Songwriters keep on playing, despite being ’scary broke’
Ghosts in the Woods
This is another installment of the Small Name, Big Talent series. Recommend songwriters for this series through e-mail, click here.
Comprised of Clayton Carden and Scott Jenkinsan, Ghosts in the Woods is an acoustic duo based out of Kingsport, Tenn. Using multi-layer vocal tracks, dancing guitars and everyday objects such as spoons and decks of cards, they create a lush, folky atmosphere.
In a world with bands like Animal Collective forgoing song writing for ambiance, emotion and movement, Ghosts in the Woods manage to pull out all of the stops, combining soulful harmonies with strong, story-telling lyrics.
With their self-released DVD/CD coming out, an interview with the duo was in order.
Shock and Yawn’s Justin Plemmons: So, let’s get the generic questions out of the way: What are your influences?
Scott: I grew up with some kinda traditional stuff, like country and blue grass. But we sort of split in adolescence– I started listening to punk music and stuff like that, (as well as) the beginnings of indie rock, like Jaw Breaker and that kind of stuff. It still kind of has the song writing appeal that country music has, you know, heartbreak and loneliness, but has a different sound.
Clayton: My dad was a dead head, so I got into Jam bands.
S:I’m a big fan, and so is Clayton, of Ryan Adams.
[Continue reading about Ghosts in the Woods, hear the band]
E. Kentucky songwriter creating Spanish-folk style
Photo by Doug Strickland
This is the first installment of the Small Name, Big Talent series. Recommend songwriters for this series through e-mail, click here.
You never know what you will miss about home until you are gone, or what will bring memories of your roost rushing in.
For Jeff Hortillosa, an Eastern Kentucky native, it was the sound of his hometown’s rustling trees. Now living in a Spanish city and working as an English teacher, Hortillosa, or “Horti” to his friends, has only one sound that comes close.
“The only bit of home I really get is my guitar,” Hortillosa said. “Nothing comes close to sounding like the trees.”
It will be July before he comes moves back to the U.S., at which time he plans to teach so he can make money to support his habit: Music.
A natural musician, Hortillosa is the kind of guy who can pick up an instrument he has never seen before, pluck it a couple of times and then start strumming and humming out a new song. He is the guy who can play Van Halen’s famous guitar solo “Eruption” on a toy keytar. When he was young, he learned to play guitar just so he could teach his friend to play rhythm while Hortillosa jammed on his original instrument, the drums.
[Read on for more about Hortillosa, Download MP3s]
KY’s Jim James and Daniel Martin Moore sing out about mountain top removal
Jim James and Daniel Martin Moore are singing out against mountain top removal. Photo by Brad Luttrell | SaY
Just utter the word “coal,” and emotions flare, hotter and higher than the flames the black rock generates when burned for energy.
The supporters of coal mining fight back against the environmentalists, saying coal provides jobs and useful flat land in the impoverished Eastern Kentucky, while the anti-coal activists say the technology is readily available for a switch to green energy, and that we are destroying our environment.
Two Kentucky songwriters are coming together to help make their voices heard. Jim James, or Yim Yames as he is calling himself outside of his best-known band, My Morning Jacket, and Sub Pop’s pop-folk artist Daniel Martin Moore will be performing a show in support of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth’s effort to stop mountain top removal.
[Get tickets, directions, click more]
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Harper Simon sprouting from family tree’s shadows
Harper Simon is playing Natasha's Bistro this Friday.
Harper Simon does have a sober sound, comfortable within itself, just like his father’s music does.
Oh, you know his father. Paul. Right? Paul Simon, as in Simon and Garfunkel. But Harper Simon’s music honors its family tree while sprouting away from its shadow. He has found his place in folk-pop, and it doesn’t need the preface of his father’s work.
Starting Friday the 13th, Harper Simon is touring South. He’ll be playing in Lexington, then heading to Louisville, Nashville, Memphis and Bloomington.
Natasha’s Bistro has become one of the biggest little advocates of local and good music in Lexington, Ky. That reputation gets is solidified with the booking of Harper Simon.
