MP3: “Obama: Someone To Wake” featuring Will Johnson

MP3: “James Monroe: The Last Cocked Hat” featuring Marla Hansen

Another chapter in the monumental tale of J. Matthew Gerken, Christian Kiefer, and Jefferson Pitcher’s Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies has been unveiled. The promised “free 44th song” debuted on NPR shortly after President Obama’s Inauguration.

We hope you will consider running this song as a free download as part of your podcast, blog, on-line news source, etc. The song for President-elect Obama is titled “Someone to Wake” and features Centro-Matic / South San Gabriel vocalist Will Johnson and ends with a rousing sing-along chorus.

Penned by Of Great and Mortal Men songwriter Christian Kiefer, “Someone to Wake” centers on a retrospective look at the past eight years of national and international turmoil, and the positions Obama as a voice that looks into the future.

“It was obviously the only song we wrote for the project that did not have the benefit of an actual Presidency to comment upon,” Kiefer notes. “Still, there are plenty of promises and the sea change in positive thinking that this nation has undergone is a remarkable contrast to the previous administration. That’s songworthy material.”

In keeping with the original project’s accompanying full color book, “Someone to Wake” includes a newly commissioned portrait of Obama by Rama Hughes and a complete lyric and credits page:

After a successful, guest-heavy live performance of songs from the project in Washington, DC on Jan. 17, fans of the project can look for additional live performances in Sacramento, CA on February 21 and at SXSW on March 19. Both shows will feature a slew of special guests, to be announced as schedules firm up.

A Musical and Sadly Hilarious History of the American Presidency
-David MacMichael

Rock balladeers Christian Kiefer, Matthew Gerken and Jefferson Pitcher have performed a remarkable feat. They have composed and recorded 43 songs, one for each of the past and current presidents of these United States, and will release them as a 3-disc set titled Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs For 43 Presidencies, via the Standard Recording Co. on Sept. 9, 2008. They also plan on writing a song about our 44th President, and releasing it as a download come November.

In a presidential election year we Americans tend to mythologize the office of the US presidency and those who have held that office throughout American history. The candidates and their backers endeavor to persuade us voters that they possess the heroic, or nearly divine, characters of their predecessors (with a few not-to-be-referred-to exceptions) and are worthy to lead the nation. These songs-poems set to music, really-wittily, and sometimes not entirely politely, take issue with the mythology that those who have previously inhabited the White House (POTUS, as they are referred to today) were something more than human.

Even George Washington does not escape their satire. On his deathbed, in Kiefer’s song, he recalls the political lies he told through his famous dentures made of hippopotamus teeth. Chester Arthur, the almost forgotten Republican Party “stalwart” who succeeded the assassinated James Garfield, declares himself to be “the epitome of dignity” and, comparing himself to Washington, says, “Old hippo-teeth, you got nothing on me.”

For others there is no saving satire, only savage condemnation or, even worse, pity bordering on contempt. Andrew Jackson, in his deathbed song, “Benevolence,” tells the Cherokee Nation that he had to kill them to save them. And Harry Truman’s last thoughts, as imagined by Jefferson Pitcher in “Suits and Fine Trousers vs. Hiroshima,” are confused regrets that he didn’t remain a haberdasher and could escape the responsibility for having dropped the atomic bomb. A broken Lyndon Johnson, looking at Detroit in flames, the killing in Vietnam, and a fractured “great society” moans, “Lady Bird take me home to the ranch.” Ronald Reagan (”Such a Marvelous Dream”), in his final stage of Alzheimer’s, tells Nancy that he dreamed he was president in a dream like the one he had “where I was an actor out in Hollywood.” The disgraced Nixon in San Clemente imagines himself as Napoleon on St. Helena.

In contrast, Eisenhower (”When Ike Walked the Land”), with its image of ’50s America, drug-free, and watching wholesome television in small town houses with white picket fences, is wryly sentimental. John Kennedy is remembered by Matthew Gerken as a martyr whose death ushered in the evils that have befallen America since.

More listeners, in the context of present politics, will resonate with the treatments of George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and the current George W. Bush. Of George 41, Gerken ties the Bush legacy firmly to the voracious traditions of the Texas oil ‘bidnez’: “From the stalwart positions of Houston and friends is built a singular tradition: To desire more.” He concludes: “History will be very cruel.” Jefferson Pitcher, writing of Bill Clinton in “The Mighty Lion Will Not Roar Again,” is gentler to the 42nd president picturing him as wishing to be a second Noah who could somehow save the world.

