Three Imaginary Girls - Bloodshot

Imaginary Interview with Maggie Bjorklund {playing w/CoBirds Unite 8/17 at the Triple Door}

Chris Estey — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 20:10:58 +0000

Sometimes record labels fall in love with someone at first sight (sound?) too. Danish pedal guitar angel Maggie Bjorklund was weaving steel around blood and whiskey singer-songwriter Mark Pickerel at SXSW, and beloved no-goddamned-depression-at-all super-roots Bloodshot felt their hearts throb as their ears glowed to her holy sounds.

They snatched her up and earlier this year we got the posh buffet of recorded delights known as the Coming Home album. On Wednesday, August 17, she teams up at the Triple Door with players all over the local indie-cowpoke musical map, being CoBirds Unite, Sangster Family Band, Whiting Tennis, and Katie Mullins. (A benefit for the Gilda’s Club, starts at 7:30 pm, doors open at 6, all ages, and I haven’t reviewed a single show for awhile, but this will be the one I scribe about besides festivals this summer.)

Working with smoke-and-velvet voiced vocal artists Mark Lanegan, Rachel Flotard, and Jon Auer, that first solo full length of Maggie’s followed up her earlier European acclaim from playing with original group the Darleens (and for her collaborations with Lennart Ginman, Nils Skousen, Miss B. Haven, and others). The Praying Hands with Mr. Pickerel is still her home room, but she recently toured and recorded with glitter-gutter-goddess Exene Cervanka (of X) too.

Below is a recent chat between Maggie and I about what to expect that night at the Triple Door, where I like to sip my supper and sit through some of the very best shows in town (I’ve ever seen).

The Excitement of Maybe

Chris Estey — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:33:44 +0000

7.8

http://www.amazon.com/Excitement-Maybe-Exene-Cervenka/dp/B004I3U7GW/?tag=wwwthreeimagi-20

89 - Exene Cervenka - The Excitement of Maybe (2011).jpg

Exene Cervenka listened to aching pop gems on the little AM radio in her family's 1959 Dodge as she grew up, soaking in the streams of romantic longing of Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Peggy Lee as the rain hit the windows. That haunted, pine-freshener smelling, cigarette burns on the leatherette seats feel is all over the punk-celestial's new full length, The Excitement of Maybe.

Neophytes might be wondering if the thrift-store crazy gal who co-fronted X with the bass player she met in poetry class (John Doe) deserves a little hootenanny on roots-deep Bloodshot. I mean, she has the pedigree, but can an art-pop raven pull off the chops for love songs and sweeter lamentations? You're asking about it the wrong way, kiddo. On reeling opening track "Already In Love," she reminds that she once herded up The Knitters, which was X gone rodeo even before they recorded and toured as a stripped down acoustic version of the seed band. (Track down their work on Slash Records at all costs.)

More than that, the dark pull of her vocals bring to mind bluegrass goddess Peggy Seeger, who made "Henry Lee" famous (that's right, Nick Cave fans) and flabbergast me that I never caught the connection before. I could have heard Seeger in Cervenka when she was howling "The Have Nots" or "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts", but all that glammy Billy Zoom guitar got me gobsmacked. "Already In Love" also somehow channels the OG cow-punk of Rank & File, the band once known as The Dils before they got fed up with the "noo waif" and took their Marxism to the ranch in the early 80s. (And yes that's The Blasters' Dave Alvin axe-grinding away like a charmer in a roadhouse at the beginning of a set behind fence to protect him from the blues-ridden cowgirls.)

The two sweet-creepy singles to bliss in on this release though are "Falling" and "I Wish It Would Stop Raining," which beautifully combine indie-politan with country-swoon. No, don't think because this is the great lady who fronted transgressive rock (Auntie Christ), old school alt-country (Original Sinners) and the aforementioned bands that this is going to be some sort of American Gothic slaughter. This time it's all love, love, love and Bloodshot could use a sparkling little romance elpee in its catalogue. And so should you, in your own preserves o'platters.

Coming Home

Chris Estey — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 16:22:24 +0000

7.8

http://maggiebjorklund.com/about.htm

MaggieBjorklund_ComingHome.jpg

Bloodshot Records, a label always known for high quality music as well as eclectic realness, has put out the new album by Steve Fisk and Johnny Sangster guitar/steel guitarist session player Maggie Bjorklund. It's a dreamy, waltzy, life-in-amber collection of seaside castaway whirls and marches. If you remember Bjorklund's work with Danish band the Darleens, you'll want to pick this up right away. Especially if you've been familiar with her excellent work recently with Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands, and weaving a bed of pedal steel as well on songs by The Dept of Energy, Christy McWilson, and the recent album which slays me most, Rusty Willoughby's Cobirds Unite.

Coming Home is noteworthy simply as a tender collection of vivacious guest vocals, including Mark Lanegan, whose work on "Intertwined" is like hearing the lead crooner in a Francis Ford Coppola fantasia-musical. Rachel Flotard follows with my favorite track, "Summer Romance," and her icy vocals juxtapose with the lyrics "softly cigarettes / will dance on our regrets" like the best Neko Case couplet, who she happens to give quite a run for her money.

