Happy Releaseday HELLO EMERSON.

New Album out now.

Happy Releaseday: Hello Emerson‘ new record ‘To Keep Him Here’ out now.

I’m so thrilled to share this album with you. I could say many things, but I’ll leave it at this. I am proud of what we made. It helped me grow through a difficult time and come out a better person. And I am thankful for the family and friends by my side throughout it.

I think the album pairs well with a comforting drink of your choice, a comfortable place to sit, and about 40 minutes of sustained attention (for me, that’s a decaf irish coffee on the long mustard-yellow couch in front of my stereo). But that’s just me — you can enjoy it however you’d like to. Sam Brodary / Hello Emerson

You can order the record as CD or LP in our shop. Happy Releaseday.

this album is the collective effort of eleven people who decided that songs are important.

// crafted with care by Hello Emerson //

sam emerson bodary | songs, guitars, vocals, synths, production

daniel lawrence seibert | percussion, synths, arrangements, production

jack keating doran | keyboards, production

// with chamber contributions from Knisely //

evan lynch | clarinet

helen cates | violin

shine robison | piano

zach koors | vibraphone

// and these thoughtful collaborators //

benjamin ahlteen | bass guitar

tony rice | recording, mixing production

glenn davis | mastering

// recorded at //

the annex in pinckney, mi

oranjudio in columbus, oh

tony’s basement

sam’s closet

// featuring the voice of david lawrence bodary //

recorded by StoryCorps on july 14th, 2019

HELLO EMERSON – new singles, videos & european tourdates

hello_emerson_single_cover_to_keep_him_here

Hello Emerson put out two more singles (and videos) of the new Album ‘To Keep Him Here’.
Check out the European tourdates in Mai.

11.05.2024 Karlsruhe – NUN
12.05.2024 Fürth – Kopf & Kragen 
14.05.2024 Bayreuth – Neuneinhalb 
15.05.2024 Dresden – Beatpol (support für Husten)
16.05.2024 Wetzlar – Franzis 
18.05.2024 Crailsheim – 7180 Bar
21.05.2024 Berlin – Insel Biergarten
22.05.2024 Hamburg –  Knust Lattenplatz 
23.05.2024 Lübeck – Tonfink 
25.05.2024 Langenberg – KGB with GARDA
26.05.2024 Dresden – Blue Note

(more dates will folllow)

The whole album ” to Keep Him Here ” focuses on an event in 2017 that landed my father in the hospital for nine days, without any memory to explain why. This is about first hearing the news.

remember that I got a call from Mom at work on a Wednesday. In a little office with a little window that looked out at the parking lot. And she didn’t really have any information. Just that she was on the highway driving up to the University of Michigan hospital. She called me to let me know, and to prepare me for when she called back later – either to tell me to stay home or to drive up.

Part of the difficulty of everything is that the event that led to his injury was a random accident while he was doing a random act of kindness. There’s nothing that anyone could do to prevent it. There’s no one to blame. We can do everything we can to avoid carcinogens, keep ourselves healthy, work out, eat well, and it is worth doing. But it also means nothing at the same time, because that’s just how the world works.

I hope you listen, reflect, and maybe share it with someone who’s been in a similar situation.
Sam Brodary / Hello Emerson


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“Tupperware for Glass” new single by HEllo Emerson

“Tupperware for Glass” is the first single of the upcoming album “To Keep Him Here” by Hello Emerson.

Now you can preorder the new album as limited vinyl or cd in our shop.

“Thanks for listening to our new single Tupperware for Glass (tiny desk video) — it’s the opening salvo for our third album, due out in a matter of weeks. I’m more proud of it than anything I’ve made (ever) and I’m so thrilled to share it with you.”

“If you listened to it, you probably noticed it starts with a man’s voice. That’s my father, recounting his last memories before a serious and sudden accident wiped his memory and landed him in the hospital for nine days. At the end of the story, he’s alive and well (though with less of a filter and no sense of smell). But at the time, I was certain that I would never speak to him again. During those nine days, the family walked the balance beam between pulling for his recovery and steeling ourselves to say goodbye. It was difficult — and it require some unpacking.”

