But one thing we learn as the months go on is that nothing stays that dark forever, and eventually we begin to heal from the rawness. This first single from their forthcoming Winter of Mixed Drinks (due in March from Fat Cat) shows me the next chapter in this story. I know that love and loss are not unique to any of us, but this song feels presciently for me — the fierce uncertainty to this song, the defiant healing, the slight bleeding around the edges that I can still see between all the lyrics.
Nothing Like You – Frightened Rabbit
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This is a story and you are not in it
fought the pages torn out
here is a bedroom that you’ve never been in
here is your shovel, there’s the ground
Look two lovers covered in covers
I can put us to bed tonight
I am bruised, but she is dressing the wounds
night nursing a broken man
She was not the cure for cancer
and all my questions still ask for answers
there is nothing like someone new
and this girl she was nothing like you
Up awake and I’m post-apparition
I find I’ve come in a dream again
all the pain almost as painful as ever but
something in me was not the same
At night you’re in dreams of submission
I could claw back my heart and soul
as the size of this tumor diminishes
so we fill that black hole
She was not the cure for cancer
and all my questions still ask for answers
there is nothing like someone new
and this girl she was nothing like you
One snowy Sunday night in October, I sat at my kitchen table after tucking my little one into bed and realized that Glen Phillips of Toad The Wet Sprocket was playing at that very moment right up the road with his new band Works Progress Administration, and I had completely missed it. After listening to their bluegrass-laced toe-tapping goodness, I started looking up other tourdates and noticed they were playing in December in Nashville, where a dear friend lives. And thus, this edition of musical adventure was born.
Works Progress Administration is an expandable collective, centered around the songwriting skills of Glen Phillips, Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, and Luke Bulla of Lyle Lovett’s Large Band. In various incarnations live and on the album, they are fleshed out with folks from other bands like Soul Coughing, Elvis Costello’s Imposters, and Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers. They were playing at the storied Exit/In in Nashville, and I arranged to interview Glen and his new bandmates. To say this was a big deal for me would be an understatement.
I have loved Toad for more than half my life, and with my entire heart. They were one of the first bands I really claimed as my own during young adulthood, and whose perfect songwriting (“Windmills,” anyone?) has taught me so much and fortified more parts of me than I can count. I am a Toad-saturated girl, through and through. I once wrote, “listening this afternoon to toad the wet sprocket does many things for and to my psyche. the first sensation is definitely a heady and pleasant one, loaded with a thousand really good memories and the fierce scent of youth and optimism.” I still feel those things when I hear Glen’s distinctive, earnest voice on any of his current solo projects and collaborations. I was curious to talk to Glen and learn more about how his songwriting has shifted over the years, where his musical interests are taking him, and what he hopes to accomplish next.
I got all that and more when Glen and I sat down with his bandmates Sean Watkins and Luke Bulla after soundcheck one December afternoon. It was one of the most fascinating discussions about music I’ve had in a long time.
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION INTERVIEW
F/F: I am a longtime fan of Toad the Wet Sprocket and also your solo work, Glen, and one thing I’ve always admired is the songcraft behind your music. As a collective I know you all contributed to this album, and I’m wondering if the songwriting process changes. Since we’re in Nashville, Dolly Parton once said, “Writing songs is my private time with God.” Are you each still working personally and privately on writing your songs, or is it more of a collective effort now?
Glen: Most of the songs came in complete from each of the songwriters – we knew we were doing the album and we just saved up things that we thought would work for the group. There was one co-write that Luke and I did (“Cry For You”) but that was the only actual co-write on the record. And that was a very natural collaboration, like, “I’ve got this idea, let’s play with it.”
There’s a certain way of writing when the songs are for a group like there, where I’d say the difference is mostly you can write with others’ orchestration in mind. Like the song, “Already Gone” would not be a lot of fun to sing by yourself because the whole chaos of the chorus is this three-part, Twist and Shout-style buildup. So you have the freedom to write for harmony, for a particular kind of space or texture for the band.
Sean: I love writing for projects. I didn’t write anything specifically for this album, the songs I contributed were already in place. But I love getting that opportunity to work within the constraints or capabilities of a group – a new sonic playground to aim for. It’s really fun to do that. And I’m always trying to write as much as I can since new reasons will always come up when you need songs. You can never have too many of them sitting around.
Glen: I should just say too that we got together and did this album very quickly, so the next album is really going to be based around this particular five-piece, and we are going to be writing specifically for this project. It will less anarchistic; we’ll have a much better idea of what the palette is.