And finally, the song about our current POTUS, “Though the Night.” Listeners will want to play it over and over again. This George W. monologue, as the writers imagine it, is, in its simpleminded self-righteousness, a sad but profound statement about what America and Americans are today.

Kiefer, Gerken and Pitcher have done a remarkable thing here. They have sung our history like no one since Walt Whitman.

OF GREAT AND MORTAL MEN: 43 SONGS FOR 43 PRESIDENCIES (STANDARD RECORDING CO.)
STREET DATE: SEPT. 9, 2008
TRACK LIST:

DISC ONE:

1.George Washington: Washington Dreams of the Hippopotamus (Feat. Vince DiFiore of Cake)
2.John Adams: Armed with Only Wit and Vigor and the U.S. Navy (Feat. These United States)
3.Thomas Jefferson: The Mouldboard of Least Resistance
4.James Madison: Zinger
5.James Monroe: The Last Cocked Hat (Feat. Marla Hansen)
6.John Quincy Adams: Death In The Speaker’s Room
7.Andrew Jackson: Benevolence (Feat. Califone)
8.Martin Van Buren: The Little Magician (Feat. Tom Brosseau)
9.William Henry Harrison: So You Don’t Have To
10.John Tyler: Hindsight Falls On Deaf Ears (Feat. Bill Callahan)
11.James Polk: The Other is Better / The Landscape to Transform (Feat. Monahans)
12.Zachary Taylor: Rough and Ready
13.Millard Fillmore: The Proof Is In The Pudding
14.Franklin Pierce: My Only Enemy Is Myself

DISC TWO:

1.James Buchanan: God Will Strike You Down (Feat. Marla Hansen)
2.Abraham Lincoln: Malice, Charity, And The Oath of God (Feat. James Jackson Toth)
3.Andrew Johnson: Was Ever Alone?
4.Ulysses S. Grant: Helicopters Above Oakland
5.Rutherford B. Hayes: The Beard of God
6.James Garfield: Seven Months
7.Chester Arthur: The Epitome of Dignity
8.Grover Cleveland: Bees And Honey
9.Benjamin Harrison: Kid Gloves Hands Surplus to Big Sugar
10.Grover Cleveland: Rubbermouth
11.William McKinley: Czolgosz’s Dream (Feat. Magnolia Summer)
12.Theodore Roosevelt: The Sherman Act Does Not Care
13.William Howard Taft: There Was No Longer Use To Hide The Fact That It Was Gout (Feat. Marla Hansen)
14.Woodrow Wilson: A Life Among Men (Feat. Jamie Stuart of Xiu Xiu)

DISC THREE:

1.Warren Harding: An Army Of Pompous Phrases
2.Calvin Coolidge: On Silence (Feat. Radar Bros.)
3.Herbert Hoover: Woe Is A Spoon-Shaped Heart (Feat. Marla Hansen)
4.Franklin D. Roosevelt: Illuminating The Bright Lines
5.Harry S. Truman: Suits And Fine Trousers Vs. Hiroshima (Feat. Denison Witmer)
6.Dwight D. Eisenhower: When Ike Walked The Land (Feat. Alan Sparhawk & Mark Kozelek)
7.John F. Kennedy: There Is No Plan
8.Lyndon B. Johnson: Ladybird Take Me Home (Feat. Steve Dawson)
9.Richard Nixon: 2 Under Par Off The Coast of Africa (Feat. Tom Carter)
10.Gerald Ford: Now You See It, Now You Don’t See It (Feat. Vince DiFiore)
11.Jimmy Carter: A Great Beam of Light (Feat. Rosie Thomas)
12.Ronald Reagan: Such A Marvelous Dream (Feat. Califone)
13.George H.W. Bush: It Was Foreshadowed Here: The Beginning of The End
14.William J. Clinton: The Mighty Lion Will Not Roar Again
15.George W. Bush: Though The Night

LINKS:

For More On The Project: ofgreatandmortalmen.wordpress.com

Label Page: www.standardrecording.com

MP3: Dntel - “Loneliness Is Having No One To Miss”

Early Works For Me If It Works For You II is a three CD set, with a stunningly beautiful gatefold package. It includes the first two Dntel releases on Phthalo remastered, as well as a 3rd disc of unreleased material, composed slightly before his third album, Life is Full of Possibilities on Plug Research.

