Tag: rock and roll

The Gibson Brothers Still Call It Music, Just Not Bluegrass

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Featuring the stunning blood harmonies of days gone by and an abiding love for classic sounds, The Gibson Brothers long ago earned the respect of the bluegrass establishment – even scoring back-to-back wins as the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) Entertainer of the Year in 2012 and 2013. Even so, they’ve always cultivated an adventurous spirit.

Having grown up on a dairy farm in the far north of New York State, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Quebec’s provincial border, their musical appetite was as varied as their home was removed from the bluegrass heartland – from Flatt & Scruggs to Celtic traditionals, and from Tom Petty and The Eagles to French-Canadian fiddle tunes. Throughout their two-decade recording career, The Gibson Brothers have subtly mixed bluegrass reverence with a hint of rock refreshment, but with their new album, Mockingbird, Eric and Leigh Gibson have taken a bold creative departure – at least for the time being.

Mockingbird’s 11 tracks still feature their celebrated close harmonies, but also pull heavily from the countrified world of late 60s/early 70s rock, all masterminded by producers Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys) and David Ferguson (Johnny Cash’s American Recordings series). Freewheeling and fun, but also rooted in the crisp refinement of their past success, the boisterous rural funk of tracks like “Sweet Lucinda” stands alongside breezy Laurel-Canyon rock in “Cool Drink of Water,” while “Travelin’ Day” explores a trad-country template and R.E.M.’s seminal 90s hit “Everybody Hurts” becomes a swaying example of country R&B.

“The impetus behind the music was that we had done bluegrass our whole career, and when we got talking about the next record, we really just decided we didn’t want to do the same old thing again,” he explains. “It’s not because we were ashamed of what we were doing. We love what we do. There was no intention of anything. This all really happened naturally.”

“I think people love a band where they found them,” banjo-playing lead singer Eric Gibson adds. “But it was so exciting that we didn’t have time to think about ‘Oh, is this gonna upset people who are used to what we’ve done in the past?’ We just dove into the process and had a ball.”

Speaking with The Bluegrass Situation by phone, The Gibson Brothers dug into the inspiration for Mockingbird – and the creative avalanche that followed.

The obvious question here is “What made you want to get away from bluegrass?” But I feel like being from upstate New York might have had something to do with it. Is your approach to bluegrass a little different?

Leigh: We started learning how to play bluegrass when we were 11 and 12, and the guy who taught lessons at our local store played five-string banjo and guitar, among other things. Our father just happened to have both of those instruments, but he didn’t have a banjo because he was into Celtic music. So the guy we took lessons from taught Eric out of the Earl Scruggs method book, and I think that’s what pointed us in the direction of bluegrass.

Eric: Yeah, and once we heard Flatt & Scruggs it really drew us in, but if we hadn’t gotten into the Scruggs handbook, we probably would have played something else.

So what was the idea behind Mockingbird? Do you think of it as a rock and roll album?

Eric: There are definitely elements of rock and roll, but I hear country in it, too. I don’t know where it neatly fits. I’ve heard some people call it an Americana record, but on top of it all I hear the brother harmony. I think it’s that, weaving through a variety of styles.

Leigh: We wanted to do something different, and originally we had some tunes that didn’t fit neatly into the box of a bluegrass band. But we didn’t know we were gonna make a whole album. We were just looking to record some tracks.

Eric: And we ended up not recording any of the songs we were thinking about. We just wrote a bunch of new ones! … When we went to Nashville and started working with Dan Auerbach and David Ferguson, they asked us, “Do you wanna make a country record?” And we said, “Let’s just write songs and see what they need.” They handled the producing chores and did a beautiful job, and came up with sounds that I know I couldn’t have come up with.

You reached out to Ferguson to produce Mockingbird first, and I know he also engineered your first Nashville bluegrass album, Another Night of Waiting. Why was he at the top of the list for this project?

Leigh: [Laughs] Because he’s fun.

