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****THIS SHOW GOES ONSALE MONDAY MORNING @ 9AM****
The remarkable alt-country outfit fronted by Kurt Wagner, from Nashville, Tennessee return with their tenth album OH (ohio). Unhindered by the notions of cool with the likes of Jack White and Kings of Leon residing there, Lambchop reveal their charms and nuances with their customary modesty.
POD Concerts presents
LAMBCHOP
Support: TBA
Saturday November 1st
Tripod – Old Harcourt St Train Station – Dublin 2.
Doors – 7.30pm
Tickets €24.50 & €32.50 (inc. booking fee) available from Ticketmaster, Road Records, City Discs, Sound Cellar and usual outlets. www.ticketmaster.ie
www.lambchop.net
www.myspace.com/lambchopisaband
From the front, the house in the quiet Nashville suburb where Kurt Wagner has lived the last thirteen years looks the same now as it did when he first moved there. The pillared porch still faces out over a patchy lawn to a small industrial warehouse on the other side of the road. The chair in which Kurt has composed so many of his songs stands to the left, an ashtray overflowing with butts nearby. His beloved veteran pickup truck remains in the drive, while sounds from nearby traintracks occasionally punctuate the birdsong. Inside, though the front room is much as it was – shaded from the sun, comfy armchairs showing their age –back where the small kitchen used to lead through a rickety screendoor to a second porch and yard there’s now a whole new living area, freshly sanded floors reflecting the golden Tennessean light. What used to be a splintered deck is now a grand veranda. And while the staccato tap of their toenails on the boards sounds the same, his dogs are different too: Lucy and Jack long gone, replaced by Sydney and Louise.
So much has changed since Kurt first led LAMBCHOP out of the basement downstairs where they rehearse. Back then they were a ramshackle outfit, a charming drinking buddy collective taking the music they heard around them in Music City – the butt of jokes amongst the critical elite at the time – and mixing it with the music that they loved, Wagner topping it all off with his weird, abstract lyrics about a “soaky in the pooper” and cowboys on the moon. They were a curiosity: the fact that anyone would want to release the album they recorded as great a surprise to the band as anyone. Perhaps, if it had not been picked up by a small group of fervent fans and critics seduced by what the band archly called ‘The New Sound Of Nashville’, it would have been their only album.
Yet now, almost two decades later, LAMBCHOP return with their tenth, OH (ohio). The musical landscape could hardly be more different. Nashville is ‘cool’ again: Jack White has bought a home there, Kings Of Leon are a household name, Harmony Korine directs Budweiser commercials featuring LAMBCHOP’s William Tyler at Springwater (the legendary dive where LAMBCHOP and many other local bands cut their teeth), David Berman has revitalized his Silver Jews in the city (borrowing two members of LAMBCHOP, we might add) and Be Your Own Pet have cornered the teenage punk market.
LAMBCHOP, however, have continued to follow their own path, untouched by the world around them, unhindered by notions of ‘cool’. Few bands succeed in making it this far into their career, and rarely on their own terms. But LAMBCHOP, alongside other likeminded but diverse acts like Wilco and Sonic Youth, continue to pursue their own path and release challenging, mould-breaking records. It is this singleminded approach that has made Wagner such a figurehead for local musicians: he’s viewed as a patriarch to whom younger artists turn for advice and encouragement. LAMBCHOP are now considered part of Nashville’s alternative establishment, an inspiration for the growing independent scene that flourishes alongside the prevalent country music tradition. The unique sound that they have refined over the years is now one that artists from around the world travel to the city to replicate with sometime member and producer Mark Nevers: Will Oldham aka Bonnie Prince Billy, Tindersticks, Andrew Bird, Howe Gelb and even Candi Staton have recorded at The Beech House, Nevers’ studio cum bungalow. Wagner too has collaborated with a host of successful artists, from Josh Rouse (whose profile as a young songwriter was considerably raised by the mini album they recorded together, Chester) to downtempo mainstays Morcheeba, from dancefloor masters X-Press 2 to rising fellow Nashville chanteuse Cortney Tidwell. Hell, the word ‘Lambchop-esque’ is now thrown around freely and gleefully by critics to define a particular musical or vocal style, most recently at My Morning Jacket, whose Evil Urges at times sounds not unlike some of Lambchop’s breakthrough album Nixon. Not bad for a band who, for many years, numbered more people on stage than in the audience for hometown shows.
OH (ohio) continues the tradition, revealing its charms and nuances with their customary modesty. Change is a subtle thing in LAMBCHOP’s world, but just because it’s not always obviously apparent doesn’t mean that nothing’s different. Wagner is simply a great believer in the natural pace of life. Even if the transformation is not immediately evident, each successive record they’ve released has represented a new stage in the evolution of their distinctive sound. It’s a natural process which has seen them progress from their shambolic early recordings on Jack’s Tulips / I Hope You’re Sitting Down to the offkilter pop experimentalism of What Another Man Spills on to the joyful soul of Nixon and then, pointedly, its polar opposite, the piano-led minimalism of Is A Woman. Most recently Damaged saw Wagner leave the porch from which he had viewed the world for so long and start looking inside himself, his dark meditations on mortality and human frailty matched by a band capable of taking delicacy to delicious new heights.
