1. Eponym, SFM-Steve Fulton Music
2. 22 a Million, Bon Iver
3. Hoka, Nahko and Medicine for the People
4. Redemption and Ruin, The Devil Makes Three
5. American Band, Drive-By Truckers
6. Clarke and the Himselfs and Friends, Clarke and the Himselfs and Friends
7. Blue Mountain, Bob Weir
8. Sorceress, Opeth
9. Keep Me Singing, Van Morrison
10. For Better or Worse, John Prine
CLARKE AND THE HIMSELFS AND FRIENDS ALBUM RELEASE PARTY OCT. 4!
October 3, 2016
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Live Shows , Live@RX , The Record Exchange Blog , The Vinyl Word -
by The Record Exchange
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The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St. in Downtown Boise) is honored to host the Clarke and the Himselfs and Friends Album Release Party at 6 p.m. Vinyl Tuesday, Oct. 4. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages!
Clarke and the Himselfs and Friends will be available for purchase at the in-store!
ABOUT CLARKE AND THE HIMSELFS AND FRIENDS
And Friends officially formed in 2014 as a spiteful excuse to get more festival passes, but it’s important to note this current Clarke and the Himselfs is a diversion in itself that originally started in 2011 with Demmi and Clarke playing the first few shows together of what was to be another band entirely, but ended up being Clarke and the Himselfs 2.0, once it was only myself playing the shows. AND FRIENDS is probably what that other band intended to be but had never been defined as. I get asked quite frequently after Himselfs shows, ‘So did you not have anyone to play music with?’ and I always think in my head, ‘Man, what a stupid question,’ then politely say no and end it with some kind of mention of And Friends, because it’s these folks in this band and others I’ve been playing music with my whole life – these closest friends and I all share a similar experience playing music and growing up in Boise, Idaho. What’s stupid about that question is that it wouldn’t be possible for Clarke and the Himselfs to exist without the experience of playing music with others because music is a shared experience, a spiritual one that would not be possible without your friends. This band doesn’t feel created so much as it feels it always was — it’s got a close interwoven cosmic demeanor with very specific guidelines, which helps because since we’ve all been playing together for so long, the numbers come naturally. It’s also a family affair because it has to be. This is, I hope in part, of this LP, to be some kind of reflection of that.” – Clarke Howell
CREDITS:
Produced by Brett Netson and Clarke Howell
Featuring:
Demmi Netson on Drums, Vocals, Piano
Otis Crook on Drums, Vocals, Guitar
William Bendler on Drums, Vocals, Guitar
Clarke Howell on Drums, Vox, Guitar, Bass
Brett Netson on Guitar and Bass
Brittany McConnell on Violin on “Asteroid” and “Untitled”Recorded at the Tonic Room in Boise, Idaho
B&W album photos by Jeremy Conant
Border layout by William Bendler
Design by Suzanne
Album mix: Brett Netson, Clarke Howell, Eric Penney
Vinyl mastering by Telegraph Audio
Pressed at Cascade Records
SFM-STEVE FULTON MUSIC ‘EPONYM’ ALBUM RELEASE PARTY OCTOBER 6
October 3, 2016
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Live Shows , Live@RX , The Record Exchange Blog , The Vinyl Word -
by The Record Exchange
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The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St.) is honored to host the SFM-Steve Fulton Music “Eponym” Album Release Party at 6pm First Thursday, Oct. 6. “Eponym” will be available for purchase at the party. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
Though “Eponym” is the first new album in 11 years from the Idaho musician and producer, Fulton has hardly been dormant; rather, he’s spent that time working on hundreds of records for other artists, helping build Visual Arts Collective and expand his Audio Lab recording studio, and producing live music events around the state. In his “spare time,” he amassed 40 original songs.
Following a successful Indiegogo campaign in the spring, Fulton got to work putting the songs to tape. The resulting double album showcases two sides of his musical persona — full-band funky rock on one half and stripped-down Americana on the other. A single-LP vinyl version of “Eponym” featuring select tracks, many of them alternate versions and mixes, will be released later in the year.
With so much material and so many styles in play, the “Eponym” sessions developed their own ebb and flow — some songs came together in one take, others over several days. Often, the end result looked much different from the initial vision.