Eric: He’s a character and once you meet him you don’t forget him. We’d see him here or there and he’s been doing all kinds of big things in the last 20 years. He’s the one who engineered all those late-career Johnny Cash albums with Rick Rubin. He’s worked with U2, and lately he’s been working with Sturgill Simpson and Tyler Childers. We’d see him and he’d say, “Why don’t you come record some music with ol’ Ferg?”

Leigh: And I’d say “I don’t think we can afford you, Ferg.” And he’d be like, “You’re right, you can’t.” [Laughs]

Eric: But we were riding around DelFest on a golf cart with him in 2017 and he brought it up again, and by fall we were feeling a little restless. We kept listening to records that he worked on in the van, and I think Leigh was the one who said “Maybe we should call Ferg.” I said, “Why do you think I’ve been playing all these albums over and over again!”

So then Ferguson suggests bringing in Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys. Was that a surprise?

Leigh: I was floored, to be honest. Our manager called me and said, “Well, Ferg’s first action as your producer is to bring on another producer, and it’s Dan Auerbach.” [Laughs] So I called Eric and I couldn’t believe it.

Eric: What was funny was Leigh said, “Is this something you’d be interested in?” And I was like, “Duh!” This is the kind of thing that falls out of the sky and you have to go for it.

I read that the whole album was written and recorded in just a few days. Is that unusual for you?

Eric: Yeah, we’ve never worked like that before. … Every day it would be Leigh and Dan and me, plus one other writer. We didn’t go in with any melodies. I had a couple of lines jotted down but we hardly used any of those. A lot of it just came out of conversations we were having at Dan’s studio kitchen table, like “Travelin’ Day.” Dan said, “You know, Ferg lost his stepdad a few days ago,” and we got to talking about that. Ferg said, “He really showed us how it’s done. He was brave at the end.” We said, “Our dad was the same way.”

It’s interesting that you started off with something so heavy, because the album doesn’t come across heavy at all.

Eric: It’s not. That first song is pretty heavy, but there’s a lot of love songs on there, and we hadn’t written a lot of love songs in the past.

Leigh: Dan and Ferg showed us how to love. [Laughs]

“Love the Land” seems like a reference back to you roots on the farm. Where did that come from?

Eric: That was written with Joe Allen.

Leigh: With that song, obviously Eric and I have a background of shared memories, so we’re probably thinking about the same thing as we’re writing it. But Joe’s from Oklahoma and Dan’s from Ohio, so they’re thinking about different things. I remember talking to Dan and he said, “Man, I need to get outside more. I miss it.” It’s kind of funny that it’s wherever your head is at the time. If we sat down with the same guys tomorrow, something totally different would come out.

Eric: Dan loved that we kept showing up early. I’d apologize and Dan would say, “No, no, make yourselves at home.” So we’d go back to that kitchen area and he has this beautiful vinyl collection. We’d put on different records and I think sometimes they would influence the direction of the day. Like, that one has a very Don Williams feel, and I think we were listening to Don Williams that morning.

Why did you pull Mockingbird out of that song as the album title?

Eric: Just because that kept jumping out of my head. Joe came up with the line, something like “Mockingbird, if you haven’t heard / Never been a sound so sweet.” I loved that, so I actually Googled “mockingbird.” [Laughs] It turns out they can sing a variety of songs. They don’t just sing the same thing every day, and I thought “Wow, that’s kind of what we’re doing here.”

I’m sure you’ve been asked a million times, but did the cover of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” come out of left field?

Eric: Totally out of left field.

Leigh: Just before the last day of tracking, Dan said, “Think of a song from the 80s or 90s that everybody knows but no one would think of you doing.” So Eric and I talked about it on the way back to the hotel and came up with something by a female artist, and we got to the studio the next day and Ferg is like, “So what song did you choose?” We told him and he’s like, “Oh, I hate that song.” Allen Parker, who is Dan’s in-house engineer, said “Hey, how about ‘Everybody Hurts’?” I had heard the song – you couldn’t miss it if you’re a person my age – but I never in a million years would have thought about doing it. Those guys went and charted it, and it had such a comfortable, funky feel, that we were compelled to learn it.