Overview:

In 1994 I compiled my first tracks as Dntel onto a cassette called Something Always Goes Wrong and sent it to some labels. It came pretty close to getting a real release but things ended up falling through with the label and I had to resort to making tape copies and giving them to friends. I kept making songs and eventually put together another cassette for friends. My friend Hoseh (who does a radio show called “Headspace” on KXLU in Los Angeles) gave it to this guy Dean who liked it and made CD copies, one of which ended up in the hands of Dimitri Fergadis, who asked if he could officially release it on his label, Phthalo Records. I said yes and this collection of songs became the first official Dntel release, Early Works For Me If It Works For You, released in 1998. A year or so later he released Something Always Goes Wrong as well.

These early tracks, inspired by Aphex Twin, Mu-Ziq, Warp Records and anything else I’d been listening to, were all instrumental (save a few vocal samples) and created using one sampler/synthesizer (a Kurzweil K2000s) and some basic midi sequencing software. I was always really interested in adding vocals to weird electronic music, and by the time EWFMIIWFY and SAGW were released I finally had a computer with the capability to record full vocal tracks more easily. This led to the next Dntel full-length, Life Is Full Of Possibilities, which was released in 2001 on Plug Research. I haven’t really done much instrumental work
since.

A couple years ago I decided to listen to a bunch of old DATs of stuff I had worked on in the process of making LIFOP. Although a lot of it was rough or unfinished, it got me thinking of the old days and I decided to collect my favorites. That got me listening to the old Phthalo releases as well and somehow it all evolved slowly into this 3-CD set. It includes Early Works For Me If It Works For You and Something Always Goes Wrong, both re-mastered, as well as the new collection of DAT discoveries, Early Works For Me If It Works For You II.

-Jimmy Tamborello

Dntel
Early Works For Me If It Works For You II
(Phthalo)
Street date: April 14, 2009

Track list:
CD1 SOMETHING ALWAYS GOES WRONG

1. In Which Our Hero Begins His Long And
Arduous Quest
2. In Which Our Hero Finds A Faithful Sidekick
3. In Which Our Hero Is Put Under A Spell
4. In Which Our Hero Dodges Bullets And Swords
5. In Which Our Hero Frees The Damsel In Distress
6. In Which Our Hero Is Decapitated By The Evil
King
7. In Which Our Hero Begins His Long And
Arduous Quest (Seq Remix)
8. In Which Our Hero Was Taken By Surprise
(Languis Remix)
9. The S.O.S.
10. A Machine And A Memory Keep You Alive

CD2 EARLY WORKS FOR ME IF IT WORKS
FOR YOU

1. Loneliness Is Having No One To Miss
2. High Horses Theme
3. Pliesex Sielking
4. Termites In The Bathtub
5. Fort Instructions
6. Curtains
7. Tybalt 60
8. Danny Loves Experimental Electronics
9. Sky Pointing
10. Casuals
11. Winds Let Me Down Again
12. Jewel States, ?The Door Borders?

CD3 EARLY WORKS FOR ME IF IT WORKS
FOR YOU II

1. New Name
2. Incomplete 1
3. Paul Guitar
4. Don?t Try
5. Serious
6. Darker Earlier
7. Smile Break
8. Incomplete 4
9. Moody
10. Slowdance
11. Fancy Ian
12. Jittery
13. Incomplete 2
14. Bluegrass (Short)
15. Mini
16. Laughs
17. The First Day After The Worst
18. Ender

DNTEL LINKS:
MySpace - www.myspace.com/dntel

Artist Page - www.dntelmusic.com

Label Page - www.phthalo.com

.

MP3: Deertick - “Long Time”

Deer Tick launched their massive North American tour with a headlining show last Friday at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC - the tour includes dates with Jason Isbell, Phosphorescent, Marissa Nadler and more. A documentary film about the band, titled To The City of Sin! has just been wrapped up, with Cory W. Lovell serving as director. We’ll keep you posted on when you’ll actually be able to see or purchase the film, for now check out the trailer.

Partisan Records re-issued Deer Tick’s debut War Elephant on November 11, 2008. The record was originally released in a limited run by Jana Hunter’s short-lived Feow! label. Partisan Records also recently announced that it will release the band’s sophomore album, Born on Flag Day, later in 2009 - the band is putting the finishing touches on the record as you read this.

