One of the vivid memories I have of Daniela Gesundheit of Snowblink is of her standing on the Grand Old Opry-style stage in Green Island, IA during the first Barnstormer tour framed by twinkling strings of Christmas-tree lights– the small crowd armed with small brass bells to ring on cue. Her mellow ambient set was a departure from the mostly-rocking lineup of those shows, but her otherworldly naive charm seemed to dislodge even the most jaded PBR-fueled hipster from their folded arm vantage point. Her music was dew clinging to the small plants on the forest floor. The kind of stuff that faeries would be streaming from their Pandora accounts whilst updating their Facebook statuses.
Daniela and her small band were performing songs from her at-the-time self-released CD Long Live. Songs like “Rut and Nuzzle,” “Ambergris,” and “Stand Where a Fruit Tree Drops the Things It Doesn’t Need” from this album were standout songs I waited anxiously to hear these songs at each of the stops during the Barnstormer tours.
She announced yesterday that Long Live would be re-issued on Fire Records in Europe on November 8th on CD, MP3 and vinyl (yay!) in conjunction with a tour of Europe. Fire will release in the US and Canada in February. The new reissue gets new cover art, too and features the little boy from the “Ambergris” video (below). Long Live is an album I’ve enjoyed for over a year and its one that I always felt should get more exposure, so I hope that Fire can put some promotional support behind it. I plan on picking up the vinyl when it’s available.
Track Listing for Long Live:
1. Rut & Nuzzle
2. Ambergris
3. The Tired Bees
4. Stand Where A Fruit Tree Drops The Things It Doesn’t Need
5. Membrillo
6. Green to Gone
7. Bulb, For Later
8. Divining Rod
9. Sea Change
10. None
11. Heckling The Afterglow
12. This Is This
13. Go Deep (Fon Frank)
14. The Fish of Little Thoughts
15. The Haunt
Click Here to listen to “Rut and Nuzzle” from Long Live (with lyrics!) Click Here to listen to “Green to Gone” from Long Live (with lyrics!)
The Landfall Music Festival starts this week. The Landfall Music Festival is the Legion Arts’ World Music festival that has taken place since 2008. Like last year, the festival will take place at Greene Square Park in downtown Cedar Rapids. Boasting 16 bands from all around the globe, it will run from Wednesday, September 22 to Saturday, September 25. There will not be any performances at CSPS as it is under construction due to remodeling.
One of the bands I’m looking forward to see is Cordero from Brooklyn, NY. Cordero is a Rock/Latin Rock band fronted by Ani Cordero. Following a very busy run touring in a blur indie bands– including a stint as the drummer Tweety Tone for Man Or Astroman? all-girl “clone” band the Gamma Clones— she moved to Tucson for a brief time. With help from Tucson music scene regulars Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, Joey Burns of Calexico, Naim Amor of Amor Belhoum Duo she self-released her first album Deserter in 2000. Shortly on the heels of this she moved to Brooklyn to assemble what would become Cordero, the band. The band signed to Amy Ray of Indigo Girls record label Daemon Records where they released two albums: 2002’s Lamb Lost in the City and 2004’s Somos Cordero.
In 2006 Cordero signed with Bloodshot Records (home of Alejandro Escovedo, Neko Case, Split Lip Rayfield and Ha Ha Tonka among many others). They have released two albums here: 2006’s En Este Momento and 2008’s De Donde Eres. Up until De Donde Eres, the releases from Cordero have been largely bilingual– in an interview around the release of En Este Momento, Ani said that she is comfortable writing in either Spanish or English. To that end, she said that she doesn’t even plan which language she’s going to write a particular song in. With De Donde Eres the whole album was in Spanish. Ani found that writing this album in her native tongue a catharsis following a string of unfortunate events in her life and those around her. The result is a particularly moving album and possibly her most personal effort to date.
Ani reports from the Cordero Facebook page that they have finished recording the follow-up to De Donde Eres. Produced by Sergio Eres of the venerableOs Mutantes, Cordero has left some hints about the album in the wall feed. Back in March, Ani reported that she had just returned from Las Vegas with material recorded there as well as some field recordings from Puerto Rico– so we can expect some interesting texture to these recordings.