Do you think your fans saw this album coming?

Eric: No. I mean, it’s a hard question. If they’ve really been paying attention to us over the years, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise because we’ve recorded stuff by Tom Petty and The Band and The Rolling Stones and Mark Knopfler. We have a variety of tastes.

Leigh: I think there are certain fans who see you as one thing, and if you do something else it can be upsetting, but no one twisted our arm to do this. It’s absolutely what we wanted to do and we’re proud of it, but we didn’t do this to offend anybody. If somebody is offended, there’s nothing we can really do about that except say, “Look at our track record and all this other stuff we’ve done that you really love. Why not give this a chance?”

Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

A ‘Sunset’ Toast: A Conversation with Amanda Shires

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When Amanda Shires throws a party, it’s a crackling and cackling affair. The singer-songwriter has often enjoyed lacing her candor with a biting sense of humor, and her new album To the Sunset offers listeners a celebratory and sharp-tongued toast to all the bits—the good, the bad, the ugly—that have shaped her. Beyond giving birth to her daughter Mercy (with husband Jason Isbell), she completed her MFA in creative writing, but that was after someone stole her thesis and she faced the nightmare of starting over. To the Sunset presents many lessons, but central among them is learning how to accept both sides of the coin because together they pay your way.

Shires once again worked with Dave Cobb, the two aiming for a larger sound than what she’d previously accomplished. For longtime listeners, the result strikes a different chord. She and Cobb hit upon a headier pop sound, integrating slick vocal production, wild rhythms, and scorching, electrified solos. There’s a greater lightning running through To the Sunset, which comes, in part, from the use of pedals to elevate Shires’ fiddle from its folk roots. Between her new sonic direction and razor-edged lyricism—thanks to that MFA—her latest album raises a glass in raucous style. To the Sunset is a dark fête, the kind of party that only occurs when you truly let go and learn to be yourself.

Let’s talk about your MFA. How long did it take you to recover from having your thesis stolen?  

I cried and then I got mad. Jason said, “You know, whatever you write will be better than what you already wrote because you’re practicing writing,” and at the time I thought that was the most stupid thing I’d ever heard somebody say, but it’s true. The more practice you get, the better you get, and it all works out in the end. If you really want something, you’re going to find a way to make it happen.

It’s so exciting to hear what you’ve written on this album.

I think it’s pretty cool because I can tell a difference from other records, where I was working with basically instinct. Going to school, I got what I wanted, which was to learn the reasons why I should go with one choice over another, or at least have a way to argue with myself, and a way to back myself up when I’m editing. They teach you there’s no such thing as writer’s block. If that was a thing then nobody would graduate.

Who are some of your favorite poets?

I like Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Mark Strand, and then, you know, regular favorites like Octavio Paz and all the greats.

What would you say you look for in other poets’ writing?

It’s a time to be quiet and reflect and think deeply. You are the audience of one at the time, really. I like poetry because it can go pretty deep and it’s not three minutes long. It’s as long as it takes you to understand it. Songs are such different animals. You have a lot of things that you don’t get with poems, like, you get a sonic landscape and a mood can be provided, whereas on the page it has to be presented with such precision and such intention that you can understand it without anything else helping you.

You recorded your prior album, My Piece of Land, two weeks before giving birth, and you mentioned having to hide in a closet to write this album. Mercy has, in a way, impacted your last two albums. How do you continue to carve out space—besides the closet—for your creative side to flourish?

I’m lucky because Jason’s an excellent co-parent, so if I need to write and do stuff, he’s all hands on deck, and if he needs to write, I’m right there. When I had to be in the closet, I had to make use of a small space, and it wound up leaking into my bedroom, too, so I was taping everything to the walls, so it wouldn’t accidentally get smashed or crumbled by the two-year-old. I learned how to accept things in their early stages. Before, I was real, like, “Nobody sees what I write until it’s all done.” This was a cool thing where I learned to accept my very shitty lines as they faced me every day and tried to make them better. When I was done, I shredded them and I put them in a composter and that goes into my garden.