“There are four versions of every song,” Fulton says, “the one in your head, the one you play by yourself, the one you record and the one you play with a combo of other musicians. It is rare any two sound the same.”
Though individual tracks were recorded separately for several songs, others — particularly on the rock side of the album — called for a full-band live setup in the studio.
“When there are two or three things going on in your headphones, it is just easier to hear things, but when you want that epic sound you really need to have the live combo play at the same time to get the energy you are looking for,” says Fulton.
He also found energy outside the studio that he brought back to the sessions. Shortly after recording commenced, Fulton crossed the country performing songs from “Eponym” with Boise musician Sean Hatton (New Transit). Then, upon returning to Idaho, he attended a weeklong songwriting retreat in Stanley that birthed three new songs, all of which found their way onto “Eponym.”
Back in the studio, Fulton was equally inspired by the musicians participating in the sessions, an A-list of Idaho talent including Tim Willis, Scot Alexander (from Dishwalla), Dave Goff, Scott Lindbloom, Dan Costello, Leta Neustaedter, Christine Thomas, Rob Hill, Lucas Ventura, Lindsey Hunt, Tim Hammes, Shon Sanders, Randy Meenach, Bernie Reilly, Louis McFarland, Curt Wardhaugh, Rochelle Smith and Blaze & Kelly.
“What they lend to the tracks is just incredible,” he says. “For instance, I never had pedal steel on a record, and Randy just takes it into another world. Their approach changed the songs at times, and almost always for the better.”
ABOUT SFM-STEVE FULTON MUSIC
Steve Fulton is a singer-songwriter, producer and recording engineer who performs as SFM-Steve Fulton Music. Fulton is a household name in his hometown of Boise, where he also owns and operates one of the state’s finest recording studios, Audio Lab. Fulton was a founding member, lead singer and guitarist of House of Hoi Polloi, which over 13 years recorded five albums and toured extensively throughout the Northwest.
Fulton has performed all over the country, touring with his band and as a solo artist. Fulton first performed his solo material live when he opened for Tori Amos in front of 3,000 people at the Idaho Center. Since then, he has released two solo albums on his Uncommon Records label, “Shock Remission” and “Said & Heard.”
Fulton is also passionate about making his community a better place. In addition to performing for a variety of benefit concerts over the years, he serves as mentor to a wide array of local musicians and engineers, provides job-shadowing opportunities and internships, and gets involved in many youth-oriented projects, including Boise Rock School and Community Youth Connection.
Y LA BAMBA LIVE AT THE RECORD EXCHANGE SEPT. 14 – FREE/ALL AGES!
September 13, 2016
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by The Record Exchange
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Y La Bamba will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) at 6pm Wednesday, Sept. 14. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages. Y La Bamba is performing at The Olympic Venue later in the evening and we have tickets for sale at the store!
Purchase Y La Bamba’s new album Ojos Del Sol (CD or LP) at the in-store!
ABOUT Y LA BAMBA AND OJOS DEL SOL:
It’s easy to talk about an artist’s growth as a series of musical decisions: an expanding sonic palette, a change in mood or tempo, an escape from the trappings of genre. It’s harder to talk about an artist’s personal—or even spiritual—growth, because that kind of progress is hard to track. Until, that is, an album like Y La Bamba’s Ojos Del Sol comes along and screams of radical transformation on every level. The Portland act’s fourth offering is a sweeping, playful and vulnerable collection that’s ripe with both musical and personal discovery. From the intimate, contemplative verses of the Spanish-language title track to the revelations delivered over the loping beats of “Ostrich,” this is an album that’s painstakingly produced while remaining emotionally raw.
Throughout the collection, Y La Bamba frontwoman Luz Elena Mendoza returns to themes of searching and metamorphosis. On one level, this is born from the Y La Bamba frontwoman’s continuing exploration of her identity as a Mexican woman. Both of Mendoza’s parents grew up in Mexico—Luz was born in San Francisco, then brought up in a strict Catholic household in Southern Oregon. She spent her childhood summers playing in the orchards of California’s San Joaquin Valley with her cousins, and it was there that she soaked up the melodies and stories that were being told through traditional folk songs with three-part harmonies. These are sounds that remain a vital building block of the songs on Ojos Del Sol, an album which she says represents “a celebration of family and community.”
