Jack Rose - West Coast Blues (Blind Blake)
New Jack Rose album!!!!!! Now if this song doesn’t make you want to get up and do a little jig well, I don’t think we could be friends, I’m sorry thats just how it goes. Give it a listen it will perk you up and put a smile on your face.
Luck in the Valley comes out 2010-02-23
The vinyl has landed...
The new 7", 45 rpm picture-disc record presented conjointly by Three Lobed Recordings and Divide By Zero Records is now available for your listening pleasure!!! Released in a limited edition of 500 copies, the 7" comes with a high-quality mp3 download coupon so you can make your own CDs or upload it to your favorite MP3 player. I sure hope you like them, and that you will also anticipate the release of my full-length album, Tennessee and Other Stories… even more when it comes out later this year (any labels interested?!)…
Purchase directly from these upstanding and always-on-top-of-the-best-sounds record labels:
Pre-order open for 7" Single
Hans Chew - New Cypress Grove Boogie 7"
DBZ-001This solo debut 7" from Hans Chew features exclusive versions of two tracks from his forthcoming Tennessee and Other Stories. “New Cypress Grove Boogie” is a rockin’ boogie-blues track with a dose of distortion for good measure; and the B-side is a slow burner titled “Forever Again”. The record itself is a picture disc pressed in an edition of 500 and includes a coupon to download the songs as 320 kbps MP3s.
$7.00 (includes S&H). Note this is a PRE ORDER. We expect to start shipping in late January.
To order visit: http://www.dividebyzerorecords.com/
Rhapsody's "Best Roots Albums of the Decade"
4. D. Charles Speer & The Helix
After Hours, 2007After Hours is one of those rare records that cuts across genres like Patton’s tanks plowing through Saharan sands. With their roots in the free improv/drone scene, D. Charles Speer & the Helix take alt-country, country-rock and dusty Americana and filter them through mind-altering psychedelia and fuzzy freakery. But what’s truly amazing is how the group never ditches the tune—or craft for that matter. They love both good songs and wild sounds. All hail a modern classic!
Check out the entire list:
http://blog.rhapsody.com/2009/12/bestrootsalbums.html
Jack Rose was a hell of a man.
He lived like the musicians he loved. Temperamentally itinerant and racking up thousands of miles crisscrossing the country and the oceans beyond it too, he ate meat for his board, slept on the floor, he drank his whiskey and he loved the Lord (Chesterfield). He played the damned blues man.
Jack Rose was the kind of guy I suppose you might meet a small handful of in your life if you’re lucky: we met after a performance of his in Atlanta, and I mentioned that we had a mutual friend in David Shuford. Those two words, the name of a friend, was like some ancient shibboleth that opened a multiple-hour, psychic-manic outpouring of frenetic conversation, covering all of our most heartfelt and deepest obsessional fixations, from Tony Joe White to James Booker, from Skip James to Professor Longhair. Jack Rose didn’t know me from Adam a few hours before, yet by the time he had walked off at the end of the night to that dispensable and miniscule automobile, with those two ubiquitous guitar cases under both arms, like some bear in an Hungarian gypsy circus preparing to mount the tiny bicycle, I felt like I had known him my whole life. After the outpouring of so many similar tales of acquaintance since his death, I know many others felt the same.
He was out there on the neo-“chitlin’ circuit” sweatin’ it out night after night, and it was beginning to pay off too. I remember his excitement when he told me that he had been approached by, and had signed to, Thrilljockey Records. In his typical and wise fashion, he had told me to “keep it under my hat”, but that I could tell the “family”. That’s how he viewed his countless friends, as his family. He treated me like a brother, taking me out on the road with him and supporting and promoting my various musical projects, inviting me into his home to play music with him and to listen to his favorite records, preparing food for me and his lovely wife Laurie, and most luckily of all, honoring me by allowing me to perform and share the stage with him, and to have multiple opportunities to cut records with him. He was on top of the world the last time I spoke to him a few days before his death.
He was irascible, hilarious, loving; he could argue with your girlfriend all night long and fry pierogies for you both the next morning, telling you about the local Polish meat-shop he was so proud to have discovered. He was a foodie. He loved to share. He wanted you to taste good things. He wanted you to know what he knew. He made me feel like a real musician. He believed in me and let me know it. Jack was a giant and I was thrilled to know him. It seemed too good to be true. It was good and it was true, it was just, like life itself, too short to savor for very long. Jack was the blues. I felt him. I feel his music now. I loved him. I will miss him.
Jack Rose lived like the bluesmen he loved, and died young like so many of them. He was a real force and a real friend.
He will be remembered.
