’s those little things that make the songs cool. And don’t let us not say something else about “Rubberneck,” if anyone cares: this is a completely badass, hit song if ever there was one, as Balliett boldly belts out the chorus:
“You can read my numbers
If you deal me out
A fresh deck.
Spell out my accident
If you stare me down
And rubberneck.”
This is the standout track on the record. It is indeed way more killer than it appears just reading it as text.
So, if you were mad that Normal was just an EP and not a full-length, One Man Houses, even though barely half an hour in length, with nine songs, more than makes up for it. Thumbs up here to Dave Klug for mixing and mastering duties, and to Balliett and friends for pulling this off. If you thought you had it kind of figured out what Spirit Night will be, you may have thought wrong.
Related: Wanna bone up on past mediocre WVRockscene posts on Spirit Night? Start yer boning with part one of our Q&A w/Balliett from July 2010...
Prison Book Club (L-R: Adam Meisterhans, John Miller, Andrew Ford, Tucker Riggleman) returns to Huntington tonight for a show at Black Sheep Burrito & Brews...
It’s fitting that John Miller and Tucker Riggleman shared the interview duties for Prison Book Club.
After meeting through mutual friends at a concert for the Memphis-based alt-country band Lucero in 2005, (Lucero served as a big influence on PBC) the pair became friends, started hanging out and sharing tunes. Miller and Riggleman have shared the singing and songwriting duties in the Shepherdstown-based alt-country rock band since its inception.
They’re such good friends, already being in The Fox Hunt and The Demon Beat, respectively, Miller and Riggleman are so dedicated to Prison Book Club that they have matching PBC tattoos.
But Prison Book Club, having released their self-titled sophomore record last August, has at this point moved out of the shadow of The Demon Beat and The Fox Hunt, made fans and a name all on their own, and turned any discussion about the band from one of a side project into talk of being a force all its own.
The band (Miller: rhythm guitar, vocals, bass; Riggleman: bass, vocals, guitar; Adam Meisterhans: lead guitar; Andrew Ford: drums) returns to Huntington Monday, January 16 for a show at Black Sheep Burrito and Brews as part of a 16-show, 18-day tour of the Southeast.
“This is definitely the longest that we will have been out together,” Miller said of the steady string of shows. “I had gotten used to traveling with The Fox Hunt at least as much, if not more, than being at home and I’m excited to get back out.”
As favorably as their sophomore release was received, Prison Book Club has all new songs that they’re taking out on the road.
“We do have a handful of new songs that I believe are some of the strongest we’ve ever done, which is a good sign,” Miller said. “You don’t want to make a record and then go back, work out some new songs and think ‘man, this sounds the same’ or ‘man, we’re slipping.’ We’re very excited to have the chance to tighten them up a bit on the road.”
Riggleman, strictly a bassist in The Demon Beat, gets to write and sing his own stuff in Prison Book Club. It was Miller who helped Riggleman, then a student at Shepherd University, get started as a singer and songwriter, helping him overcome any anxiety he may have had by providing a friendly ear. Also, these late nights laid the groundwork for an enduring friendship that would one day turn into Prison Book Club after the duo welcomed Meisterhans on for PBC’s first gig at a friend’s wedding.
“Personally, when I started writing songs I kind of always wrote them with a full band in mind,” Riggleman said. “I think John and I had kind of always wanted to get something going, like a rock and roll band, but we just had to wait for the right moment I suppose.”
That right moment also provided Miller some level of lateral movement musically, still offering him the opportunity to write down-and-out type songs, and sing with his instantly recognizable, tough-but-touching country music voice, only in a rock band.
“I really wanted to write songs outside of the string band dynamic that we have in The Fox Hunt, and Prison Book Club offered an opportunity to bring some different things to the table,” Miller explained. “It’s not apples and oranges, but there’s a little more freedom there. And really, we’re all good friends; we all sort of came together when The Fox Hunt and The Demon Beat were first starting to play locally, but certainly things would have been a lot different if Tucker and I hadn’t been buddies from the outset. We’ve put up with each other’s crap for too long to discredit that.”
Miller added that Prison Book Club has enjoyed a renewed energy, “cohesiveness and focus” and welcoming drummer Andrew Ford on in early 2011 is part of that.
“We’ve definitely taken the jump from ‘this thing we do every now and then when we have the time’ to ‘this is its own band,’” Riggleman added. “Bringing in Andrew on drums has been great as well, and we feel like he really pushes us to play better, being that he’s a very talented dude.”