“For me, unpacking all of that meant making a record from it.His voice carries us through the entire 40 minutes, with additional chamber instrumentation from Knisely. I am so excited to share it with you — and I believe that it can provide some comfort and solace to people who have also sit in hospital rooms with loved ones, without much productive to do but hope.”

Cheers,

Sam & Hello Emerson

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John Blek

Original folk songwriter based in Cork, Ireland. Delving into the world of fingerstyle guitar, influenced by the music of Ireland, England and America.

“I spent much of the early part of 2017 in and out of hospital with some mysterious illness that was intent on wasting my now 30-year-old body. My energy was at an all time low and all that gave me joy had been stripped or put on hold. All but my guitar and what was left of my feeble voice. So to fill the days and occupy my mind, I wrote.

I wrote of resilience, of pain and uncertainty. Of new love through fevered dreams, of strength, hope, distance, sedation and the cure.

I did it every day and recorded the demos sitting up in my hospital bed accompanied by the electronic bleeps of the machines and punctuated by the nurse’s concerned enquiries.

I had a reason. For me this is cathartic. For me, this was the panacea.”

John Blek

Hometown Caravan Shop

In an age when it would be easy to become disillusioned with the music industry John has remained steadfastly positive and unyieldingly creative. Known for being one of Ireland’s hardest touring musicians. His live show is thoughtful and entertaining, littered with stories and showcasing his arresting vocals and intricate guitar playing.

……………..

“A lovely sounding thing” – Roddy Hart, BBC

“A force of nature” – The Irish Times

“a master of subtlety in realms of folk-informed pop.” – The Thin Air

‘His songwriter talent is shining brighter with every album.’ – John Creedon, RTÉ

Digger Barnes

Digger Barnes is a musician, based in Hamburg, Germany. He has performed extensively in Europe and the US and collaborated with various artists of the Americana genre. Being a songwriter, recording artist and touring musician for more than 20 years, he currently works as a composer for stages and screens. For more information, please visit: portdelaselva.org

Info:

An abandoned theme park, by the side of the road two old dinosaurs made of fiberglass. A car passes, followed by a cloud of dust. At the wheel a mustached man, on the backseat a guitar case.

Over the past 10 years, singer-songwriter Digger Barnes has been documenting his life on the road and capturing it on record. Tales of longing, melancholy and morbid charm are his trademark and the material of the “Diamond Road Show“. The “Diamond Road Show“ is a peculiar type of road movie – a bastard bearing the DNA of cinema and concert alike.

Digger Barnes developed this show-format alongside his friend, painter and video-artist Pencil Quincy. In previous years many miles were traveled to bring the “Diamond Road Show” to people at home and abroad. Yet here too, the outsider breaks with the norm: Instead of bringing the film show solely to clubs or cinemas, the tour, not unlike the road itself treads unfamiliar territory. Barnes takes his road trip to cemeteries, chapels, old gas stations, boxcars, squats and doesn’t even shy away from psychiatric institutions, high-brow theaters or airplane hangars. Being constantly on the road, Digger Barnes’ life and the fictional episodes of the “Diamond Road Show” merge and become inseparable.

Discography:


“Near Exit 27“ (2017, B&Q)
“Frame By Frame“ (2014, Hometown Caravan, B&Q)
“Every Story True“ (2012, Hometown Caravan, B&Q)
“Time Has Come“ (2009, Hometown Caravan, B&Q)
“Digger & Allie“ (2007, Sabotage)
“My Name Is Digger“ (2007, Sabotage)
“The Trailer Tapes“ (2006, Self-released)

Hometown Caravan Shop

The Gentle Lurch

The Gentle Lurch “We are passing our days / Like two snails / Slowly crawling past each other / A shared office, alright / But aren’t we supposed to be brothers?” . Workingman’s Lurch, just as the title track suggests, is a pessimistic album that deals with work. Going to work, being at work, stagnation, approximating death.