Every record has been a step forward, on reflection notably so, and yet LAMBCHOP remain somehow a constant entity, refining their trade, their familiarity a source of comfort, their continued survival in an increasingly turbulent music business a cause for celebration. OH (ohio) continues this expansion of their horizons: its highlights include the slow motion Philly soul of ‘Slipped Dissolved and Loose’, the shuffling shimmer of the brilliantly titled ‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’, the somber majesty of ‘Please Rise’ and the intimate sentiment of ‘Close Up’. Melodically stronger than ever – ‘A Hold Of You’’s gentle hook, the wordplay of ‘Please Rise’ matched by a heartbreaking simplicity – it also sees their trademark leisurely pace imbued with a notion of beat and movement driven by recent recruit Scott Martin’s drumming, most notably on ‘Popeye’’s surprising, almost funky coda.
He also acknowledges that the fundamental nature of the band itself has altered. “The last five years have been about a distillation of the collective into a core band: Tony Crow (piano), William Tyler (guitar), Matt Swanson (bass), Alex McManus (guitar) and now Ryan Norris (keyboards, guitar) and Scott Martin (drums). This is their sound, and it's LAMBCHOP’s sound. But,” he continues, “LAMBCHOP more and more has become a vehicle for my songs and myself as an artist. I've fought against that interpretation for twenty years, but now I’ve just given up trying to fight it anymore. I am simply going to accept that this is how it's evolved and leave it to others to define.”
Kurt’s lack of interest in being ‘the frontman’ was one of the appeals that the collective mentality the band championed for so long held for him. Recent releases have seen him shy away from the spotlight by ‘showcasing’ other members of the band, most notably Tony Crow on Is A Woman and Willliam Tyler on Damaged. OH (ohio) again sees a subtle shift in the way they operate. “Marky would say that I was the "featured player" on OHIO,” Kurt concedes, “and he would say it's about time too. I don't know if he's right on that or not, though. I would tell him that it was a band record. He would just say I was full of shit.”
It’s a different world that LAMBCHOP inhabit from the one into which they first emerged, but they are now a vital part of its landscape. Unyielding to the vagaries of fashion, working entirely on their own terms and responding purely to their artistic muse, they have earned the considerable respect they now command. OH (ohio)’s gentle brilliance justifies their ongoing existence and relevance once again. LAMBCHOP continue to stand proud, much like Wagner’s house, a subtly altered but solid landmark in Nashville’s ever-changing scenery. Long may it remain so.
The remarkable alt-country outfit fronted by Kurt Wagner, from Nashville, Tennessee return with their tenth album OH (ohio). Unhindered by the notions of cool with the likes of Jack White and Kings of Leon residing there, Lambchop reveal their charms and nuances with their customary modesty.
POD Concerts presents
LAMBCHOP
Support: TBA
Saturday November 1st
Tripod – Old Harcourt St Train Station – Dublin 2.
Doors – 7.30pm
Tickets €24.50 & €32.50 (inc. booking fee) available from Ticketmaster, Road Records, City Discs, Sound Cellar and usual outlets. www.ticketmaster.ie
www.lambchop.net
www.myspace.com/lambchopisaband
From the front, the house in the quiet Nashville suburb where Kurt Wagner has lived the last thirteen years looks the same now as it did when he first moved there. The pillared porch still faces out over a patchy lawn to a small industrial warehouse on the other side of the road. The chair in which Kurt has composed so many of his songs stands to the left, an ashtray overflowing with butts nearby. His beloved veteran pickup truck remains in the drive, while sounds from nearby traintracks occasionally punctuate the birdsong. Inside, though the front room is much as it was – shaded from the sun, comfy armchairs showing their age –back where the small kitchen used to lead through a rickety screendoor to a second porch and yard there’s now a whole new living area, freshly sanded floors reflecting the golden Tennessean light. What used to be a splintered deck is now a grand veranda. And while the staccato tap of their toenails on the boards sounds the same, his dogs are different too: Lucy and Jack long gone, replaced by Sydney and Louise.
So much has changed since Kurt first led LAMBCHOP out of the basement downstairs where they rehearse. Back then they were a ramshackle outfit, a charming drinking buddy collective taking the music they heard around them in Music City – the butt of jokes amongst the critical elite at the time – and mixing it with the music that they loved, Wagner topping it all off with his weird, abstract lyrics about a “soaky in the pooper” and cowboys on the moon. They were a curiosity: the fact that anyone would want to release the album they recorded as great a surprise to the band as anyone. Perhaps, if it had not been picked up by a small group of fervent fans and critics seduced by what the band archly called ‘The New Sound Of Nashville’, it would have been their only album.
Yet now, almost two decades later, LAMBCHOP return with their tenth, OH (ohio). The musical landscape could hardly be more different. Nashville is ‘cool’ again: Jack White has bought a home there, Kings Of Leon are a household name, Harmony Korine directs Budweiser commercials featuring LAMBCHOP’s William Tyler at Springwater (the legendary dive where LAMBCHOP and many other local bands cut their teeth), David Berman has revitalized his Silver Jews in the city (borrowing two members of LAMBCHOP, we might add) and Be Your Own Pet have cornered the teenage punk market.