For now, Prison Book Club is looking forward to taking its new songs out on tour, making fans the old fashioned way: playing out as much as possible. And for Riggleman, the friendship that exists between the members of Prison Book Club is what it’s all about.
“I couldn’t imagine being in a band with strangers or people I didn’t like. Making music with some of your best friends really is about the best thing there is, in my opinion.”
We ended 2011 heaping praise on a great record that had been released for free, so it only makes sense that we’d start 2012 doing the same thing.
It’s been a while since we last heard from Huntington’s Bud Carroll. Sure, the 29-year old (widely considered West Virginia’s most badass guitarist) multi-instrumentalist has been staying busy, either in AC30, lending his own formidable talents to other acts, or helping bands record at his Trackside Studios.
The neat thing about At Least I Can Still Smoke In My Car, Carroll’s new 12-song release is that in some regards it ties into and partially anchors itself to what we heard on Wasted Words and Best Intentions, but also jumps off into something approaching Brit rock/British Invasion type organs, bells and tones (“Heard This One Before”) in parts, and still sounds familiar to what Carroll’s been doing more recently in AC30.
Two years in the making, it would be interesting to know how and when these tracks kind of came together, as Carroll left his Southern Souls days behind him, still contributing to AC30, but also forging a new, not really new, just solo (in name) musical identity. This is an exciting phenomena to witness; it seems like every time you see Carroll covered in the past, there’s always couching of what he did before: when he started the Southern Souls, it was the (of course, rightful) obligatory mention of American Minor, now with the solo stuff, will we constantly compare what Carroll does to AC30 or the Southern Souls? Maybe.
But yeah, long story short: if you liked the Southern Souls, there’s some more straight ahead hard chargin’ rock (“There Someday,” “I Just Wanted You To Know”) with more bluesy, soulful, lovelorn jams. And whatever band he’s in, know this: it’s gonna rock.
Oh there’s a good reason why you may hear some nods to the Southern Souls on a few of the songs on the record: there are three Souls songs on it. Carroll is joined by Jimmy Lykens, Steve Barker and Jon Cavendish on “I’m No Stranger,” “Thinking Only of You,” and “Honorable Mention.” And there are the frequent lyrical references to “nowhere towns” and “wasted words and best intentions,” infrequent winks and nods to his not-too distant musical past.
But looking at things from the outside, you can almost kind of feel bad for Carroll. Like so many artists, he seems to be his own worst critic, talking about his own obsessive compulsive tendencies in the studio. Regardless of what we say here, it’s safe to assume Carroll knows he’s got something good with this batch of songs.
And regardless of Carroll’s seemingly immense talent(s), the one thing that kind of endears you to his songs is not only his dreamy singing, it’s that Carroll is basically writing love songs here, and he hasn’t exactly been winning. Standing astride whatever genre he wants, in parts there’s a kind of R&B vibe in some of these songs, fitting right in with Carroll’s own pop sensibilities, with all the help of so many people, Carroll has indeed, no surprise here, made a great record.
Standout tracks for us include the aforementioned “There Someday,” the dreamy, yet entirely broken-hearted (with cool organ and bells) “She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” “I Just Wanted You To Know,” and “We’ll Be Together Again,” which closes the CD out quite nicely.
Self-produced over two years by “Edward Money” (haha, am I right?) with engineering help from his Trackside cohorts James Barker and Ryan Weaver, with Eddie Ashworth and Max Nolte (who, along with Adam Harris, garnered executive producer credits) sitting in, and with guest vocal appearances from Sasha Colette and John Lancaster -- among other guests -- At Least I Can Still Smoke In My Car really is a CD worth paying for.
“We’ll Be Together Again” Live at Trackside
--- Bud Carroll’s Love Wolf plays Adam Harris’ 30th birthday party tonite at the Empty Glass with Sasha Colette, The Boatmen and The Carpenter Ants.
Ages and entire lifetimes have seemingly gone by since I got to meet Billy Matheny at the Empty Glass in Charleston. I guess it was like four years…? Even before that fateful night, where Matheny quite unwittingly became the first (and last) musician to fall for my devious “treat me to a PBR because I’ve covered your band favorably” scheme, (for the record: he offered, and it would be impolite to refuse) I’d already procured Born of Frustration and the swooning fanboy status only grew fiercer after seeing him open with “Christless Streets,” just absolutely slaying the end of the song.
I was out of my chair and on my feet, fists in the air, and as Matheny (along with the Frustrations) channeled everything great I’d ever felt about rock and roll, I thought he may have spiked that PBR, maybe that ‘twas me that was the target of a vast far-reaching rock and roll conspiracy with Matheny quite literally pulling the strings.