It’s the third album by a band from Dresden, Germany, called The Gentle Lurch. Its members hail from the rural Ore Mountain region nearby. They like to pause in between albums until each and everyone has forgotten about their existence. Their last (double-) album stems from 2009 and Americana-UK spoke of “Dresden‘s Answer to Wilco – a sprawling, experimental epic…” with regards to it back then. Rolling Stone Germany compared them to Lambchop and Tindersticks. 

Since then, the three core members and singers Cornelia Mothes on piano, Frank Heim and Lars Hiller on various string instruments were joined by Ronny Wunderwald on drums and Timo Lippold on bass. Possibly as a consequence, the band has been overheard speaking of Workingman’s Lurch as an “honest-to-God rock record” which, most likely, is an indication of their skewed self-perception. It’s the opposite of a perfectly rounded offering. Each song has got its own will, develops its own strategy and momentum. Ludwig Bauer has written two harrowingly beautiful string arrangements and, from time to time, an obscure ‘Choir of Mothers’ expands the polyphony of voices of the band’s three lead singers.

Yet, drums and bass provide a much firmer framework for this new set of songs. They let them become more concise and, at times, louder than on previous albums. ‘Our Bodies Become The Ground‘ rolls like scree avalange from the speakers. Also, Cornelia Mothes takes up much more room on this record, confronting Lars Hiller’s stoic sing-song manner of recitation with a comforting, almost redemptive element. She also brings a previously unfound directness and pop-affinity to this record. Therebeside, plenty of remnants of the old Gentle Lurch remain: close to standstill, precariously groping, a sound like rotten wood.

Their songs are lyric-heavy and narrative. The lyrics like to twist and turn to mystery like the closing observation of a short story by Flannery O’Connor. It’s difficult to call them a folk band, but it’s also difficult to call their output experimental music. There are only three choruses on the whole album. Most tracks are like journeys from point A to point B, others level and rise like waves on an ocean. They use elements of Folk, Country and Americana, because they like their emotional directness. But they realign them into something different. At times, as confrontational as on ‘All Things Come’ which tilts from complaint over into consolation on a single organ note, changing singers as well as harmonies mid-song. There is the strangely rotating chord progression that propels ‘Cannot’, or the groove torpedoing the gospel of ‘On How To Tamp Leaks‘.

Workingman’s Lurch also marks the first time, the band has worked with an external producer. Johannes Gerstengarbe usually stands for a more polished, radio-friendly production style. It was a conscious decision to combine the band’s crude approach with his aesthetics. Mastering was done at Soundcurrent in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The almost two years of recording took place in an abandoned, former chocolate factory surrounded by old GDR-housing projects depicted in the albums artwork and which – apart from a few early 90ies satellite dishes – appear to have gone untouched by the German unity and the Quarter century that has passed.  

Then of course, the album’s title is also a distant echo to Workingman’s Dead by Grateful Dead (1970). Whereas that record could be viewed as a swansong of the innocence and cultural liberation of the 1960ies, Workingsman’s Lurch is the swansong of an unaffected,  self-sufficient life. It doesn’t describe a cultural phenomenon but a biographical one: integration into employment, the groan of material, the deadlock, the grind and creak, the repulsion of nonfunctional parts. „There was something that sat on my heart like a moth.” (Nesting)

buy Workingmans Lurch

Chamberlain

Bio

CHAMBERLAIN formerly known as SPLIT LIP.
The Band had finished their 4th Album ‘Red Weather’ in 2020.

The roots of Chamberlain are planted in the Indianapolis band Split Lip. A juggernaut of the Midwestern hardcore scene between 1991 and 1995.

And than signed to Doghouse Records and when its members were scarcely able to drive, Split Lip. (Singer David Moore, guitarists Adam Rubenstein and Clay Snyder, bassist Curtis Mead and drummer Charles Walker. Released the now impossible-to-find “Soulkill” single in 1992, followed by its debut album For the Love of the Wounded in 1993.

The band gained and a sizeable following via constant touring, and through Doghouse’s strong European distribution ties, established an overseas fan base. That would allow for a successful 1996 European visit. When Rubenstein began college at Indiana University in 1995, his bandmates moved south from Indianapolis to Bloomington and continued working on new material. 