F/F: There was a quote I read about the making of this album about trying in your songwriting and collaboration to leave space within the songs, rather than everyone rushing to fill up every moment of the song with their unique skill or musical strength.
Sean: Every record is different, and this record came together with a big pile of songs we already had there. So what I think gives this record its personality is the individual players, and yeah, how we did leave space for each other, and tried to see how little you can play and still make it happen. That’s not to say that people don’t step out and do “fancy” stuff every now and then, but this particular group of musicians was a delight to collaborate with.
F/F: And I think that makes it pleasing to hear as well. Sometimes with these so-called “supergroups” you get super-egos as well, where everyone’s trying to do all their noodling and their fancy drum fills and each talent they are known for that will make them stand out, and it can be overwhelming as a listener.
Glen: Yeah, there are a lot of reasons that we’ve decided that we don’t really like the term supergroup. Number one is they tend to be funded and actually be superstars of some kind, and they have a bus…things like that. We’re people with a past, but that’s about it.
F/F: Sure, and also I think supergroup implies certain things, like the term “side project.” It implies that this is not as important as your primary work, like it’s a diversion.
Glen: …and that the personalities are more important than the music. It implies a success of marketing, rather than a spirit of creativity.
F/F: So this album was three days of rehearsal and five days of recording, and I had read a 2003 interview you did, Glen, where you talked about the overuse of ProTools and production in recording, and you said “The world does not need another Auto-Tuned, Beat-Detectived, loop-based record.” Is that how you prefer to record these days, with more of a live, organic feel?
Glen: It all depends. I also have a project called Remote Tree Children that’s Auto-Tuned and Beat-Detectived and it’s a lot of fun. The thing that I don’t like are records that try to sound like a band in a room, and then manicure it to the point where it takes all the life out of it, and there’s too many takes and too many overdubs. You wind up with something that’s supposed to sound like people playing together, but it isn’t.
I think there’s a place for using live performance and there’s a place for using the studio. I mean, Bjork is a perfect example of somebody who balances acoustic instruments and dynamic performances from electronic instruments, and really understands the balance of the synthetic and the real. Peter Gabriel also does the same thing, and LCD Soundsystem has the scratchiest guitars and the weirdest loops. So there’s a lot of room for that, but to make a record that’s really song-based, the slickness tends to detract. There’s a real beauty in going in a room and just playing a song and walking in and listening to it back, and that’s the record.
Luke: That’s what was really great about making this record, just to sit around and play these songs as a band – sitting in Sean’s living room in LA, and just working the songs out for three days. We just went in and played, and maybe later we added a few vocals and fixed a thing or two, but for the most part it’s really a live record, and the group and what we’re about and how we play together really came through.
F/F: I’m reminded of the All-Wave Recording movement championed by Kim Deal of the Breeders and producer Steve Albini (“everything should be an analog sound recording of someone playing or singing, rather than using a computer to generate or digitally manipulate sounds separated from the dimension of time in which they were performed. In short, to record All-Wave, one must use no computers, no digital recording, no auto-tuning, or any other mainstays of contemporary production.”)
Glen: I think people can tell that, though, when a record has that authenticity. In the same way that – and this is the only way in which I will ever equate these two bands – In the same way that Hootie and the Blowfish was a populist answer to everybody being really hardcore and intense and screaming all the time, when it wasn’t cool to be sensitive at all, there’s some part of people that just hungers for something as simple as “Hold My Hand.” They wanna hear something they can just relate to, they don’t want to have to be edgy all the time. I think that 30 million records was a response to this glut of overly-intense, self-important music – even though lots of it was great.
I think the White Stripes in a similar way, people were so hungry for music where the drums were obviously not being made in time, nothing was tuned, nothing was messed with, you could tell that that was rough and real, and you could tell that it was rough and real, and I think people were starving for it. Part of the reaction is the merit of the band itself, but I also think part of the reaction is that they were making a big statement against the way records had started sounding, the slippery slope everyone had gone down into artificiality.
Once again, there are people that run the line better than others, but it’s what happens with any instrument of war; you invent dynamite and then you start the Nobel Peace Prize after inventing dynamite because you think that this is going to end war and instead it just escalates it. Every time a tool like this gets invented to help make music better, the tool takes over for a while and there are different periods of recovery, and I think we’re just starting to recover from Auto-Tune.