Have you found that your plants are growing better because of it?

I don’t know. It’s toward the end of the season until that composter’s done cooking. That was a lot of shredded letters. I’m an editor over and over. Some people can write real fast, but I think everything needs tweaking all the time.

Does the editor side of your brain gets in the way of your natural instinct?

It does, it sure does. I found a thing that helps me with that. It’s called FlowState, it’s an app. You set a timer and if you don’t keep typing it erases your work, so it removes the editing process; you can leave it up there and get your free association going, and really try to put your thoughts into words. When I first got it, I started out doing five minutes at a time, now I do 30 minutes at a time. The further you go with it, it’s like a door in your mind opens and you figure which things you need and which things can wait.

Turning to space, that theme—the space between people—surfaces throughout your catalogue. Here, on “Leave It Alone” and “Charms,” it functions in compelling ways. What particularly interests you about space and relationships?

On “Charms,” my mom’s mom abandoned her at a young age, and that’s where that song came from, and just thinking about how hard that would be for both parties. A lot of times as individuals, I know we all often deal with feeling alone or that nobody understands us. You’re born alone, and you die alone. It’s a thing I think about a lot, and that’s why it presents itself in the work.

As a touring musician, as much fun as it is, things get sacrificed. All that’s to say, writing about it and dealing with it makes me a happier person, and if there’s anybody else that feels like me, then I feel I’ve done a better job because it is a way of connecting in the end.

On the My Piece of Land track “I Know What It’s Like,” the desire to run away comes up, and that theme surfaces again on “Charms.” Except running has turned into forward momentum. When did that shift occur for you? How do you push against the desire to cut and run?

[For “I Know What It’s Like”,] I had a person in my life that was telling me these things, like, “I know what you’re going through, just keep talking to me about it.” To have a comrade in that was nice, and I wanted to keep that conversation, I wanted it to be preserved. The running thing, we all want to run away, but then we’re like, “Nah, our problems aren’t really that bad.” It’s really better for you to not run way, to pick up your big girl underwear or your big boy underwear, or whatever. Put your head down and do the work.

I appreciate that you took the momentum that would cause someone to run and shifted it to a positive momentum on “Charms.”

All this stuff is all inherited—you know, how we do life. I will now cite Philip Larkin: “Your mom and dad, they fuck you up.” So in that one I was moved that even though my mom experienced abandonment, she didn’t fall into that learned thing. I think it’s wild to break habits that have happened in your family, generationally. You can’t let fear be the thing that owns you. It’s just silly. This is such a vague thing to describe, fear and doubt and all that stuff—thinking about hypotheticals for situations—it’s so useless; it’s such a waste of time and energy because you can’t control the future, and you can’t control what’s already happened. It’s about trying to accept what’s happened and move forward, and if you fuck up, you fuck up. At least you tried.

Right, you need to make mistakes in order to figure it out. It’s like editing. You never write something perfect the first time.

Yeah, you’ve gotta find a way to trust yourself.

That’s hard when you’re younger.

Totally because you don’t have much experience with it, so you gotta do all the things that give you experience and wrinkles. They’re worth it. Then you start figuring out that, even as you get older, you were this person and now you’re this person. You’re always changing. You might look back and say, “I don’t even recognize that person.”

Joan Didion had that fantastic quote about making peace with your former selves because you’ll never fully leave them behind.  

That’s a whole thing I’m trying to say with To the Sunset, that sort of a cheers or toast. It takes all the things to make you who you are and who you want to be, rather than just ignoring it, or putting it in a box under the bed.

It’s hard to fight, though, because there can be messy parts of yourself that you don’t want to admit.

If you’re not doing that, you’re probably ignoring something that you need to feel. You need to feel ashamed and humiliated sometimes by your own actions. It’s easy to rewrite the way things happened. Once you face it, you can learn yourself better.

Lastly, there are some beautiful portraits of women on this album. How has your sense of womanhood changed, if at all, since having Mercy?