Cordero will be finishing up the Friday night lineup of the Landfall Music Festival starting at 7:30PM. The Landfall Music Festival does not have a cover charge– but graciously accepts donations.
The Landfall Music Festival starts this week. The Landfall Music Festival is the Legion Arts’ World Music festival that has taken place since 2008. Like last year, the festival will take place at Greene Square Park in downtown Cedar Rapids. There will not be any performances at CSPS as it is under construction due to remodeling.
The Sway Machinery is the cross-cultural music project of Jeremiah Lockwood who has been the guitarist for the touring version of Balkan Beat Box. Lockwood saw a synergy between American folk-blues, African folk rhythms and his own Ashkenazic Jewish Cantoral heritage. Lockwood is the grandson of the legendary Cantor Jacob Konigsberg as well as the son of composerLarry Lockwood.
Jeremiah Lockwood appeared in the 2000 documentary “Hasidic Blues” directed by BBC veteran filmmaker Robert Mullan. In the documentary clip below Lockwood discusses how he arrived at the fusion of the seemingly disparate musical styles, “I was intentionally trying to do something new with [the Cantoral] music– trying to create a way of listening to the melody and the vocal style that would give it more context. I guess the emotional experience I’ve had listening to Cantoral music, other people can have that also, so it is important for me to find a way to communicate that.”
Lockwood started The Sway Machinery in 2006 as a collaboration with Israeli percussionist Tomer Tzur who stayed with the band until 2007. The band released its debut full length album on JDub Records (also the home of Balkan Beat Box) in 2009. Titled Hidden Melodies Revealed, it was based on a concert performed on Rosh HaShana (the Jewish new year) at Angel Orensanz Foundation in New York City in September of 2007. From the JDub website: “Hidden Melodies Revealed showcases pieces based on mystical texts taken directly from the Jewish High Holiday prayers and reconfigures them in a startlingly new musical landscape.”
In January of 2010, The Sway Machinery traveled to Mali to perform at the legendary Festival of the Desert. While in Africa, the group recorded a new album featuring collaborations with Malian artists, includingVieux Farka Toure and Khaira Arby. The resulting album is called The House of Friendly Ghosts, and will be coming out on JDub in 2011.
For me, The Sway Machinery is a compelling intersection of music between the recent insurgence of music influenced by African rhythms– The Budos Band, Antibalas, Extra Golden are all bands I listen to that claim these as their basis– and music from Jewish culture and tradition I am not familiar with. The Sway Machinery will make for a strong wrap up for the four-day festival, and is the show I’m most interested in seeing.
Click Here to visit The Sway Machinery’s MySpace Page.
The last time Margaret Stutt who performs as Pezzettino was in Eastern Iowa was back in January as part of a quick jump through the Midwest on her way to some shows on the East Coast. Since then she’s effectively adopted Brooklyn as one of her homes (Milwaukee being the other).
Freshly energized from an over-achieved Kickstarter fund raiser for her new record LubDub which is going through the process to create candy-yellow vinyl (in addition to CD and download)– Ms. Pezz has decided to embody the fuller sound of the record (via production by Milwaukee beatsmith and producer LMNtylist) by bringing some additional musicians along with her– a percussionist and a guitarist! This isn’t the first time she’s performed with a band– she used to for local shows, but most of her touring to date has been a solo affair.
I’m really excited to hear the new songs and the old done with a full band! Pezzettino will be opening for Chicago act Mike Mangione & The Union at the Blue Moose Tap House in Iowa City on Wednesday, September 15th. It is an all-ages show that starts at 7PM. I don’t know what the cover will be.
Pezzettino’s guitarist for this tour is Wolfgang Schaefer and he will be doing a solo set as well.
And if that wasn’t enough, before the show at the Blue Moose, Pezzettino will be the in-studio guest for Little Village Live on KRUI in the 5-6PM slot Wednesday night!