Hans
New 7" picturedisc in the manufacturing pipeline
I’m thrilled to have just completed the artwork for a new 7" 45rpm picturedisc to be released jointly by Three Lobed Recordings of North Carolina and Divide By Zero records of California. Pirate’s Press of San Francisco is whipping it up. It’s a bi-coastal love affair! Beautiful photography shot in DUMBO by my manager Jake Cunningham.
Look for it in the early new year!!!
Hans
D. Charles Speer and The Helix: Bringing the weird and wild back to country
By Brian Rademaekers, Philly.com
The first time I saw Hans Chew play, he was opening up for Jack Rose at Brickbat Books on Fourth Street last year. Slamming down the ivory with a vengeance rarely seen these days - and rocking back and forth with a touch of foam in the corners of his mouth - he belted out bluesy, boogieing numbers like his “Bar-Abbas Blues,” a honky-tonk confession by the crook whom Jesus took the place of on Calvary one infamous day. Chew continued to show off his tight but frantic piano style in keeping up with the multi-rhythmic, finger-picking master Jack Rose as the pair ripped through songs like“Fishtown Flower.”
I didn’t hear Chew’s piano again until a friend at Tequila Sunrise records on Girard recommended getting a copy of D. Charles Speer & The Helix's After Hours. Turns out that Mr. Chew keeps some good company.
It’s been hard to pass up that LP every time I see it on the record shelf. Released on Black Dirt Records in 2008,After Hours is the second full-length by D. Charles Speer - the solo moniker of David Charles Shuford.
They’ll open for the Strapping Fieldhands at Kung Fu Kecktie Nov. 19.
Speer is a New York musician probably best known for his work with the far-out, Harlem-centered experimental outfit known as No-Neck Blues Band, or NNCK. The band, a staple of the New York avant-garde scene for some 17 years now, is famous for formless voyages into noise that incorporate elements of jazz, folk, electronics, and just about anything they can get their hands on.
Listening to NNCK alongside After Hours - a rollicking and freewheeling blast of rocking country - it’s hard to find much connection between the two.
That’s where Shuford’s solo debut, Some Forgotten Country, helps out, acting as a bridge between the chaotic and eclectic vibes of NNCK and After Hours’ swooning embrace of Americana.
On Some Forgotten Country, Shuford brought with him a varied arsenal of strings, including a mandolin, lap steel, upright bass and bouzouki. The latter, a sort of mandolin-lute hybrid, is the backbone of modern Greek music, something Shuford grew up listening to at big drunken family jamborees.
On the 2007 debut, Shuford brings that heritage with him, as well as the experimental tendencies he acquired with the No-Neck ensemble.
But he also brought a healthy dose of boozy country ramblers. It might seem like a case of strange musical bedfellows, but Shuford pulls it off and in the process creates something wholly new.
You hear the beginnings of After Hours on songs like “Tombstone Every Mile,” a trucker country classic championed by Dick Curless. Shuford gives it the proper lick of twang and lends his deep baritone to the soulful vocals. It is, in all respects, a fairly traditional if low-key cover.
It’s just about the same on a rendition of Hank Williams’ “House of Gold,” but you only get to hear that soothing bit of country after spiraling through the maelstrom of “The Janissaries” a blistering and at times maddeningly grating piece of guitar work straight out of the Sun City Girls/Sir Richard Bishop camp.
Those seemingly disparate styles collide beautifully on a cover of "There Stands the Glass,“ a boozer’s country gem best known for the Webb Pierce version. Shuford, however, doesn’t worry too much about paying homage to past troubadours.
The cover starts as a warm, warbling take on the classic, but as the mandolin comes in, the song slowly and gracefully begins to dissolve into a bluesy psychedelic haze of instrumentals peppered with percussion and a touch of Middle Eastern influence.
But where Some Forgotten Country seems like an experimental folk album with some country influence, that formula is flipped on After Hours.
Perhaps it’s the addition of the Helix gang, but After Hours is a much more rocking affair.
To be sure, there is plenty of weirdness worked in there, but it acts as an often subtle twinge that spikes the heavier rock ‘n’ roll and country elements just enough to make them more intriguing.
You hear it immediately on the album’s opener, "Fossilized,” where Shuford’s easy country pace and laid-back approach are spliced with some wild, syncopated guitar freak-outs that are as strange as they are beautiful.
Throughout the album, superb backing from Chew and the others keeps the songs moving along, and frequently lends a sort of honky-tonk edge to the otherwise spacey experimentation and reverb.
Shuford might have taken a strange route to arrive at an album like this, but looking back, it’s hard to imagine any other path that would have resulted in such a perfect balance of the cosmic and the earthy.
Shuford will be in town just in time to show off Distillation, his latest full-length with the Helix, and their first on
Chicago’sThree Lobed. **Who: Strapping Field Hands, D. Charles Speer & The Helix, Megajam Booze Band
What: Good old honky-tonk boogie with a dash of weird
When: Thursday, Nov. 19, at 9 p.m.