Well, I say all that because ever since hearing Born of Frustration and seeing him live, I’ve just been a huge fan of the uber-talented Matheny. While there’s been an absolute dearth of Frustrations releases since then, much to my dismay, Matheny is still busy being a rock star, just in other people’s bands. He’s been in the Athens, Ohio-based folk rock outfit Southeast Engine for a few years now; has been rocking out steady in Mark Poole’s band The Phantom Six (formerly Moon) and he just sat in with Prison Book Club on their sophomore release. This, in addition to other projects you’ll read and hear about, and of course, his Frustrations play Gene’s Friday night up in Morgantown with ‘85 Flood.
There’s so much going on with Matheny, we thought we’d throw some (hopefully) fun and (maybe) informative questions at him. Being such a gentleman, Matheny obliged with maybe the best Q&A of 2011…
WVRockscene: How busy/fun has 2011 been for ye, whether touring with Southeast Engine, or any other highlights?
Billy Matheny: 2011 was my favorite and busiest year since 2010. It’s been great. Southeast Engine was able to tour twice, once by ourselves and once with our good friends, These United States. Got to play some fun shows and hang out with some old and new friends in various places. I think my 2011 highlight was learning to make restaurant quality tikka masala. It was a real feather in my cap.
----- WVRockscene: Southeast Engine just played Mountain Stage, how cool was that, especially playing with your friend Todd Burge?
Matheny: Mountain Stage was very nice. Obviously, Todd and I go back a long ways and I have a bunch of other friends on staff there. The whole crew does a great job of making you feel really comfortable and welcome. It makes it easy to do your best. Taping the show in Athens was particularly cool since Southeast Engine was formed there and we had a definite hometown contingent in the audience. For me personally, it was thrilling to play with The Jayhawks. They’ve made some of my favorite albums ever and have really influenced my playing and songwriting. I first heard them when I was a freshman in high school and it was a total “come to Jesus” moment where I immediately discovered the kind of music I wanted to produce myself. On top of all that, they were very nice and patiently listened to all of my fan-boy gibberish.
----- WVRockscene: SEE did tour a lot, and “Canary” was quite warmly and critically received it seems, how good a year was it to be a part of Southeast Engine in particular?
Matheny: 2011 was a great year to be a part of Southeast Engine as opposed to 2010 and 2009 which sucked (kidding!). But seriously, I love the music and Adam, Jesse and Leo are some of my very best friends. Being in SEE is always a pleasure even if I’m sleep deprived and it’s raining at 7AM in DeKalb, IL.
As far as critical reception is concerned, it was very vindicating to see “Canary” get such good press. To some degree large or small, I think all artists are concerned with people liking what they’re putting out there. Some people just so happen to write for newspapers or have music blogs or something. I try to remember that every review is just one person’s opinion, but some people’s opinions are read by lots of people.
I probably shouldn’t say this out loud, but I’m among friends, so what the hell. Every time I release something (whether it’s one of my own albums or a band that I play in) and the reviews are positive, I feel like I’ve dodged a bullet. It’s like I’m just waiting for people to call me out on all those blatant Velvet Underground plagiarisms.
----- WVRockscene:The Frustrations just had another song, “It’s Up to You,” on this most recent Blind Pigeon Records comp, I know that the band has kind of been on the backburner with all your other projects, but what’s up with new recordings? Are you sitting on some treasure trove of Frustrations songs?
Matheny: The BPR folks asked us to contribute something for their comp CD, so we recorded “It’s Up To You.” It was nice to record a single song without having to worry about how a track will fit in contextually with a whole album.
I have a new album’s worth of material written for a new Frustrations record, so it’s finished except for recording, mixing, mastering and artwork. I wish I could give good reasons why it’s been six years since I’ve released an album of my own. It would be a better story for me to say that I did 18 months in rehab or that I’ve been recording piano in the middle of a sandbox.
The fact of the matter is that Haley [Slagle], Adrian [Larry], Walt [Sarkees], Woody [O’Hara] and I are all involved in a multitude of different projects and it’s just difficult for us to make the time to record another album. I used to say that our new album would be out before “Chinese Democracy” but then GNR actually released “Chinese Democracy.” At this point, all I can promise is that a new album will come out eventually. I swear that I’m not going to be a one album wonder like The La’s!
----- WVRockscene: What would Facebook not let you post about some obscene hat you saw recently? Can you mention it here? Of course you can…
Matheny: I don’t know if you can actually print this, but here goes: It was a day like any other when I saw a guy at the bank wearing a hat that read “SMILE if your not wearing panties.” Both offensive and grammatically incorrect!