This week marks the 41st anniversary of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, which took place August 15th – 18th, 1969 in Bethel, New York. The stories and myths of Woodstock continue as that generation looks back on their history. A festival planned with idea of a gathering of music, camping and art grows to epic proportions as over twice the expected crowd shows up. The idea of a music festival changed forever and subsequent festivals in history would always be judged in the light of that event.
Last year saw the beginning of the Daytrotter.com Barnstormer shows– coincidentally on the year of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. These shows were and are the brainchild of Sean Moeller– the Master of Ceremonies for everything Daytrotter. The idea started simply enough– pick a handful of Daytrotter favorite bands, load them in a bus and tour the Midwest countryside playing in barns. Daytrotter fans will show up and hear these bands, generating interest in Daytrotter and in these bands and hopefully the bands will be able to make some money selling merch. After learning some logistical lessons in touring and playing non-standard venues a good time was had by all!
I draw the comparison between Woodstock and the Barnstormer shows not to suggest that the Barnstormer shows are or will make their place in music history like Woodstock did, but to show that the original idea of Woodstock is the same– bring good music talent to a rustic setting, provide camping and art to mutual benefit of everyone involved. Based on the buzz of last year’s small Barnstormer runs, and the first one from this year the formula works and people who aren’t from this part of the country are interested in being part of it.
Frankly speaking, some of my favorite bands of 2009 and 2010 came from these shows and most of the headliners have gone on to perform to larger audiences and have become regulars on the festival circuit– notably Dawes and Local Natives— but other acts like Suckers, Ra Ra Riot and Delta Spirit are also gaining in national recognition. Seeing bands that can play the big stages of Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo in a small intimate setting like Mooney Hollow in Bellevue, IA, Codfish Hollow Barn, Seacrest Octagonal Barn and others locations in the Midwest is nothing, if not pure magic. The bands and crowds feed from each other for what the bands generally say are their best performances.
The three Barnstormer tours (plus one Fourth of July show) have been in a changing list of towns with two notable exceptions– the Seacrest Octagonal Barn in West Liberty, IA and Codfish Hollow in Maquoketa, IA. Both locations draw very good crowds. In the case of Seacrest it seems to be related to the relative closeness to the Quad Cities and Iowa City/Cedar Rapids (and it is a really interesting barn!). In the case of Codfish Hollow it seems to be partially due to the proximity of these same cities, but also because of the efforts of Shawn and Tiffany Biehl who seem to have enough friends and relatives to damn near fill their barn– but also because they have really made the location part of the attraction. Literally located in a hollow– there isn’t enough parking near the barn for the growing crowds– nor is the winding gravel path down there wide enough for passing traffic. The solution? Have a shuttle to take campers and people parking down to the event. Not just any shuttle though– it’s an open-air hayride pulled by an honest-to-goodness International Harvester tractor! This year they opened a rustic art gallery on site making use of the unoccupied farmhouse, too. Adding to the charm of it all is an open field where fans and bands play horseshoes, fire rings scattered around to provide heat and light and the amazing food sold onsite by The Lunchbox which includes their famous “walking tacos” and chili.
Next Sunday brings a staggering number of bands back to Codfish Hollow— the headliner is Daytrotter and playbsides.com favorite Roadside Graves from New Jersey. I had the opportunity to see Roadside Graves last year in Bellevue at Mooney Hollow. They were in the area in between stops on their tour because they were taping their first Daytrotter session. Sean Moeller hooked them up with Mooney Hollow to play in trade for a place to sleep. It was a Tuesday night, so that didn’t bode well for a workweek crowd, but the few that showed up got an amazing and energetic show. People I’ve talked to that did make the show, still talk about that show– in fact, Tiffany Biehl says that show made her an instant fan of Roadside Graves and she is really excited to bring them to her barn!