Songwriting prodigy John McCauley III wrote and recorded War Elephant at the age of 20, and plays every single instrument on the album. Originally a very limited release, the album received immense praise from top national critics like The New York Times and NPR, but quickly went out of print.

Praise for Deer Tick:

“Expression is rarely subverted on War Elephant which is not a problem at all with fourteen songs this strong and worth listening to over and over, which I’m doing right now and should be for some time to come.”- Three Imaginary Girls

“The fact that you can never quite pin this sound down is a testament to a certain originality. From the noisy steam-engine sound of “These Old Shoes” to the infectious glee of “Spend The Night,” McCauley and company work hard to wrap their debut in a shroud of nostalgia.”- The Tripwire

“This repackaged release is way better than the original for the simple reason that the cover art (a desert scene: girls in bikinis with automatic weapons, sunglasses, boys with cigarettes) is a visual representation of the music’s advocacy of excess and an outsider stance.”- Brainwashed Brain

“Much like Joanna Newsom, only with more grit, piss and vinegar, McCauley sounds like both the old and the young, simultaneously, which lends his debut full-length release War Elephant the benefit of sounding mature and fresh, simultaneously. “- Treble

“Deer Tick is exactly what the name suggests: a needling, ever present pain in the side of the too perfect majesty of some too beautiful creature, a “testament to how we are so animalistic.”"- Coke Machine Glow

“War Elephant is no doubt an accomplishment - and to think this is only a debut, the next half-decade is this kid’s to lose. “- 30 Music

“Deer Tick’s War Elephant ended up being one of my favorite addictions of 2007″ - Brooklyn Vegan

“The lone singer with a guitar will always be an icon of American folk music, but modern American folk is a diverse and rich genre that branches into rock, country and blues. Deer Tick understands this…” - NPR

“I got lucky and stumbled onto Deer Tick” - Jon Pareles, The New York Times

“There is plenty about Deer Tick’s debut album, War Elephant, to suggest that frontman John McCauley has seen more than his 21 birthdays.” - Pitchfork

DEER TICK

Fri-Feb-13 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom *
Sat-Feb-14 Northampton, MA Iron Horse #
Sun-Feb-15 New Haven, CT Café Nine #
Mon-Feb-16 Albany, NY Madison Grille
Tue-Feb-17 Buffalo, NY Soundlab
Wed-Feb-18 Ft. Wayne, IN The Brass Rail
Thu-Feb-19 Rock Island, IL Ribco
Fri-Feb-20 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle &
Sat-Feb-21 Bloomington, IN Cinemat
Sun-Feb-22 Jamestown, NY Labyrinth Press Company
Mon-Feb-23 York, PA First Capital Dispensing Co.
Tue-Feb-24 Boston, MA TT the Bears %
Wed-Feb-25 Providence, RI Steve’n'Levin 4-ever
Thu-Feb-26 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom %
Fri-Feb-27 Philadelphia, PA World Café Live %
Sat-Feb-28 Pittsburgh, PA Club Café %
Sun-Mar-01 Washington, DC 930 Club %
Mon-Mar-02 Cleveland, OH Beachland Ballroom %
Wed-Mar-04 Toronto, ONT Horseshoe Tavern %
Thu-Mar-05 Buffalo, NY Mohawk Place %
Fri-Mar-06 Columbus, OH Skully’s %
Sat-Mar-07 Cincinanati, OH Southgate House %
Sun-Mar-08 Asheville, NC Orange Peel %
Mon-Mar-09 Charleston, SC Tin Roof ^
Wed-Mar-11 Tallahassee, FL The Engine Room
Fri-Mar-13 Louisville, KY Headliner’s %
Sat-Mar-14 Nashville, TN The Mercy Lounge %
Mon-Mar-16 New Orleans, LA Clever
Tue-Mar-17 Houston, TX Rudyard’s
Mar 18 - 21 Austin, TX SXSW
Mon-Mar-23 Huntsville, AL The Flying Monkey Art Center $
Tue-Mar-24 Birmingham, AL Bottletree $
Wed-Mar-25 Atlanta, GA Drunken Unicorn $
Thu-Mar-26 Durham, NC Duke Univeristy Coffeehouse $
Fri-Mar-27 Baltimore, MD The G-Spot $