Fate’s Got a Driver was released in 1995 and supported with a lengthy U.S. tour, but the band opted to change its name to Chamberlain. As its music began to mature beyond the hardcore leanings of its younger days. The band marked its new moniker on a split EP with Bloomington band Old Pike in the fall of 1996. A short-lived distribution deal with English label For All the Right Reasons followed. Yielding the import-only Five Year Diary and Her Side of Sundown EPs but little else.

Snyder and Mead left the band just after the release of The Moon My Saddle in the fall of 1998. Were replaced by guitarist Stoll Vaughn and bassist Seth Greathouse. Vaughn, the nephew of John Mellencamp guitarist Mike Wanchic, left the band in March of 1999.

The band reunited in 2009 for trio of shows promoting the midwestern hardcore retrospective – Burning Fight. Since that reunion, the band has opened for The Gaslight Anthem’s 2010 American Slang tour. Toured in 2018 in support of the 20th Anniversary of The Moon My Saddle, and returned to Europe and the UK in the Summer of 2019 for a week of dates.

Chamberlain is currently at work on their 4th album, Red Weather.
Members: Adam Rubenstein I Curtis Mead I David Moore I Clay Snyder I Charlie Walker

Austin Lucas

Austin Lucas 2023 Hometown Caravan

It’s been over two decades since the songwriter AUSTIN LUCAS packed his bags and left Bloomington, Indiana. The Midwestern town where he spent his childhood years falling in love with rock & roll, embracing his punk roots, and standing his ground whenever intolerant locals didn’t understand his way of life.

AUSTIN LUCAS returns to that place—both creatively and physically—with his seventh studio album, Immortal Americans. Written after a tumultuous period that found Lucas getting sober, supporting his partner through a battle with cancer, and breaking up with his longtime record label.  Immortal Americans is a clear-eyed album for murkier times, rooted in stripped-down heartland rock songs that find the artist reflecting upon the changes in both his hometown and himself.

Co-produced by Lucas and Will Johnson (Centro-matic) and recorded/engineered by Steve Albini. Captured in a series of live, full-band performances, Immortal Americans was written after Lucas resettled in Bloomington. He’d been away for years, touring the world as an independent solo artist before signing a record deal with New West in 2013. In many ways, the albums he released during that period were reflections of the music he’d grown up with. From the mountain music of his father (bluegrass musician Bob Lucas) to the punk records that soundtracked his teenage years. Appropriately, Lucas earned a fan base as a folksinger with punk roots or was it the other way around? While touring the country with artists who represented both ends of that spectrum, sharing shows with Willie Nelson one minute and Chuck Ragan the next.

Somewhere along the way, his vices began to get the best of him. He started drinking too much. He gained weight. His marriage crumbled. Albums like 2013’s cowpunk-inspired Stay Reckless and 2016’s Between the Moon and the Midwest shone a light on those challenges, tackling everything from divorce to depression. When Lucas hit rock bottom though, he stopped writing about his temptations and instead, left them behind for good. He headed back to southern Indiana, resettling himself in a town that had changed considerably since he left.

There, in a region suffering from an opioid epidemic, an HIV crisis, and a homelessness problem. Lucas focused on rebuilding his career and his body. He got sober, shedding more than 100 pounds. He recounted the stories of his youth, where he dodged beer cans hurled by passing drivers. As he once more walked the Bloomington streets, he learned to embrace his own fighting spirit again. The album’s title track, “Immortal Americans,” emerged from that period of self-discovery.

“My friends and I had to fight for who we were,” he remembers of those early days in the Midwest, “and it was an alienating, anxious, and oftentimes scary way to live. This song is about that fight. It goes out to the most marginalized and at-risk human beings who live in our country. all the people who live on the outside of mainstream society and have to fight every day for their identities and for their existence—because those are the true immortal Americans.”

Meanwhile Austin Lucas ‘ new partner was fighting a different sort of battle. Lucas had discovered a lump on her body during their first evening together and the mass turned out to be cancerous. He became not only her romantic partner, but her caretaker too, nursing her back to health after a life-altering surgery and a string of energy-sapping chemotherapy sessions. Lucas continued writing music throughout the process, strumming an acoustic guitar quietly while his girlfriend slept in the next room. Although much of Immortal Americans is influenced by that experience, album standouts like “The Shadow and Marie”. Tackle the experience directly, shining a light on his partner’s vitality and unending beauty.