This show on 8/22 was already an idea at the Barnstormer III show in April and has taken form and gained acts continually since the announcement of the show following the July 4th “Barn on the Fourth of July” show and the lineup is made up of some notable bands– most of whom are up-and-comers, but some are buzzworthy. When I talked to Tiffany at the Dawes show at Gabe’s last week she said that there might be a couple of other acts added to the eight (!!!) bands on the bill. Here’s the breakdown with a few words on each band with their essential links to help you learn more:
The 4onthefloor from Minneapolis : Four stomping kickdrums drive bluesy riffs over originals and mutated covers. WebsiteFacebookMySpace
The Treats from Mount Pleasant, IA : Jammy garage– kind of Blues Traveler without the harmonica. FacebookMySpace
What Happened Japan? : ? No Internet presence we can find…
Danger Ronnie and the Spins from Maquoketa, IA : Local band… Facebook but no samples of their music. Facebook
Tickets are $9.00 in advance and $10 at the door. Starts at 3PM. It is recommended that you bring your own lawnchair if you want to sit down and cooler as it it BYOB. This is an ALL AGES show.
Come out, camp on the land and set yourself free!
Click Here to purchase tickets for Roadside Graves at Codfish Hollow.
Click Here to see the Facebook Event for Roadside Graves at Codfish Hollow
Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore— according to the press-releases– met after Ben Sollee– a classically trained cellist and member of Abigail Washburn‘s Sparrow Quartet– stumbled upon Moore’s MySpace page and listened to the music there. Daniel Martin Moore was signed to SubPop records in 2007 on the power of an unsolicited demo. He released his first album Stray Age on SubPop in 2008.
Both Sollee and Moore as well as producer/collaborator Yim Yames (aka Jim James from My Morning Jacket) are from Kentucky and have a shared concern in the mountain top removal that occurs in coal mining in their state today. Sollee and Moore have chosen to take the proceeds of their first collaboration together– their album titled Dear Companion (on SubPop) and donate them to Appalachian Voices. Appalachian Voices is an organization hoping to bring awareness to and end mountain top removal coal mining. They have a really interesting application on their website that shows you how your local utility company contributes to Mountain Top Removal.
The little bit I’ve had a chance to listen to Dear Companion leaves me with the opinion that their stripped-down folk and bluegrass melange is reminiscent of Nick Drake and a little like labelmate The Iron and Wine. An impressive collaboration and very worth checking out.
Sollee and Moore will be performing at CSPS in Cedar Rapids on Monday, March 15th at 7PM. Joining Sollee and Moore on stage will be percussionist Dan Dorff and violinist Cheyenne Mize. Tickets are $11 in advance and $15 at the door.
Click Here for the Legion Arts webpage about the Dear Companion show.
Last week I posted about the first of the three This Land is Your Music shows at The Mill Restaurant in Iowa City featuring Pieta Brown and selected regional artists. Last week’s show featured Pieta in a solo acoustic setting. This week’s show featured Pieta in her most common live configuration– in a duo with Bo Ramsey. This was a show I was really looking forward to as it also had Bo as the opening act as a solo acoustic performance, which I hadn’t seen before!
As much as I look back fondly on the bar-rocking Sliders days of Bo, it is really interesting to see the “gentleman bluesman” identity Bo has adopted in the last decade or so. Seeing Bo on stage sitting down with his acoustic guitar in trademark attire of suit, boots and straw hat recalls at once both Hank Williams and Robert Johnson.
Bo’s music translates favorably to an acoustic setting and his guitar technique and chops are just as impressive as his electric ones. The song selection for his set spanned his entire career dipping back to the 80’s with “Back No More” and “I Don’t Know.” He pulled out “555 x 2” from Down to Bastrop which drew a favorable crowd reaction. We were also treated to his cover of “Sitting On Top of the World” he recorded for his blues “tribute” album Stranger Blues and my personal favorite from last year’s Fragile, “Buffalo to Jericho.”
Bo also performed two new songs– both of them co-written with Pieta Brown. “No Place Like Home” and “Going Back.” “Going Back” is a chanted lament for a simpler time with the repeated phrase “I’m Going Back.” Both songs are good– I’d heard them when Bo played the Mill back at the end of October. Hopefully this means he’s working on another album of material!