I always felt like I had a responsibility, but I feel like I have that even more. Doing as much as I can and thinking more about the world for her and hopes for her and fears for her. I also feel like, for a long time, you couldn’t talk about things. Even the ugly parts of being pregnant or postpartum, you couldn’t talk about anything, and everything’s supposed to be dreamy and awesome. Now, it’s easier in that more and more women feel like it’s OK to talk about the ugly parts. I think that that might keep us going in the right direction, somehow. One of the coolest things on the record, woman-wise, is my only guest was Gillian Welch, and she sings the harmony part on “White Feather,” what I call the “God” part. Whatever your God is. That was pretty cool. That was a day I thought I was going to die.

Also, your album is coming out at a time when a lot of artists are challenging this sense of perfection.

Yeah, like we don’t need to write a lot of ballads or whatever. It is a cool moment. I’m so happy to see so many women putting out records this year. There’s always been a ton, but there’s not been as much attention or as much room. … It took all those people before us to get to this spot now; I definitely don’t think it’s just happened over the past few months. They’ve always been there, but to move together works better than to move singly.

Photo credit: Elizaveta Porodina

Cowboy Junkies: Everything Unsure, Everything Unstable

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It sounds like the start of a horror movie. A husband and father packs up the car with some clothes and a few guitars, bids farewell to his wife and kids, then drives deep into the Canadian countryside. He bunks at a friend’s country retreat, isolated from society, miles from the nearest human being. Or is he? Cue footsteps in the night, a dead bird on the doorstep, a shadowy figure barely glimpsed at the window. Perhaps there’s a death cult searching for the lost city of Ziox. Or some maniac with a pickaxe. Or some unnamed evil haunting the forest.

“It’s exactly like a horror movie!” laughs Michael Timmins, who is the man in that scenario and who write songs and plays guitar for the veteran Toronto band Cowboy Junkies. To pen tunes for their sixteenth studio album, All That Reckoning, he had to get out where nobody could hear him scream. “When I write, I have to be writing full time. As the years have gone by, it’s gotten harder and harder to do that, because I have more and more responsibilities at home. So I have to get away where it’s quiet, where I can sit around and think about nothing but songs. I have to get my head into it, so I have to isolate myself completely.”

He made it out alive, of course, but if All That Reckoning is any indication, the real horrors are the ones he encountered once he returned to society. An angry album whose outrage simmers coolly just beneath the surface, a thorny collection that ranks among the band’s best efforts, it chronicles a period of alienation, disappointment, fear, and paranoia. The guitars lurch and grind, the rhythm section lays out chunky, funky grooves, and singer Margo Timmins spits her brother’s lyrics with a strident combination of disgust and compassion. This is the Junkies in punk mode, decrying the hate and hostility that are scarier than any boogeyman.

“I’m not a protest writer,” says Michael, “but there are times in one’s life when the two collide. When I was all alone writing this album, I began to realize that the personal songs are little political analogies, and the ones that are a little bit political are really personal analogies. One feeds the other, and you really see how they cross. I felt like I was taking stock of what’s going on in my life and in the Western world, thinking about having to pay the price for a few things.”

Cowboy Junkies don’t usually traffic in dissent or social commentary; they’re better at documenting the personal than the political. Over the last thirty years they’ve crafted a sprawling body of work whose main subject is their own lives, their sons and daughters and wives and husbands and brothers and sisters. The band is rooted in their everyday lives, such that it feels more like an extension of family than a profession. “Margo and I are basically the same age,” says Michael. “We’re only about a year apart in age. We have our separate lives and things we go through, but when I write about something, she can relate that to something that’s happening in her world. And then she’s able to relate it to the listener by singing it, by giving it voice.”

It wasn’t always that way. After brief tenures in a punk group called the Hunger Project and an improvisational act known as Germinal, Michael Timmins and bass player Alan Anton returned home to Toronto, where they started a new band and eventually persuaded Margo to join as singer. Early shows were wildly spontaneous, with the band laying down a groove over which she would improvise lyrics or sing snatches of other songs. They covered old blues songs by Bukka White and Robert Johnson; they played “State Trooper” like Springsteen was an old bluesman himself. Released in 1986, their debut, Whites Off Earth Now!!, was a modest success, further entrenching them in the Canadian alternative scene but doing little to break them south of the border.