F/F: And of course the live music experience is an opportunity for you to really connect with fans, without any of the trappings or tricks.
Glen: Yes, there are bands that are incredibly technological and also absolutely awesome live. They understand making a show and what to leave raw, like MGMT is a great example – they’re very technical, but also know when to leave things raw. I think there’s a lot that’s been done on very manicured records, and now people are striving to find a happy medium.
There was a period, I think, when bands were getting signed very young with great demos, and people got burned a lot live. But I think people went to a lot of shows where they’d heard a record that sounded great and they got there and the band couldn’t play live. That’s one nice thing about the contracting of the music industry, and I think bands that can’t play aren’t getting signed as much anymore. Everybody knows you have to bring it live, or it’s not going to work.
F/F: I feel like technology has helped spread live fan recordings as a way of creating a buzz about a band. Going back to my own history, I was on a Toad the Wet Sprocket list when I was in high school and we would swap compilation tapes from live moments of tours, best-of collections of fan recordings, in a way that I never saw done before the internet came into play for the superfans. Now sites like Live Music Archive or Wolfgang’s Vault help people know if the band has the chops and emotional energy to be worth your time live.
Sean: I’m just grateful that we have that one thing as musicians that can’t be taken away from us, that ability to go out on the road and connect with people live. I think that’s always secure.
F/F: Each of you come from your own distinguished backgrounds and unique fan bases. Are you finding that the people coming out to your shows are coming from a familiarity with one of your previous efforts, or are you converting brand new fans?
Luke: Well, it seems a little different each time. Audiences have been very supportive, there’s been a little radio play, but mostly it’s extremely grassroots, very word-of-mouth. It’s been a learning curve for us to learn how to present it is and where it came from and what we’re trying to do.
F/F: It seems like a dynamic period for you guys as musicians.
Sean: Yeah, you try to make the most of what fans you have from previous incarnations, but you also really want to bring in new people, that’s the best way. And the only way to do that is often to play shows, and then go back and play again, and it’s nice to see as you go along to see new faces and more people coming in. And you hope that people that might have known about one of your bands will come and bring a friend. It’s exciting. In bluegrass and folk circles that I come from, people are pretty diligent about following their favorite musicians in whatever they do.
Glen: It’s been interesting, I lost a lot of people by not being very “rock” after Toad, but even now seeing people write things like, “Oh, well, I didn’t know about bluegrass….but I went to the show and it was awesome.” I mean, it’s interesting to see where people’s prejudices lie. I’ve kind of compared it to – if all you’d heard of rock music was Creed, you might not listen to rock music.
Most people have heard very little bluegrass, they don’t know the depth or the history or understand the context in which to appreciate it. Even to the degree where a band like Nickel Creek, which is very much not a bluegrass band but from a bluegrass background, fans will lump everything together. So it’s been very interesting to hopefully give people an opportunity to confront their prejudices and get turned onto something new and realize they might like it.
F/F: Is it a big leap from pop to rock to bluegrass? How have you crossed it, not coming from the same background as, say, Sean?
Glen: I don’t think that there’s anything to cross. I think songs are songs, and you can take a song like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and do the Weird Al polka version of it (ed: or this, which Glen showed me on his iPhone later that night). Genre has a certain reach, but I think it’s a limited one. We made this album because we wanted to play songs together that we love, as well as we can with the personnel we have.
We have one or two things in the live set that lean towards bluegrass, but there are also things that would be completely wrong for a bluegrass show, like we have an electric guitar, and a drummer, and an electric bass instead of an upright bass, so we’re screwing everything up there. And on the record there’s pedal steel and piano, which have no place in bluegrass at all. So, I occasionally have heard criticisms of the band, “Oh, it’ll be interesting to hear what happens when you guys find your sound,” but we sound like we do because we like that variety. I hate the idea that we would someday show up and you would be able to predict what the tone of the next song would sound like because the last three songs all sounded exactly the same. That would just bore all of us to tears.
Sean: It doesn’t matter what genre it is, it just matters if the songs are good.
Glen: And I think people are becoming more accepting of that. I mean, it is the iPod generation, so many people are proud to have broad tastes, but I think people still have a hard time swallowing musicians from the iPod generation who don’t have a defined sound. I feel this pressure like, “Well, you’ve got to find out what your sound is and then stick to that, so people will know what to expect from you.” Bands like Iron & Wine, I think he’s great but I also can’t take huge doses because there’s not huge variety on his albums. It’s a great place to go, but people seem to have less expectation that you will adhere to a pre-existing genre, but more expectation that you will create your personal sound and never deviate from it.