After a very short break where Pieta and Bo huddled in the corner going over the setlist they would play– they started into their set. It’s impressive to think that Pieta and Bo have been performing like this since the beginning of her career dating back to her first record around 2002. Bo as a sideman is a generational tradition started with Bo and Greg Brown and it’s an effective if economical way to perform. It is clearly a comfortable arrangement for both Bo and Pieta and neither of them really overshadow the other.
The set didn’t have much duplicates from last week except for three songs– the new “Faller” which is based on her meeting Tom Petty, “Calling All Angels,” and “Bad News.” The rest of the songs were a good mix of new and old and some choice covers. We also got a new track from the Shimmer EP– “Diamonds in the Sky” which she introduced by saying it was the first time playing it outside her bedroom.
The highlight of the night, however, was when she called Dave Moore up to the stage to perform five songs with them. He stuck to harmonica for most of the songs adding incendiary licks to “Are You Free”– I wish I would have recorded that! He switched to accordion for the Hank Williams song “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”
In the backroom gallery was work by Codi Josephson who runs Home Ec Workshop in Iowa City. She showed a collection of print-on-fabric pieces that looked pretty cool. You can see the exhibit in the flickr picture set.
This Thursday, 11/19 is the final show in the series and will have Pieta Brown fronting a full band made up of members of Bo’s band. Having seen her fronting a full band before, I urge anyone who can make it to come out! The first two shows were fairly low-key, but with a drummer there is a good chance people will be out shaking it on the dance floor. The opening act will be Dustin Busch, and the gallery exhibit will be from Sandy Dyas and will be an installation of her photographs– I think it will be based on her “Heaven and Earth” installation at Cornell College. Doors are at 7PM, show is promptly at 8PM and admission is $10– the proceeds of which go to support Public Radio, KCCK, and the Friends of Hickory Hill.
Bo’s Setlist: Sitting On Top Of The World (Big Bill Broonzy cover)
No Place Like Home*
Going Back*
Tell Me Now
555 x 2
Back No More
Buffalo to Jericho
I Don’t Know
Pieta’s Setlist” How Many Times
Prayer of Roses*
Even When
Loving You Still
Rollin’ Down the Tracks
Bad News
Faller
I’m Going Away Blues (w/Dave Moore) (Frank Stokes cover)
Are You Free (w/Dave Moore)
Diamonds In The Sky (w/Dave Moore)
I Don’t Want to Come Down (w/Dave Moore)
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (w/Dave Moore) (Hank Williams cover)
Calling All Angels
I’m Over You
Red Apple Juice (standard)
In the middle of her solo performance at The Mill in Iowa City Thursday night, Pieta said to the small crowd, “It’s like I’m playing to you in my living room!” Pieta was referring to the small crowd on Thursday night, but the stage was adorned with a chair and nightstand as well as lamps and an old dress form giving the stage a homey touch with lighting designed by Stan Crocker, who has done a lot of lighting design for TV shows like CMT’s Crossroads.
Last night was the first night of a three-week artist-in-residency at the Mill Restaurant in Iowa City of Pieta Brown. As stated earlier, the This Land Is Your Music series is showcasing Pieta Brown’s music but also includes other musicians from the area as well as other artists. Pieta stated in an interview with Ben Kieffer on IPR’s The Exchange that she wanted to take the opportunity to try out her music– new music and old in different configurations– solo, duo and full-band. She feels that The Mill was is a good place for her to try out new material which will be drawn from her new EP on Red House Shimmer, as well as songs that she is recording for her next full-length to come out next spring.
Last night’s show featured Pieta performing solo with Bo Ramsey’s son Alex Ramsey opening. In the back-room gallery the art of Pieta’s sister Zoe Brown and photographs by Dustin Busch were on exhibit. A last-minute addition to the lineup were three writers from the University of Iowa International Writing Program reading their short stories.