* = w/ THALIA ZEDEK BAND, THE WEIGHT
# = w/ MARISSA NADLER
% = w/ JASON ISBELL
$ = w/ PHOSPHORESCENT
& = w/ FUTURE CLOUDS AND RADAR, ANNI ROSSI
^ = w/ CARY ANN HEARST

Deer Tick
War Elephant
(Partisan)
Street date: Nov. 11, 2008

01. Ashamed
02. Art Isn’t Real (City of Sin)
03. Standing At The Threshold
04. Dirty Dishes
05. Long Time
06. Nevada
07. Baltimore Blues No. 1
08. These Old Shoes
09. Not So Dense
10. Spend The Night
11. Diamond Rings 2007
12. Sink Or Swim
13. Christ Jesus
14. What Kind of Fool Am I?

DEER TICK LINKS:

MySpace: www.myspace.com/deertick

Press Materials: partisanrecords.com/promo/deertick

MP3: Papercuts - “Future Primitive”

Papercuts’ You Can Have What You Want is the newest phase in Jason Quever’s ongoing pop investigations. The relatively earthbound happy-sad pop of Mockingbird & Can’t Go Back is now launched into the vault of the skies. Here Quever delves further into epic, hazy pop using mostly vintage organs, pulsing bass & Kraut-via-Ringo-inspired drum rhythms. Intact from those earlier efforts are Quever’s sense of arrangement and drama, as well as his soaring vocals, draped in reverb gauze.

The words reveal an obsession with mortality and things cosmic, while sonically the voice acts as another instrument. This obsessively all analog effort (no computer processing here whatsoever!) cuts across several eras of dreamy sound: 80’s/90’s Creation & 4AD records, The Zombies, 60’s French pop, even CAN’s Future Days, & then there’s the inevitable connection to former tourmates Beach House & Grizzly Bear. Indeed, Beach House’s Alex Scally helped with some of the arrangements, but You Can Have What You Want is its own strain of addictive pop. For many, it will be the blissful / melancholy jam of the summer.

What the press said about Papercuts’ Can’t Go Back:

“Bay Area singer-songwriter Jason Quever disguises his songs’ weighty themes in lush delicacy. By injecting overtly somber contemplation into summery, feel-good pop instrumentation, Quever wears his West Coast influences - not to mention his heart - on his sleeve.”-NPR

“It takes a few seconds of Papercuts’ second album, Can’t Go Back, to think that maybe you’ve stumbled upon something special, a delicate mood piece made to slice through the din and chaos of modern life.” -Pitchfork (8.3)

“…this is easily the most exciting new pop album of a still young year. Can’t Go Back grabs you with the first flurry of guitar strums, all cool, voluminous tone and three-dimensional space. It’s the first salvo in what emerges as a damn-near perfect album, each cut luminous and distinct from the others, yet arranged in a way that flows easily from start to finish” -Dusted

“…uncorking a clutch of gorgeous emotion-drenched ditties in an affecting, androgynous croon.” -SPIN

“It’s as complete a sunshine daydream as you’re likely to hear this year.” -SF Bay Guardian

“Judging by the majority of Can’t Go Back, Quever has succeeded on a scale that he himself may not have imagined. There is a swirling, dreamlike quality to Quever’s work that is balanced by a forceful yearning that escapes many in the pop field.” -The Dallas Observer

“It’s magnificent. It’s clever and poppy and thought-provoking and, above all else, fun.” -The Stranger

“Proof that sometimes it feels good to feel bad. But like a four track-recording Brian Wilson, his catchy vocal melodies and whip-smart arrangements make these self-produced songs shine warmly” -SF Weekly

PAPERCUTS

Feb. 25 San Francisco, CA Swedish American Hall *
Apr. 24 San Francisco, CA Cafe Du Nord #

* = Noise Pop show w/ Mountain Goats
# = w/ Cryptacize, The Finches

Papercuts
You Can Have What You Want
(Gnomonsong)
Street date: April 14, 2009

01 Once We Walked In The Sunlight
02 A Dictator’s Lament
03 The Machine Will Tell Us So
04 A Peculiar Hallelujah
05 Jet Plane
06 Dead Love
07 Future Primitive
08 You Can Have What You Want
09 The Void
10 The Wolf

PAPERCUTS LINKS:

MySpace - www.myspace.com/thepapercuts

Press Materials - www.gnomonsong.com/papercuts