F/F: Glen, in that same interview from 2003, you talked about your frustration with a blockage in getting music released after recording it. With this record, you guys are doing it all yourselves with no label backing, and you’re using tools on the internet like BandCamp to disseminate your music. Do you think this album could have happened in the same way ten years ago?
Sean: Well certainly the technology wasn’t there ten years ago, but there were other ways back then, like more people bought actual records
Luke: Now people just stream the record online without purchasing it.
Sean: Record sales ten years ago were huge compared to now.
Glen: It’s interesting because more people listen to more music now, but fewer people are paying for it, and at the same time, it’s easier to make records and put them out. There’s a statistic that I heard recently – back when Toad was putting out records there were maybe 20,000 records a year, and now there were 100,000 records put out this year, and supposedly only 1500 of them sold more than ten thousand copies. So you have a shrinking market with a total glut of product.
It’s interesting, I mean ten years ago it would have been different. We probably would have been able to do this record with a label, and get some more attention, and there were things about the world then that seemed more intact. You could actually put one foot in front of the other and predict what would have an effect and what wouldn’t. Radio used to sell records. It’s a strange world right now. I think in a lot of ways it is the Wild West – there’s great opportunities, but the success stories feel like unrepeatable anomalies.
****
After the interview I got to share a meal with Glen and continue our conversation (top 5 night, for sure) and their show impressed me and all of the enthusiastic Nashville crowd. There is a true joy to watching these musicians play together, and I was glad to get a chance to witness it, after hearing them talk about what they want this band to be.
Speaking of Jim James (or Yim Yames, as he seems to be going by fulltime these days), the My Morning Jacket frontman is producing the newest record from classically-trained cellist Ben Sollee and hushed folkie Daniel Martin Moore. The collaboration will be the follow-up to Sollee’s Learning to Bend and Moore’s pensive Sub Pop debut Stray Age (both in 2008).
Reinforcing my love of Kentucky lately, all these fellas know each other from the Louisville music scene and recorded this album early last year in their home state. On the resulting album, the songs are written and performed by Sollee and Moore, produced by and featuring Yim Yames. Sounds like an excellent idea to me.
Dear Companion is out on Sub Pop on February 16th, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting Appalachian Voices, an organization devoted to ending mountaintop removal coal mining in central Appalachia.
And if I wounded you, I’m sorry
I had good intentions
If I wounded you, I’m sorry — it happens all the time
You may also recall that the James/Sollee pair already recorded a fantastic, political folk duet “Only A Song” in 2008, full of hope and optimism, released on Election Day. And although I missed Sollee’s recent swing through Colorado, I loved seeing him last winter with Abigail Washburn and her Appalachian-Chinese folk music blend.
BONUS: I also so adore this one. His voice is distinctive, and almost haunting here.
BEN SOLLEE “PEDALING AGAINST POVERTY” TOUR
Jan 20 – Iron Horse Music Hall, Northhampton, MA *
Jan 21 – Ifinity Hall, Norfolk, CT *
Jan 22 – Fairfield Theater, Fairfield, CT *
Jan 24 – Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ *
Jan 26 – One Longfellow Square, Portland, ME *
Jan 27 – Club Passim, Cambridge, MA *
Jan 29 – IOTA, Arlington, VA *
Jan 30 – Arden Concert Guild, Arden, DE *
Jan 31 – The Southern, Charlottesville, VA *
Feb 2 – Rex Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA #
Feb 3 – Wealthy Theatre, Grand Rapids, MI #
Feb 4 – Callahan’s, Auburn Hills, MI #
Feb 5 – The Livery, Benton Harbor, MI #
Feb 6 – Kent Stage, Kent, OH #
*with Carrie Rodriguez
# with Erin McKeown and Carrie Rodriguez
Why’s it so strange when they say that the world’s moving upwards?
why’s it surreal when my hands feel they can’t roll the dice?
why’s it so great just to wake every day alive and by your side?
It’s a mystery I guess, there’s lots of things I can’t find
its not the way that you look, but your move that catches my eye
Why’s it so soft when the cannons unload on the others?
Why’re we so loud when we say it won’t happen to us?
Why does my mind blow to bits every time they play that song?