[Click to see tour details]
John Cowan Band tour planting “newgrass” seeds
The John Cowan Band is not bluegrass, it's new grass.
A lot of people and bands say they don’t fit into a genre. When you are only reading words, and not hearing music, it makes a band sound more majestic and interesting to read a frontman say, “it’s hard to say where we fit in.”
John Cowan’s generic news release says that, but it is right. With over 40 years of experience in the Southern music scene under his belt, he seamlessly flows from one genre to another. It’s not that he fits to one single genre or can’t fit to one, it’s that he fits to all of them.
Country. Bluegrass. Progressive bluegrass, or “newgrass” to Cowan. Even a little Southern rock n’ roll. Cowan and his band can do it all.
Cowan has been doing it well since the 1970s, when making a name for himself in the Louisville, KY. music scene. He was the lead singer for New Grass Revival, with band mates Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, and Pat Flynn introduced a new generation of music fans to an explosive, experimental brand of bluegrass. That band played together for nearly two decades, all according to a news release.
[Tour info, listen to Cowan after the break]
Alexa Woodward tour will be intimate in small venues
Alexa Woodward is playing a show at CD Central
Alexa Woodward is hitting very small pub and bar from Louisville to Chicago, from Knoxville to Lexington and back.
Woodward, a folk artists hailing from New York City, has a lineup of mostly Kentucky and Tennessee shows coming up, including Skull Alley, Ear X-Tacy, and the Preservation Pub. Woodward’s Americana/folk music is personal and these bars and small venues will make the shows even more intimate.
Pubs like the Preservation Pub, in the Old City of Knoxville, Tenn. A bar known for reaching out to local musicians and bringing in great unknown folk acts. The place is very small, and there is not a bad seat in the house.
[Tour info, listen to Alexa Woodward, click more]
Audra Mae puts her passion on the line for the fans
Audra Mae. Photo by Tye Jakobs
Audra Mae plays with the soul of the South, but she’s from California.
She’s also got that 1960’s sound that you might have expected from Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company. Loads of reverb – so much that you’re certain she recorded in a bathroom. So much soul it hurts, and more passion than anyone should be willing to put on the line.
But Mae doesn’t mind.
“It can be very lonely up there, just me and my acoustic guitar,” she said in a news release. “But once I get on-stage, the audience’s reaction takes over. I know there will be parts that are grueling, but I’m ready to brave them, play my music for people and do what I was put here to do.”
[Tour info below]
CONTEST: 2 tix, Jonathan Tyler & Northern Lights
Win free tickets to next week's show at Buster's. Click photo to hear Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights.
It’s time again. Time for free tickets to another great show.
Courtesy of Buster’s Billiards and Backroom in Lexington, Ky., SaY is giving away two tickets to Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights. The show on Nov. 4 at Buster’s, and it is an 18 and over and the tickets are a $20 value. That’s the equivalent of four or five drinks, sans tips of course.
This contest will not be a random drawing, however. To enter, comment on this story and say who you will bring and why you would choose them to go to this show. Nothing complicated, just say who came to your mind when you heard this group or saw who it was. Whoever gives the best answer will win the contest, which concludes this Friday, Oct. 30. Contest details below.
[Listen to bands, enter contest, click enter]
Video of Avetts playing “January Wedding”
My friend Doug Valloton is always good about passing stuff along. He knew I really loved “January Wedding” from the new Avett Brothers album, “I and Love and You” and he sent me this video.
I like it, but it’s very rough and really kind of lax. It’s fun though, when you love a song so much and see it recreated. I like the backup vocals and some of the banjo licks that either don’t come through in the recording or are new all together.
Enjoy the video, and click here to read SaY’s review of this album.
Jolie Holland wrapping up in Lexington tonight
Jolie Holland will be at Cosmic Charlie's tonight in Lexington.
Texas native Jolie Holland winds down her tour in Lexington, Ky. tonight. After the Lexington show, she will have one show in Ohio, and that will be the end of an extensive fall tour.
The folk singer and songwriter will be performing with Matt Bauer at Cosmic Charlie’s, which took the place of Lynagh’s Music Hall. Tickets are $10. Her music is a hybrid of alternative rock and traditional American folk music.