LAMBCHOP, however, have continued to follow their own path, untouched by the world around them, unhindered by notions of ‘cool’. Few bands succeed in making it this far into their career, and rarely on their own terms. But LAMBCHOP, alongside other likeminded but diverse acts like Wilco and Sonic Youth, continue to pursue their own path and release challenging, mould-breaking records. It is this singleminded approach that has made Wagner such a figurehead for local musicians: he’s viewed as a patriarch to whom younger artists turn for advice and encouragement. LAMBCHOP are now considered part of Nashville’s alternative establishment, an inspiration for the growing independent scene that flourishes alongside the prevalent country music tradition. The unique sound that they have refined over the years is now one that artists from around the world travel to the city to replicate with sometime member and producer Mark Nevers: Will Oldham aka Bonnie Prince Billy, Tindersticks, Andrew Bird, Howe Gelb and even Candi Staton have recorded at The Beech House, Nevers’ studio cum bungalow. Wagner too has collaborated with a host of successful artists, from Josh Rouse (whose profile as a young songwriter was considerably raised by the mini album they recorded together, Chester) to downtempo mainstays Morcheeba, from dancefloor masters X-Press 2 to rising fellow Nashville chanteuse Cortney Tidwell. Hell, the word ‘Lambchop-esque’ is now thrown around freely and gleefully by critics to define a particular musical or vocal style, most recently at My Morning Jacket, whose Evil Urges at times sounds not unlike some of Lambchop’s breakthrough album Nixon. Not bad for a band who, for many years, numbered more people on stage than in the audience for hometown shows.
OH (ohio) continues the tradition, revealing its charms and nuances with their customary modesty. Change is a subtle thing in LAMBCHOP’s world, but just because it’s not always obviously apparent doesn’t mean that nothing’s different. Wagner is simply a great believer in the natural pace of life. Even if the transformation is not immediately evident, each successive record they’ve released has represented a new stage in the evolution of their distinctive sound. It’s a natural process which has seen them progress from their shambolic early recordings on Jack’s Tulips / I Hope You’re Sitting Down to the offkilter pop experimentalism of What Another Man Spills on to the joyful soul of Nixon and then, pointedly, its polar opposite, the piano-led minimalism of Is A Woman. Most recently Damaged saw Wagner leave the porch from which he had viewed the world for so long and start looking inside himself, his dark meditations on mortality and human frailty matched by a band capable of taking delicacy to delicious new heights.
Every record has been a step forward, on reflection notably so, and yet LAMBCHOP remain somehow a constant entity, refining their trade, their familiarity a source of comfort, their continued survival in an increasingly turbulent music business a cause for celebration. OH (ohio) continues this expansion of their horizons: its highlights include the slow motion Philly soul of ‘Slipped Dissolved and Loose’, the shuffling shimmer of the brilliantly titled ‘National Talk Like A Pirate Day’, the somber majesty of ‘Please Rise’ and the intimate sentiment of ‘Close Up’. Melodically stronger than ever – ‘A Hold Of You’’s gentle hook, the wordplay of ‘Please Rise’ matched by a heartbreaking simplicity – it also sees their trademark leisurely pace imbued with a notion of beat and movement driven by recent recruit Scott Martin’s drumming, most notably on ‘Popeye’’s surprising, almost funky coda.
He also acknowledges that the fundamental nature of the band itself has altered. “The last five years have been about a distillation of the collective into a core band: Tony Crow (piano), William Tyler (guitar), Matt Swanson (bass), Alex McManus (guitar) and now Ryan Norris (keyboards, guitar) and Scott Martin (drums). This is their sound, and it's LAMBCHOP’s sound. But,” he continues, “LAMBCHOP more and more has become a vehicle for my songs and myself as an artist. I've fought against that interpretation for twenty years, but now I’ve just given up trying to fight it anymore. I am simply going to accept that this is how it's evolved and leave it to others to define.”
Kurt’s lack of interest in being ‘the frontman’ was one of the appeals that the collective mentality the band championed for so long held for him. Recent releases have seen him shy away from the spotlight by ‘showcasing’ other members of the band, most notably Tony Crow on Is A Woman and Willliam Tyler on Damaged. OH (ohio) again sees a subtle shift in the way they operate. “Marky would say that I was the "featured player" on OHIO,” Kurt concedes, “and he would say it's about time too. I don't know if he's right on that or not, though. I would tell him that it was a band record. He would just say I was full of shit.”
It’s a different world that LAMBCHOP inhabit from the one into which they first emerged, but they are now a vital part of its landscape. Unyielding to the vagaries of fashion, working entirely on their own terms and responding purely to their artistic muse, they have earned the considerable respect they now command. OH (ohio)’s gentle brilliance justifies their ongoing existence and relevance once again. LAMBCHOP continue to stand proud, much like Wagner’s house, a subtly altered but solid landmark in Nashville’s ever-changing scenery. Long may it remain so.