But on another level, Ojos Del Sol is about Luz’s search for shared humanity outside of her own community, and for a faith that is greater than just religion. These are themes that run throughout Y La Bamba’s body of work work—with roots in a 2003 journey to India, which found Mendoza falling ill and trading her Christianity for something broader—but there’s a maturity to Ojos Del Sol that speaks to true, lasting transformation. You can hear this on the lush “Kali,” where she sings—with wonderment rather than fear—that “to know yourself is to lose everything.” And you can hear it on the album’s epic closer, “Ulysses,” where Mendoza sings that her life is “written in sand and ash and stone.”
These are songs built to soundtrack coming to grips not just with one’s own mortality, but with the fragility of the world. This is heady, emotional fare, and “this record is about being a mother to these emotions,” Mendoza says.
Her clarity of voice is intimately tied to a renewed musical approach, which Luz attributes to a greater self-awareness that developed through recent collaborations with singer-songwriters Edna Vazquez and Lila Downs, as well as an exploration of mariachi, cumbia, and Latin pop with Calexico’s Sergio Mendoza—no relation—on a collaborative 2015 album released under the name Los Hijos De La Montaña.
Those collaborations helped Mendoza find her own voice as a more confident producer and songwriter on an album that is often a stripped-down affair. Mendoza plays guitar throughout Ojos Del Sol, and worked actively with composer Richie Greene to create a new sonic voice. Percussion from another regular Mendoza collaborator, Nick Delffs (Shaky Hands, Death Songs), is a welcome near-constant that adds depth and soul to the album. To that same end, Mendoza hand-cut stencil art pieces, which appear in Ojos Del Sol’s liner notes, to pair with each new song. All of this is presented as a cohesive offering, an entry in Y La Bamba’s ongoing musical conversation about community, about the self, and about survival.
“I am thankful for all of my hardships,” Mendoza says in the album’s liner notes. “They have guided me to find rest in my soul, time after time. Over and over again.”
NED EVETT ‘GLASS GUITAR’ ALBUM RELEASE PARTY SEPTEMBER 15!
September 13, 2016
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by The Record Exchange
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The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St.) is honored to host the Ned Evett “Glass Guitar” Album Release Party at 5:30pm Thursday, Sept. 15. “Glass Guitar” will be available for purchase at the party. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
ABOUT NED EVETT AND ‘GLASS GUITAR’
Ned Evett is following up his acclaimed 2012 album “Treehouse” (produced by Adrian Belew) with “Glass Guitar,” an epic 12-song set of rock/Americana/blues featuring Ned’s trademark glass-necked fretless guitars. Much of the album was written by Evett touring across America, Europe and Southeast Asia promoting “Treehouse.”
“This album was written in the jungle, tested in the desert, and recorded very quickly,” Evett says.
The song subjects range from the detailed war heroes of “Greatest Generation” to the kinetic future-folk of “Robot’s Daughter.” Many of the songs, such as “Golden Gate,” the true story of Ned’s first fretless glass-necked guitar, are already fan favorites.
The basic tracks were recorded at Audio Lab Recording Studio by Steve Fulton and Pat Storey, chasing down the classic sound of 1950s-era Nashville.
“We used a lot of room mics and bleed to get that immediacy, and limited ourselves to one or two takes of each performance,” Evett says.
Overdubs for Ned’s electric glass guitars were done at Upstairs Studios, Los Angeles, with a feel intended to achieve the sound of a live band playing in the studio.
“The secret is recording two or three complete lead guitar takes per song, then choosing the best performance; more takes than that and it starts to sound too slick,” Evett says. “My East Nashville days served me well sticking to this approach, plus putting an album out yourself means you’re always watching the clock!”
Todd Chavez contributes cajon and percussion to the album.
“Todd makes his own cajons with a patented curved top, so he can hit harder without bloodying his hands. They have a big sound and he played the parts perfectly as well,” Evett says.
Evett also played the bass guitar and piano on the album.
“I like performing bass and piano parts in the studio, you can really get inside the arrangement and lock in with simple parts,” he says.
Veteran Los Angeles musician George Bernardo plays vibes, adding a layer of dreamy sophistication to “Right This Time Around.”
A second volume of “Glass Guitar” is expected out in 2017.