It’s just the way that he sings
not the words that he says or the band
I’m in love with this soul, it’s a meaning that I understand The Way That He Sings (acoustic) – My Morning Jacket (Up Cripple Creek version)
A stunning rendition from a rad acoustic set by Jim James of My Morning Jacket, at a tiny bar in Louisville, Kentucky a few months back. Jim surely possesses one of the most affecting and astounding voices in all of rockdom today, and I got tingles at the way the crowd fills right in with the background chant that I’ve always heard as “ah he don’t know, no….” Wonderful. I would have given a small body part to maybe be there.
Jim James also announced a new record label endeavor last week, a joint project between him and former My Morning Jacket guitarist Johnny Quaid. Read more at the Removador Records website; they aim to bring you “some of the coldest music you ain’t never heard.”
In 2007, one of my top twenty favorite songs of the whole year was a tune called “Electricity + Drums” from a Kentucky band named The Apparitions. I think a random reader recommendation pointed me over to their website, and within the first second of that song, I was snagged, and couldn’t wait to gushingly tell you all about it. My iTunes player currently advises that I have listened to it 186 times since then, partly because it is on both my favorite running mix, as well as my favorite party mix. Here’s why:
Right?! It really is a whiz-bang, whirling dervish of fun and handclaps that I’m still enjoying regularly.
The second part of the story (it all connects in wondrous fashion, just watch): On Tuesday night, I trekked through snow and fog to get up into the ski country of Colorado and see These United States. They were the last show I saw in the waning minutes of 2009, and I decided to bookend this year nicely with them being the first of 2010.
I was talking to These United States drummer Robby Cosenza about how joyously he drums, and he mentioned another musical project of his, Fanged Robot. When I googled up some Fanged Robot music yesterday, I was absolutely floored (nearly fell off my couch) to hear Robby doing an acoustic version of “Electricity + Drums” halfway through an old Band in Boston podcast. Turns out, Robby is also the drummer for The Apparitions, and he wrote that very song that I’ve been loving all these 186 unrestrained times. Full circle, pass go, collect $200! These United States guitarist Justin Craig is also in The Apparitions. Oh how I love it when good music all connects so randomly and seamlessly.
This acoustic version doesn’t have the handclaps (except the ones I add), but it makes my ears incredibly happy, as do the rest of the songs on that podcast. The way Robby does it here reminds me of Deer Tick meeting Ryan Adams, and his yowl also does the favor of letting me finally understand more of these superb lyrics that I’ve always just mumbled through, like “this town’s boasting some kind of warning, there’s no glow from the bulbs for the moths to get drawn in, you’re far away but I still hear you callin’…”:
Fanged Robot has a show coming up in Lexington, Kentucky on the 22nd of this month.
These United States just finished a string of tour dates, and they are currently holed up in Boulder for a few weeks, working pre-production on their fourth studio album.
It will be the follow-up to their scorching, intelligent Everything Touches Everything, from which this barn-burner comes:
I overlooked this band in 2009, I think because I was confused by their wisp-of-a-name that hardly exists at all, but just flits like a butterfly — and an album title that reads like it should be a small notation in script on the side of an old thermometer.
In reality, jj is a duo from Sweden (Joakim Benon and Elin Kastlander), and their summery album jj nº 2 sounds wonderful, here in the middle of this winter. This confection is irresistible and I keep listening to it today. Things Will Never Be The Same Again – jj
And just like that, everything is shimmery and tropical, but with a silvery edge that feels intergalactic. Elin’s voice is so generous and warm that it serves to root the song deeply, and there are even moments in this song that remind me of a more hip-shaking Enya (who you just know at one point made you want to sail away too).
Their next full-length album jj nº 3 is due out March 9th in the US via Secretly Canadian, in conjunction with their home Scandinavian label Sincerely Yours.
They’re also touring in the coming months with The xx because they are name-twins, and were meant for each other. Clearly.
THE XX + JJ TOUR
3/22 Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
3/23 Birmingham, AL – Bottletree
3/24 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
3/25 Carrboro, NC – Cats Cradle
3/28 Washington, DC – Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
3/29 Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church Sanctuary
3/30 Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory
3/31 New York, NY – Webster Hall
4/02 Boston, MA – Paradise
4/03 Montreal, QC – Le National
4/04 Toronto, ON – Lees Palace
4/05 Columbus, OH – Wexner Center
4/06 Bloomington, IN – Buskirk-Chumley Theater
4/08 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
4/09 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater
4/12 Bellingham, WA – The Nightlight Lounge
4/13 Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
4/14 Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom
4/16 San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill
…and I forgot to listen! I did the Polar Bear Plunge on New Year’s Day, and I do believe that diving into the 35° Boulder Reservoir may have frozen my brain.