“Before anybody was listening,” says Margo, “we were just playing for ourselves—like all bands. You start in the garage or the basement or wherever, and playing music is fun. So you do a rock song. And then you do a country song, and then you do a blues songs. Nobody cares because nobody’s there.”

For their follow-up, they booked time in Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto, claiming to be a Christian vocal band to allay any suspicions of sacrilege or heresy. The band recorded around a single microphone, capturing an ambience so strong, so distinctive, so immersive that the church becomes a member of the band. They reimagined “Blue Moon” as a eulogy for Elvis Presley, reinterpreted Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” as an anthem of urban paranoia, and most famously recorded what Lou Reed declared to be his favorite cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane.” The Trinity Session sounded unlike anything else at the time, and it pointed in new directions roots and folk music might travel: lo-fi, place-specific, history-steeped, atmospheric yet conceptual, beautiful and weird.

“What happens is you have any album like The Trinity Session and then suddenly everybody wants you to sound like that forever,” says Margo. “They want you to do that quiet album again and again. And we just couldn’t do that. We knew it would kill us. We’d get bored really fast, and it would be the end of the Junkies. We did it the way we wanted to do it, and we’re still here.”

After the misstep of 1990’s The Caution Horses—a little too clean, a little too slick—Cowboy Junkies proved themselves a deeply curious and extremely experimental band, one that had much greater range that previous releases had hinted. Black Eyed Man from 1992 is their country record, featuring songs rooted in Southern experience, some written by Townes Van Zandt (including a lovely version of “To Live Is to Fly”). They followed it up in 1993 with Pale Sun, Crescent Moon, a lowdown and occasionally abrasive album featuring guitarwork from J Mascis. There can’t be much overlap between John Prine and Dinosaur Jr, but the Junkies made it sound like a natural progression.

Since then they’ve largely forged their own path, never fully embracing or embraced by the roots community but also never feted as a major postpunk influence. Their most recent albums have been a linked quartet of experimental releases based on seasons of the year: One record was based on Michael’s experiences living in China, another gathered eleven Vic Chesnutt covers. Cowboy Junkies have reached a point where they can exist well outside the trends and slipstreams of contemporary pop, indie, and roots music, where they become a scene in and of themselves. Perhaps more crucially they’ve shown how a band might settle into a long career, enjoying a cult audience more than hit albums. They’ve shown how to make a life in music.

In that regard All That Reckoning is all the more surprising for how relevant it sounds, for how well it surveys our current climate, most crucially for how it suggests that the band’s defining traits—the quiet vocals, the erratic guitars, the menacing midtempo jams—are specifically calibrated to speak to this very moment. As Margo sings on “When We Arrive”: “Everything unsure, everything unstable.”

It’s not easy to write about these topics, but it can be even harder to sing about them. Before she even records her first notes, Margo road tests her brother’s songs, playing them in front of audiences, living with them so she can burrow into them, figure them out, and devise a plan of attack. For All That Reckoning she set up a makeshift studio in the ski chalet where Michael wrote the songs. “Often I don’t know what a song is about, and Mike won’t tell me. When he writes them, he just writes them. They’re mine to interpret and bring my life to and figure my way around.”

She has always been an imaginative singer, but these songs contain some of her best and most precise performances. The disgust in her voice on “Missing Children” is palpable, as is the disdain on “Shining Teeth,” but she sings “The Things We Do to Each Other” as matter-of-factly as possible, as though the lyrics were self-evident, as though a little compassion might help the lesson go down easier.