----- WVRockscene: You contributed to Prison Book Club’s sophomore release, how good of a friendship have you developed with those dudes and how cool was it recording with the band?
Matheny: I’m so close to the members of Prison Book Club that I actually let them borrow my van. I’d like to think that I’m a generous soul, but I wouldn’t do that for everyone. I’m honored they asked me to play on their record. John Miller has a very captivating voice and they’re really evolving very quickly as a band. In fact, I’ve seen them since “Prison Book Club” was released and they have a whole new set of songs that are even better than the record if you can believe that!
The recording was a trip. I live in an apartment, so I can’t really turn things up much before I become a bad neighbor. For that reason, my keyboard parts were recorded in my parents’ basement in Mannington. It definitely brought me back to when I was a teenager and my bands would practice there. In fact, Prison Book Club’s album holds the rare honor of being the first thing recorded in my parents’ basement since a Limp-Bizkit influence rap-core band called Sadism came over to record on my four-track when I was 15 or 16. I’d like to clarify that I was not a member of Sadism, I was just facilitating their demo tape.
----- WVRockscene:The Phantom Six played 123 Friday, how much do you look forward to jamming with Poole and Co., and how stoked were you to see “Plastic Rain” get released last month, after what looks like a lot of time going into the band (obviously) and the songs in particular?
Matheny: “Plastic Rain” has been at least three or four years in the making. Mark and I joke that we both work glacially when it comes to putting out albums. At least in his case, you can never argue with the results, every album he releases is start-to-finish fantastic.
The Phantom Six is very much Mark’s vision, or in the words of Spike Lee, The Phantom Six is a Mark Poole joint. I’m just happy to be involved. We practice every Monday, so our rehearsals are kind of like my poker night. The rest of the band is so seasoned and so talented that it makes everything very easy. I just play some bass and sing a little bit.
----- WVRockscene: You had that cool quote for the H-D article, about there literally being hundreds of dollars to be made in the world of indie bands. How much do you love playing in all of these bands? Because it sounds like you’re not in it for the money right?
Matheny: Well, let’s just say it’s a good thing I don’t have expensive tastes! I’m blanking on the actual quote here, but Flannery O’Connor once described her life’s work as sitting at a typewriter, grinning ear to ear and amusing herself to no end, having a great time and miraculously getting paid for it. I feel similarly. I love everything about being in bands and playing music. I love writing, rehearsing, recording, doing shows. It even affords me a chance for travel, which under other circumstances, I probably wouldn’t get.
----- WVRockscene: All the bands you’re in, or sit in on with, is it so much time and focus that sometimes you feel spread too thin?
Matheny: As long as I love the music I’m playing, it never feels like work. It probably doesn’t look like it, but I don’t just take any gig that comes down the road. I have to enjoy it. The bottom line is that playing music should be fun. If playing music feels like a cross to bear, you’re probably doing something wrong.
----- WVRockscene: You’re in all these bands, and you’ve been staying busy in 2011, what’s up for 2012 that you might be looking forward to?
Matheny: Southeast Engine is going back to SXSW in March. That’s a great time, if a little on the over-stimulating side. It’s kind of like indie-rock spring break.
In February, I’m recording an album with The Love Me Knots with the great Adam L. Meisterhans in the producers chair. The Love Me Knots lead singer, Brian Porterfield, is the best songwriter I know and I think I know some good ones. The Knots are kind of a band that are under most people’s radar, which I think is kind of shame. But anyway, it’s been like 12 years since Brian has released something, so we’re going to record about 40 songs “Zen Arcade” style over the course of three days. After that, we’re going to release it as a big album in the “69 Love Songs” tradition, spread out over a couple of discs, with a booklet and a bunch of photos.
----- WVRockscene: The Frustrations play the Very Townie Christmas show with ‘85 Flood 12.23, seems like you’ve made that into some kind of tradition, right? Fun times? Lookin’ for Santa to bring you anything in particular this year?
Matheny: This is the 5th annual VTC! It’s definitely become a tradition for us. Each band does a full set and then it sort of evolves (or maybe devolves) into a big open jam thing with all kinds of people chipping in.
It’s sort of like the Morgantown musicians office Christmas party. The Frustrations set is kind of special simply because we’re doing some special Christmas material. As far as Santa is concerned, I can’t decide if I want inner peace or some video games. Probably the video games.
--- Billy Matheny and the Frustrations join ‘85 Flood for “A Very Townie Xmas” this Friday night at Gene’s Beer Garden in Morgantown...
By Dave Mistich