Alex Ramsey has contributed his keyboard skills to a number of Eastern Iowa music releases including a two records from the Pines as well as the last couple of Bo Ramsey albums but to date he hasn’t had much exposure as a solo artist. I made the very incorrect assumption that Alex, like his brother Benson would provide a sound that draws from the folk and country blues that is identified with so many artists from our area. Alex played a set of original piano-driven music that reminded me at times of Radiohead’s piano-focused songs but I would also compare it to the late Epic Soundtracks. It’s the slightly off-kilter but soulful vocal combined with the piano that brought me back to 1991’s Rise Above. Alex’s set was a combination of vocal and instrumental songs– most of which were described as works-in-progress. Alex performed three covers– one by Dr. Dog– “Livin’ A Dream,” a relatively obscure John Lennon track “Mr. Hyde’s Gone (Don’t Be Afraid)” which I think is only included on the Anthology box as a home demo, and he wrapped up his set with “Waltz (Better Than Fine)” by Fiona Apple. He said during the show that he wished he had a CD he could sell us– I do, too!
Following Alex was three participants in the International Writing Program reading their own short stories. I wasn’t able to catch their names, but one of them was Maxine Case from South Africa who read her short story “Homing Pigeons” (exerpt here). Another writer was Garcia Groyon from the Philippines. I can’t identify the first writer from the pictures. I think it was pretty cool that they were able to participate– it reminded me of the incredible resource the U of I writing program is.
Up next was Pieta who set out to do a solo set, but ended up adding in some special guests towards the end of it. I’d never seen her perform solo before, so it was a treat to hear how her guitar work changes to fill in the missing guitar parts typically provided by Bo Ramsey. She’s not a flashy lead guitarist, but I was impressed with her ability to drop in a arpeggiated chord or two to round the songs out. “New songs and new guitars– probably not an advisable combination” she quipped at one point– apparently she had all new guitars in tow. The last time I saw her she mentioned that she was getting her own Reverend Flatroc, so this time the guitar was here. In a pretty butterscotchish color apparently called “Rock Orange.”
The set was a pretty good mix recent songs, older songs and new songs as she set out to do. Curiously, she only did one song from her upcoming EP Shimmer– “You’re My Lover Now”– which seems to be the “single” if there was one. Of course, the Shimmer songs were recorded back in March and she said that she just got back from recording songs for her full length, so possibly these are fresher to her. She told me that she doesn’t really hit the stage with a setlist in mind. Three of the songs were from her self-released Flight Time EP with just one track from Remember the Sun and her arrangement of the traditional “Little Sparrow” from her I Never Told EP. She dropped in her version of the blues standard “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” and “Calling All Angels” which she did as part of her KCRW session back in 2007.
We were blessed with some new songs that all sound like they have some potential in the studio. “The Other Way Around” and “It Wasn’t That” were new songs to me. She also did “Faller” which I had heard when she did her show at the Mill with a full band back in June.
After the first nine songs she decided to invite her sister Constie Brown up to sing on “Remember the Sun” and “Just” and then she invited Dustin Busch up to the stage to provide some slide guitar to “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” and “Harry’s Blues.” Pieta said that her original plan was to play all of the instruments she had on stage by herself as she handed Dustin the Flatroc and a slide. She added that growing up music was always about getting people together to play. Dustin quickly adapted to the guitar and provided some nice accompaniment to Pieta. I’m looking forward to seeing his opening set at the This Land Is Your Music show on 11/19.
The backroom gallery was the back area of the restaurant that could be closed off and I think is sometimes used as a “backstage” area for bands. In its capacity of art gallery it was able to have some lighting to show the paintings of Zoe Brown and the photos of Dustin Busch. The gallery seemed to enjoy a pretty constant flow of people.
I like Zoe’s paintings quite a bit– you can see more of them in my slideshow below or at the flickr.com set. She’s not afraid of big expanses of color. Dustin’s double-exposureish photos were pretty cool, too. I would have liked to see more of them and maybe larger.
Ultimately, I think this is a really cool thing that Pieta is trying to put together. The idea is pure– bring the regional art together in celebration and give back. I think in our Internet-enabled era where we find our art and culture on a nearly boundless territory we often forget that there are artists in our own backyard that are worth supporting.