“Mountain Stream” plays like a record skipping, Michael’s guitar jangling like a pocketful of ill-gotten coins and Margo sounding hazy even though she’s relating a very grounded story about a king surveying his crumbling kingdom. “I wanted to sing it like… you know when you have a dream and you wake up the next morning and you tell somebody about it? You’re telling it in that kind of confused, almost stilted way of talking? You’re shaking your head going, I was here and I was there and then this dog came along. I wanted to sing it in that bewildered sort of way. But it eluded me. I don’t think I got it.”

Perhaps not getting it, perhaps hitting just off the mark, is what gives the song its haunted quality, as though nothing quite lines up, nothing quite makes sense. Everything unstable, everything unsure. “There’s something weird out there, something undefinable,” says Michael, pinpointing the album’s appeal. “We can’t really define it or figure it out, but it’s been out there forever, and for some reason it seems to be getting more common, more present.” The Junkies stare it down on All That Reckoning and they never flinch.

Photo credit: Heather Pollock

Root 66: Cris Jacobs’ Roadside Favorites

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Name: Cris Jacobs
Latest Project: Dust to Gold
Hometown: Baltimore, MD

Backstage hang: The 8×10, Baltimore, MD. A great club run by great people in my hometown.  I’ve played this club more times than I can count and had some epic back stage hangs. We’ll leave it at that, as to not implicate or incriminate anyone.

Late-night radio: Coast to Coast, 680 AM. A talk radio show where everything from aliens, time travel, vortexes, government conspiracies, UFOs, and the like are discussed.  The deadpan demeanor of the host and the way the guests on the show seem to really believe what they are saying makes me feel like I’d be a fool to doubt any of it.  On those weird, dark, desolate stretches of highway when I’m pulling a solo late-night drive, listening to this show can pass hours at a time without even realizing how tired I am because I’m so transfixed on the discussions.

Tour hobby: Reading. I get super excited to pick out a new book or two to have for the tour. I recently picked some good ones, too. I just finished All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and Confessions of a Wine-Stained Notebook by Charles Bukowski.

 

A photo posted by Cris Jacobs (@cris_jacobs) on

Record store: Cactus Music, Houston, TX. I did an in-store performance there a few years ago and was relieved to know that there are still stores like that (besides Barnes and Noble) where you can get lost searching through records and books. Took me back to the '90s where one of my favorite activities was going down the rabbit hole of sampling CDs at the music store and discovering new stuff.

Day-off activity: Exercise. A good hike in the mountains or woods, or a good long run. Or, if not, poker. If there’s a casino close by, I can’t say that I won’t not not consider playing a few hands.  So one of those two things. I’m a Gemini.

Driving album: Bill Frisell records provide some of the best soundtracks to highway drivies. Especially if it’s a nice day and a particularly scenic route. Good Dog, Happy Man for day drives, and Blues Dream after the sun goes down.

Breakfast: Mama’s, Mill Valley, CA. For my money, the best benedict I’ve ever had. The homemade hollandaise is orgasmic. It’s the kind of place you plan around, even if it means going out of your way or waking up earlier to make sure you get a good sit down.

 

A photo posted by Cris Jacobs (@cris_jacobs) on

Highway stretch: Doesn’t get much better than Route 1 from L.A. up the coast to Washington. It’s not the usual route for bands, because it’s not meant for trailers, and it’s not a quick route. But I’ve done a few solo tours in a little rented compact car out there and driven it any chance I’ve had. It’s like you instantly feel like Jack Kerouac or something.  

Listening room: The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA. A historic place with a Hall of Fame pedigree. I remember going there as a teenager to see heroes of mine like Doc Watson and Tony Rice. Pristine sound, a cool roadhouse/dinner theatre vibe, and super kind, friendly staff.

Coffeehouse: Stumptown Roasters, Portland, OR. I recorded an album at Jackpot Studios right down the street once, and we thanked Stumptown in the liner notes. You walk in and smell them roasting the beans, and then you get a damn fine cup of coffee. I’m a coffee snob (and addict) and it’s one of my favorites.

Pizza: Anything open after the show.