“The song opens up with dark lyrics,” he admits, “but the overall point is, ‘We’re still alive. We still have so much to be grateful for. As long as we’re still here, there’s beauty and joy.’ I wrote it to remind my lover that even though she’d been through a crazy ordeal in which her body was permanently changed, she was still beautiful to me. The song may start out on a low note, but as it builds, it goes to a place that’s brighter. It pushes toward something better. In many ways, that’s the theme of the whole record.”

When it came time to record his new songs at Steve Albini’s studio in Chicago, Lucas didn’t reach too far beyond the songs’ unplugged origins. He’d already been cut loose from his record label, which meant he was free to chase down his muse without any sort of outside influence. He consolidated his sound accordingly, stripping away the electric guitars and dense sonic landscapes that had permeated his recent albums. In their place, he focused on acoustic instruments and a restrained rhythm section, gluing everything together with lyrically-sharp songs. That measured the distance between his rocky past and even-keeled present. The band—whose members included his Dad, who’d traveled north to play banjo with his son—crowded into the same room at Electrical Audio and played together, resulting in an all-analog album that’s both raw and real.

“I wanted it to sound like human beings playing instruments,” says Lucas, “I knew the best thing for this batch of songs was for them to sound as organic as possible. I sang live, playing guitar at the same time, and we worked very quickly. It was an in-the-moment kind of album.”

Immortal Americans is Austin Lucas’ homecoming album, created during a whirlwind period of tumult and regrowth. With its gothic heartland sound and autobiographical lyrics, it’s also Lucas at his most honest, rooted in a string of largely unamplified anthems that don’t rely on electricity to pack a punch.

“I was watching the changes in Bloomington and reflecting upon the changes in my own life,” he sums up. “Not all of this is happy stuff, but there’s hope. There’s light in the darkness. I really do believe in second and third chances, because I know how many chances I’ve received. You have to keep fighting, because that’s what makes life worth living.”

Or, in other words, that’s what makes you immortal.

 

 

Wayne Graham

Wayne_Graham_bandpic_2022_Vans

About Wayne Graham:

When Hayden and Kenny Miles first played in a band together, they were only eight and thirteen. Their father had founded a church in their hometown Whitesburg in South East Kentucky and they were backing the services on drums and bass. Music has been an essential part in the family for over three generations. Hayden learned how to play the drums by watching his uncle and Kenny was taught by his father and cousin. Even their grandparents were singing and playing instruments. Life revolved around three pillars: family, hard work, and music.

Still nowadays, Whitesburg is an isolated place. The area, and that’s a scientific fact, has one of the lowest qualities of life in all of the US. Since the mid 1970s the area is in a state of constant recession. Lowest per capita income, shortest life expectation, firm republican domination. The name Wayne Graham is a composition of both their grandfather’s first names. Both were coal miners as well as Kenny’s and Hayden’s father and uncle. The latter actually witnessed the violent riots of the United Mine Workers Union Strikes, which were put into pictures by Barbara Kopple in her Oscar winning film HARLAN COUNTY, USA .

The answer to how the two brothers and their delicate and ornery Alternative Country fit into that picture is rather simple: they don’t. There’s a bit of Hard Rock in the area but apart from that, music mostly takes place in churches. Ideally, it ought to be kept strictly ‘oldtimey’.

About the album Mexico

Wayne Graham‘s album “Mexico” the first one to be released in Europe is already their fourth, even though the two brothers are only 26 and 21 . It’s not entirely clear whether it is their upbringing or the feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world. But the album oozes a seemingly supernatural maturity, “Mexico” , is concise and clever. Extremely catchy but never mundane. Artistic but not overly intellectual .

The songs are often rather short and the remarkable, airy production , which takes place in the basement of their parents’ house. Feels like an exercise in reduction. Beautiful chords and melodies , an incredibly melodic style of drumming and always at the right moment. Wayward little details, breaks and lyrics , written for eternity.

