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Friday, 05 March 2010

Dawes * Cory Chisel & The Wandering Sons * Jason Boesel

Dawes - (North Hills, CA) "Dawes may look the part of a typical indie-rock band, but these are country-rock hippies at heart, if "When You Call My Name" is any indication. Theirs is music of a stripe heard when Gram Parsons joined The Byrds and then founded The Flying Burrito Brothers, when The Band hit its stride without Bob Dylan, and when the original Jayhawks breathed new life into the genre two decades ago. Dawes' sound is craggy and weathered, as if the musicians had spent years hauling their butts from one roadhouse to another. In the case of "When You Call My Name," the song is driven by a nagging guitar-twang lead straight out of The Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin, as well as effervescent harmonies that elevate the song like a horse pulling a wagon out of a ditch. Old-school country-rock can also be tormented and lyrically complex. Here, the narrator wrestles with someone — a lover, presumably — who may expect too much from him and the world. So he wants to know when she really needs him and when she doesn't: "So I will not give you bread / as you reach out from your cage / But I'll hear it when you call my name." Those tough-love sentiments aren't very 1960s, but Dawes knows that even in old-school country-rock, a few traditions need to be updated." - David Browne, NPR

Cory Chisel & The Wandering Sons- (Appleton, WI) Like many artists before him, Cory Chisel first connected with the power of song – and the spellbinding possibilities of live performance – through the music he heard in church. The gospel’s rich vernacular of loss and redemption also informed his innate poetic sense and lyrical range. “For most of my life,” he says, “my dad was a Baptist minister, so I learned a lot about being a showman, and I learned a lot about music. Many of the hymns from church still are the most beautiful songs I know.  I'm thankful for growing up where stories and the pursuit of happiness were on everybody's mind.  I think I’m still trying to achieve the same euphoria I felt at a very young age, when I would be completely taken over by these rhythms and these sounds and these stories.” An equally potent influence on Chisel’s worldview and wellspring of musical storytelling is the American heartland from which he hails.  Based in Appleton, WI, where he’s lived for almost twenty years. His family’s roots, on both sides, reach about 500 miles north and west to Babbitt, Minnesota and neighboring Ely, beside the pristine Boundary Waters, the largest wilderness preserve east of the Rockies.  The vast, open spaces and clear, deep lakes of the wild north are ingrained in Chisel’s songs, which sound as if they come to him as naturally as breathing. In an upbringing where he was largely sheltered from pop music, Chisel’s fluency with music comes in great measure from always having played it with his family, for as long as he can remember. One of his grandfathers had nine brothers and, he notes, “they’re all great guitar players, and half of them play harmonica too.” He also cites his Uncle Roger, a blues musician – whose epic record collection exposed him to Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and countless others – as a chief source of inspiration. “He was a musical force,” says Cory. “I always felt like I possessed something similar, that I understood the exorcism I saw him receiving through music.”

Jason Boesel (Los Angeles, CA) - For the last 15 years, LA-based drummer Jason Boesel has been planted firmly behind the kit, keeping time for the likes of Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, The Elected, and more recently, Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band. Boesel was inspired to pick up the guitar and write his own record after his friends raved about the first song he ever wrote: ‘Hustler’s Son.’ Now, a few studio sessions later, Jason Boesel announces his solo debut for Team Love Records: ‘Hustler’s Son,’ out January 12, 2010. Boesel headed into the studio in March of 2009 with a core group of collaborators: Mystic Valley Band member Nik Freitas, Blake Mills (Band of Horses), and producer Jonathan Wilson (Elvis Costello 'Momofuku' and Jenny Lewis 'Acid Tongue'). He eventually sought out the additional talents of Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), Orenda Fink (O + S, Azure Ray), David Rawlings (Gillian Welch, Old Crow Medicine Show), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), and fellow Rilo Kiley member Blake Sennett.

 

Last Update Sunday 21 February, 2010