Root 66: The Wild Reeds’ Roadside Favorites

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Name: The Wild Reeds
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Latest Project: Best Wishes EP

Tacos
: Veracruz breakfast taco truck in Austin, Texas, is bonkers. Try their Migas tacos! We are spoiled when it comes to Mexican food in Los Angeles, but Austin's got the breakfast taco thing goin' on and Veracruz is truly the best.

Health Food: Red Barn Natural Grocery in Eugene, Oregon, became a favorite of ours after playing Sam Bond's Garage a few times. It's small but has character — you know, like granola-hippie-dreadlock-B.O. — and their side café has great breakfast, and ice cream!

Roadside Diner: Walrus and Carpenter wouldn't be considered a diner — it's a gastropub — but it's a "must" every time we are on the East Coast. It's in Black Rock, Connecticut, by the water and it's the best BBQ we've ever had. I know that sounds crazy because that's not what Connecticut is known for. Joe, the owner, has taken good care of us on numerous occasions. We even played a show there this year. Their maple-cured pork belly and their hush puppies are so good. Also … they have CRAZY pies and a full bar. GO THERE. 

 

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Coffee House: Rozz Tox in Rock Island, Illinois, is one of the cooler coffee houses you will ever visit. It's full of funky vintage furniture and bizarre artwork that makes you feel like you've fallen down the rabbit hole. It's family-owned and operated, and they serve hot drinks, killer food, and throw shows in the back. They also have a library upstairs with a record player and a hallway of bunks for bands. Oh, and Saturday morning, (black and white) cartoons!

Vintage Store: We love vintage stores (yes, even the guys do!) and it's hard to choose a favorite, but one, for sure, is House of Vintage in Portland. It's a vintage mall with tons of curated booths and their prices are great. They have EVERYTHING … from combat boots to your grandma's pin collection. It's usually a three-hour affair for us. 

Gear Shop: Our favorite music store is Folk Music Center in Claremont, California. Owned and run by Ben Harper's family, it's become a community pillar of history, culture, live music, lessons, and rare folk instruments. We all have lots of memories playing there, and they are the only ones we trust with our banjo. Revival Drum shop in Portland is also somewhere we try to stop whenever we are in town.

 

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House Concert: In Walla Walla, Washington, there's a kickass family who puts on the Bellsville West house shows and, if you ever get the chance to play there, do it. Some of the most down-to-earth folks, who'll stay up all night around the fire drinkin' wine and talking about stuff that matters. 

Backstage Hang: The Chapel in San Francisco has always been good to us, and their backstage catering is wild. Somehow, you're in an old parish, eating goat cheese pizza and drinking in the baptismal overlooking the crowd. 

Music Festival
: Our favorite music festival is Pickathon in Happy Valley, Oregon. This Summer, we got to play it for the first time and were thrilled. It's an alternate universe where children run free, GOOD music never stops, food is real, and beer flows like water. But really, camping under the stars while listening to music in the woods is heaven! 

 

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Radio Station: King's Radio KZPO 103.3 in Lindsay ( Central Valley) California. If you're coming or going from L.A. to S.F. on I-5, this station is a gem of oldies from the '40s on up, many of which never had air time. They also play original rare versions of songs. It's a tradition for us on our drive home. 

Tour Hobby: We have a few tour hobbies: In the van, we do a lot of embroidery to pass the time. It helps you to not get sucked into your phone for hours, and we've made lots of hand-sewn patches and merch for the band. Our other hobby — more like a problem — is thrifting. We stop at every thrift store we can that's off the beaten path. It's one of the best ways to see into the personality of a city and the people that live there. However, we did a little too much collecting and have now opened an online vintage store called Bandwagon Vintage where you can buy our treasures and continue to fuel our habit.

Driving Album: We have several favorite driving albums, but one of them is Joel Alme's Waiting for the Bells. He's a Swedish artist that somehow harnessed all the world's nostalgia and put it into one soul-filled love-and-loss record. He's got a cool way of singing and it makes you feel good feelings. We put some more of our driving albums in a Spotify playlist called "road jamz" so feel free to take a listen. 

Photo credit: Ryan Cosentino-Roush