When asked about it, Songwriter Kenny Miles modestly states that he doesn’t want to steal their audience’s time. Eventually, his songs are like answers to questions, which might not have been asked in the first place.

Thematically,  Mexico circles around the tragic death of their best friend last October. The first verse of the title track goes: “It was in your bloodstream on the day you died, til they replaced it with formaldehyde.”

The It resurfaces in almost all of these songs but is never properly named. It is not a substance nor a trait, but the mystic connection between the three friends , which have played music together since their early childhood.

Fellow Man tells the story of one of their last nights together. The endless late night front porch conversation, when suddenly they hear a clicking sound approach. It turns out to be a wolf walking down the nightly streets of Whitesburg, passing them by as they sit breathless on their their porch.

Here’s how Kenny Miles puts it into words: “Like the wolf outside we are led by desire, we are ruled by by the time we have lost.”  And suddenly one gets reminded that music actually possesses these abilities: to express something beyond pitiful facts and numbers, an essence of something grand and almost unthinkable.

Wayne Graham wants you to know one thing.
We are a band, not a person!

Members:  Kenny Miles- guitar, piano, vocals I Hayden Miles- drums, vocals I  – bass I Lee Owen – guitar, vocals

The Green Apple Sea

Eight years ago Stefan Prange, creative head and songwriter of The Green Apple Sea from Nuremberg. Decided to move to the countryside out of despise for the mechanisms of modern day life. He slowly said his farewells to the Indie music scene, planted potatoes instead and trained the local kids football team.

Stefan didn’t want to be a musician anymore, songwriting was not an option either. He was sure, he never wanted to play live again. His home was his castle. The only problem: his songs didn’t think much of that. They kept coming and somehow even seemed alright at first glance. Hence, Prange began singing them into his phone, in secret of course, and scribbling down lyrics on electricity bills. His former bandmates, to whom he eventually slipped his new ideas.  Were as enthusiastic about the new songs as he was.

So step by step Stefan Prange said goodbye to his football coach job. Instead of growing potatoes, he entered Open-Mic nights on Sundays, to test the new songs in front of an audience. Subsequently he travelled to London to play a Communion Records Clubnight and a Daytrotter Session – things that laid beyond his wildest dreams. Shortly after, the band went into the studio and began recording a new album. It took them four years. It is here now and goes by the name “Directions”.

The recording of “Directions” was more difficult than any of its predecessors for The Green Apple Sea. They wanted to create something really good after Pranges long creative break and their last record “Northern Sky/Southern Sky” (2010), which had received rave reviews upon release. Everything took longer than planned. Years and years and years.

What remains is the organic band sound which is so typical for The Green Apple Sea. Everything is intertwined and yet, every instrument and every melody has its place and remains distinguishable. Choirs and harmonies stay one of their trademarks and almost every song starts with a signature melody, most of them played by producer Chrisitan “Wuschi” Ebert on keyboard or piano. Melody as the basic ingredient of songwriting. The song starts and everyone immediately knows which band is on.

Like almost no other band The Green Apple Sea know how to connect melancholy and bitterness with sparkling, country influenced pop songs. However, it is not only the inherent contradiction, the splendid contrast between lyrics and music, which makes this band so extraordinary.

It’s also the songs. These handcut, finely crafted songwriting prototypes. If anyone should ever ask what songwriting is about, just play them any random title by The Green Apple Sea. This should answer the question. Each and every song on “Directions” has got such a disarming radiance it seems crystal clear why it took them eight years to come up with them. It feels as if they are going back to the term ‘album’ in it’s original sense with “Directions” – a collection of singles. This is not a album on which songs depend on one another, they don’t require the context or the neighbourhood. Each and every one deserves the limelight.

Members: It’s complicated! All these people are The Green Apple Sea sometimes: Henrik Schoch, Frank Theismann, Christian Ebert, Frank Mollena, Stefan Prange, Lena Dobler, Hans-Christian Fuss, Tobias Helmlinger, Flo Kenner, Patrick Göbel, Frieder Graef, Frank Schwab