In any case, my conversation with David Dye is streaming online now (so I can finally hear it!) and I would love to invite you to come take a listen while we talk about some of my favorites of 2009! Anthony DeCurtis from Rolling Stone is on the other half of the broadcast with David this year; it is always a joy to be a World Cafe guest.
Well, Joe Pug just did it to me again. I’ve been feeling a little dessicated these last few days, and not much like writing about music (happens to the best of us). And then I heard this new song “Unsophisticated Heart,” and it is just everything I am feeling tonight. I love Joe for this simple honesty; for the incisive accuracy he has with the words he pens, and the ache in his voice as he sings them.
In the same resigned way that Jeff Tweedy’s voice has when it cracks on the line as he covers Radiohead, “If I could be who you wanted….,” Joe’s voice here is so unvarnished so you can see right through to the parts of him that are fragile. I imagine some would say that having an unsophisticated heart is a detriment, and downfall, a liability — and it certainly can feel like it sometimes. But by the time Joe reaches the end of this song, I don’t mind mine at all.
Unsophisticated Heart – Joe Pug
Take a walk on Sunday, it ain’t that hard
take a walk on Sunday, it ain’t that hard
If my thoughts are hard to gather
if I don’t know where to start
it ain’t my mind that matters
for I have an unsophisticated heart
Tried to trust a stranger, it got hard
you know I tried to trust a stranger
it got hard
Now I see things like a soldier
and I’m jealous of the dark
but if my eyes have only gotten colder
I still have an unsophisticated heart
Oh my eyes will hardened, my voice will be guarded
my mind so bewildered and buried in the garden
you may still know me by just one part
I tried to keep your secret, it got hard
There was nowhere I could keep it
it got hard
And there’s one thing that’s for certain
when they come with their dogs and their guards
I can hide behind the thinnest curtains
for I have an unsophisticated heart
for I have
for I….
Joe Pug’s first proper full-length album (after slaying me with two previousEPs) is finally out on February 16th and will be called Messenger.
In the weeks surrounding the album release, Joe is on tour with Justin Townes Earle (for reals) and they come to Denver on my half-birthday February 19th. Yes, we celebrate things like that ’round here, and that show will be a fine way to commemorate another half-year gone.
Ramseur Records sent out a late Christmas present to Avett Brothers fans last weekend, announcing that their label would re-release all of the extremely rare solo material that Avett brother Seth released under the name Darling nearly a decade ago.
Seth tells of the earnest backstory behind these recordings:
“In the year 2001, at twenty-one years of age, I recorded an album entitled To Make the World Quiet. The inspiration for the piece was urgent and impatient. There was no managerial or label involvement. There was no funding. Without any consideration towards who (if anyone) would hear the result of this outing, I happily executed each aspect of the process, including all writing, performance of each instrument, engineering and modest production.
The following year, I again, by the same process was obliged to record an album. Killing the Headlamps was the realization of this second venture as ‘Darling’. Both albums were made on a 4-track cassette recorder. I initially mixed them both on a low-fidelity home stereo in my kitchen (to yet another cassette). I spent a perhaps unhealthy amount of time with a ruler, an Xacto knife, and a real-time dual-deck cd duplicator, hand-assembling these two albums (along with the first couple thousand units of the first official Avett Brothers recording Country Was).
Until New Years Eve 2010, the only physical copies of these records laid in the hands of maybe a few hundred people that I sold them to personally. I have been honored by the continued interest in these early works as expressed by those who have inquired about them at Avett performances. It is this kind inquiry that has inspired me again; this time to make them readily available through a proper duplication and ordering process. My sincere thanks go out to all who have made these current developments possible, not least of all to the Avett Brothers fans, who have graciously provided the fire to keep the interest in these solo works alive.”
- Seth Avett
To celebrate the re-release of these rare recordings, the folks at Crackerfarm have made some simple (and stunning) new videos of performances of songs off these albums. Here is one, with another now available –and three more coming– at the the Darling website.
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION INTERVIEW
These United States just finished a string of tour dates, and they are currently holed up in Boulder for a few weeks, working pre-production on their fourth studio album. 
Name: Heather Browne