If you are available on either of the next two Thursday nights– 11/12 and 11/19– make the effort to come out. These are guaranteed to be loose, fun shows as Pieta considers the Mill to be her home turf.
The 11/12 show has Bo Ramsey opening and supporting her in her set with a gallery of Codi Josephson’s work. The 11/19 show will have Dustin Busch opening with Pieta fronting a full band that, billed as “Skyrocket,” I believe will have Jon Penner, Steve Hayes and Al Shares (I think). The gallery on the 19th will be a installation of photographs of Iowa photographer and supporter of the local scene Sandy Dyas.
The cover is $10 will proceeds going to support Iowa Public Radio, KCCK, and the Friends of Hickory Hill. Doors are at 7PM with the show starting at 8PM.
Pieta’s Setlist:
West Monroe
Other Way Around*
Bad News
Faller*
It Wasn’t That*
Calling All Angels
Little Sparrow
Gravel Road Blues (Joe Price Cover)
You’re My Lover Now
Remember the Sun (with Constie Brown)
Just (with Constie Brown)
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ (with Dustin Busch)
Harry’s Blues (with Dustin Busch) (Mississippi Fred McDowell Cover)
The original Works Progress Administration was part of FDR’s 1939 New Deal initiative which put millions of people to work in the darkest part of the Great Depression. This spirit of community and creativity is carried in the philosophy of a band that takes its name.
Works Progress Administration is a supergroup of sorts– an “expanding collective” according to the band’s website. At its core it is Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket and solo, Sean Watkins formerly of the excellent Nickle Creek and Luke Bulla who spent time in Lyle Lovett’s band. On record the band includes Sean’s sister Sara from Nickle Creek, Benmont Tench from Petty’s Heartbreakers, Pete Thomas from Elvis Costello’s Attractions, ace sessionmen Greg Leisz and Davey Faragher. Faragher was a founding member of Cracker as well as part of Costello’s Imposters. Works Progress Administration is a continuation of the collaborative nature of the relationship between Philips and Sean and Sara Watkins of Nickle Creek. Philips, the Watkins and Pete Thomas were also in the group Mutual Appreciation Society which recorded an album in 2000 and was released by Sugar Hill in 2004.
Even though WPA is a collective effort of its members, it’s clear that this band is really leaning on Phillip’s songs since he’s provided half of them. Sean Watkins, not content to stay at the bench, has contributed three standout songs (love “Paralyzed”!) and Luke Bulla’s “Cry For You” is an easy favorite of mine and would seem to have a lot of potential to be a highlight live. Seeing this group play CSPS in Cedar Rapids would be a real treat!
WPA will be at the pearl in the crown of New Bohemia in Cedar Rapids known as CSPS on Tuesday, December 1st at 8PM. Tickets will be $20 in advance and $25 at the door.
Click Here for the Works Progress Administration’s Website where you can see other tour dates and stream the new album.
Click Here for the Legion Arts / CSPS website where you can get information on how to get tickets.
Listen/Buy Works Progress Administration. This band is independent– meaning no record label. If you like what you hear please support this band by buying their album!
Next Tuesday night, October 27th, folk and blues singer-songwriter Chris Smither will be making a stop at CSPS in Cedar Rapids during his Fall tour in support of his new album on Signature Sounds Time Stands Still which came out on September 29th.
A collection of stripped-down orignals and a few choice covers by Dylan, Knopfler and Frank Hutchison, Time Stands Still was recorded in an astounding three days and captures the immediacy of his live show.
Chris’s songs have been recorded by artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, and Donna Krall. It was Raitt’s recording of “Love Me Like A Man” for her 1972 album Give It Up that marked the beginning of a long-standing working partnership. Diana Krall covered this same song in 2004 for her album The Girl in the Other Room.
The show will be at 7PM next Tuesday night (October 27th) and tickets are $18 in advance and $22 at the door. Don’t miss this opportunity to see this acclaimed songwriter and performer at the amazing CSPS!
Click Here to listen to “Surprise, Surprise” from Time Stand Still.