Where: Kung Fu Necktie, Front and Thompson
D. Charles Speer & the Helix hittin' the road, Jack!
Come see us on tour! Pick up our new record Distilliation. Get tour dates and venues here: www.hanschew.com/tour.html
Live Review by EardrumNYC.com
D. Charles Speer bring psychedelic twang to Coco 66
BY JOHN RUSCHER
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST, 2009
Friday night we made our way to Coco 66 in Greenpoint to hear the psychedelic country sounds of D. Charles Speer & The Helix. Frontman Dave Shuford (also a member of free-form experimental collective No Neck Blues Band, who play the Knitting Factory on November 8) knows what he is doing, and so does his band. Whether bringing full-on country twang or veering off into the spacy, country-psych stratosphere, the group consistently delivered great tunes…
Shuford stood tall at the microphone, channeling the barroom drawl and back-alley swagger of classic country, country-rock and rock ‘n’ roll. We heard some Hank Williams, some Gram Parsons and certainly some Stones coming through his lanky frame. Hans Chew pounded his keyboard like a seasoned honky tonk man. Marc Orleans (who’s played with Sunburned Hand of the Man) proved his prowess and dexterity on both his pedal steel and his Telecaster. Closing our eyes, it felt like we could be in some smoky Georgia watering hole rather than a hip bar in north Brooklyn.
Speer & The Helix are poised to release a new album, Distillation, on Three Lobed Recordings in the coming weeks. It’s the band’s follow-up to 2008’s acclaimed After Hours LP and includes the tune “Mason Dixon Crime,” one of the highlights of their set on Friday night. You can listen to the song here. You can also listen to another track from the new album, “Shorty A Bastard Cat," over at RCRDLBL.
We highly recommend checking out D. Charles Speer, and, if you missed this show, you’ll have your chance on November 15, when they play at Union Pool.
via: EardrumNYC
Thanks for coming out!
Check out the new and improved D. Charles Speer & the Helix site: www.dcharlesspeer.com
New Mastered Tracks
Got the mastered tracks for my forthcoming album back from Glenn Schick in Atlanta and they did indeed perform a bit of subtle magic with the sound waves…check out the new mastered tracks at www.myspace.com/hanschew.
D. Charles Speer - Fall Tour Dates
Oct. 30, 2009: Brooklyn, NY @ CoCo 66
w/ Yellowbirds, Mushroom Cloud
Nov. 11, 2009: Albany, NY @ Helderberg House
w/ Connie Acher, Burnt Hills
Nov. 12, 2009: Northampton, MA @ Sierra Grille
w/ Matt Krefting
Nov. 13, 2009: Portland, ME @ Apohadion
w/ Prisma, Baab Ceegur
Nov. 15, 2009: Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
w/ Zachary Cale, Prince Ruperts Drops
Nov. 16, 2009: Baltimore, MD @ The Windup Space
w/ David Heumann of Arbouretum!!
Nov. 17, 2009: Chapel Hill, NC @ Nightlight
w/ Dan Melchior und das menace, Hiss Golden Messenger
Nov. 18, 2009: Blacksburg, VA @ 710 Toms Creek Rd (Cabin Party)
w/ Black Twig Pickers, Cross featuring M.A. Turner
Nov. 19, 2009: Philidelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie
w/ Strapping Fieldhands, Megajam Booze Band
Finally...
Uploaded all material for my new full-length album, “Tennessee & Other Stories…” to Glenn Schick Mastering… I can’t believe it’s finally done, and I can’t wait to hear what the boys at Schick do with it!
Live Show 10/14/09
Hans Chew will be performing with his full band Wednesday, Oct. 14th at Lit Lounge in Manhattan (2nd Ave btwn 5th & 6th). Come early to catch all our friends: Connie Acher w/Pat from New York Electric Piano, Key Demo (D. Charles Speer & Margot Bianca), and Pigeons (who have new material out on Soft Abuse and Olde English Spelling Bee). 9pm. Yee-haw!
Mixing & Mastering
Clint Steele (ex-Swans) is finishing the final mixes for my forthcoming album, which will be mastered by Glenn Schick (Of Montreal, Ludacris, Mastodon) in Atlanta in the following weeks.
Stand by for D. Charles Speer & the Helix tour dates… watch for us in November along the Eastern seaboard!
Recorded a song for an upcoming 7" single at Seizures Palace in Brooklyn, NY with engineer Jason LaFarge (Devandra Banhart, Akron/Family, Angels of Light), Steve McGuirl on guitar (Oakley Hall, Prince Rupert’s Drops), and D. Charles Speer cohort, Marc Orleans, on pedal steel.