Jon Auer from The Posies comes in third in the sequence of vocalized songs on "Vildspor," and his sweet lines are more restrained and overshadowed just little by Lanegan's smoothness and Flotard's fire coming before. But it's nice to have the diversity, and those two can be pretty intense just taken by themselves anyways. "The Anchor Song" is another Bjorklund/Flotard collaboration (in both words and voice as well) and is possibly the starkest point of the CD, coming after the trapped under ice instrumental "Falling." Lyrically as dense and terrifying as a T.S. Eliot poem, it betrays with its delicate delivery.

Producer and player Johnny Sangster has bravely and very capably taken the reins from Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino for the follow up to Bjorklund's 2009 debut. Coming Home is gorgeous uneasy listening music, and the central artist's choice of collaboration is as inspired as the notes she bends to infinity.

It's a dreamy, waltzy, life-in-amber collection of seaside castaway whirls and marches. If you remember Bjorklund's work with Danish band the Darleens, you'll want to pick this up right away. Especially if you've been familiar with her excellent work recently with Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands, and weaving a bed of pedal steel as well on songs by The Dept of Energy, Christy McWilson, and the recent album which slays me most, Rusty Willoughby's Cobirds Unite.

Exene Cervenka's record store tour

ChrisB — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:15:41 +0000

Record stores have, like nearly every business, not fared particularly well in the economic climate of the past few years. In fact, they have likely had a much more difficult time staying solvent as the move towards more people getting their music online than at retail stores. At the beginning of this year, the first two albums to hit number one on the Billboard 200 chart this year (Ke$ha’s Animal and Vampire Weekend’s Contra) were the first two albums in history to top the charts with more than 50% digital sales. The lower prices, huge catalogs and fast delivery methods have made iTunes, emusic and Amazon the often first place for people to go to purchase music (and that’s saying nothing of what is obtained via illegal downloading) and has made it that much harder for record stores to stay in business.

One artist who is doing what she can to help record stores is Exene Cervenka. Best known for being the badass frontwoman for punk band X and the alt-country band The Knitters, she has been one of the most prolific and multi-faceted artists over the past thirty-plus years. Not just a musician, but she’s also a writer, poet and visual artist. My favorite quote about Cervenka came from her X and Knitters bandmate John Doe (which I found in Maria Raha’s great book Cinderella’s Big Score), who said “she was such a badass! I pretended to be but Exene was the real thing. She had the ax to grind…the unusual wiring that made it possible for her to throw a drink in somebody’s face and still be right.” She most recently released a gorgeous solo record called Somewhere Gone last autumn. She is currently on a tour, playing in-store shows at record stores on the west coast that will include appearances at three Seattle-area record stores: Easy Street Records (Queen Anne) on Friday, April 16 and on Saturday, April 17, the actual Record Store Day, she’ll be at Tyrannosaurus Records in Renton and Damaged Goods in Belltown.

I asked Cervenka during a phone interview last week why she was doing this tour of exclusively record stores and she said bluntly, “I want to help keep them open,” and then adding “and I want to play places that are all ages, where we aren’t playing at 11:00 at night that is full of beer and whiskey, where young girls can come, or young boys who want to see someone who has been around.” She also said, “I want to play my new songs and I want people to hear my new songs and not have to worry about getting a babysitter and drinks and parking and can’t go because it’s at 11:00 at night. It’s hard for people to go out and spend that kind of money, so I wanted to make it easy for them. I win, the fans and the audience win and the record stores win.”

Her album she’s touring to promote is Somewhere Gone (Bloodshot), her first solo album since 1996. It’s a beautifully-made album with personal, sincere lyrics that compliment the folk arrangements. Contrasting with her previous work, she told me “these songs are different. They’re all like emotional landscapes and they’re all love songs. They’re kind of poppy and folky and catchy.”

She’s had a remarkable career for over thirty years, not just with numerous musical projects like X, The Knitters, Auntie Christ and her solo work, but also as a writer and artist. My favorite book of hers is Adulterers Anonymous, a collection of poetry with No-Wave artist Lydia Lunch where they annotate each other’s words. She said of the comparison between making visual art and music, “The art, the collages that I make is great because your mind is kind of free and kind of Zen-like. You don’t really think about anything other than what those colors look like together but when you write a song you’re going deep into your emotions. It’s a completely different process. It depends on your mood. Some days you don’t want to think about any of that stuff so you make art, other times you feel like you really want to get your emotions out and something hops into your mind that you want to work on, so you write a song.” She added “right now, it’s all music, all the time.”

This all music, all the time is keeping her busy. Later in the spring she’ll play some shows with X and The Knitters before finishing up her next solo album. She told me “I started recording and when I get home from this tour and I’ll start recording again and hope to finish up in June. I’ve already figured what the songs are going to be and they’re all written. I have a fantastic producer, fantastic studio and fantastic people to play on it. I can’t wait.” She understandably didn’t want to talk about who she would be collaborating with.

Part of what makes her energy, output and longevity as an artist so impressive was the admission recently that she has multiple sclerosis. She released a statement, visible on her website, saying in part “many people remain strong and continue to live their lives as productively as they had before an MS diagnosis. I plan to be one of those people.” When I heard her on KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic” program a few months ago, host Jason Bentley asked how she was feeling and said “fine”. With her prolific output as an artist and upbeat, friendly manner when I talked to her on the phone, it’s difficult to see how she could be anything but.

Right now, she is on this tour of record stores and said she’s having a great time. She said the in-stores “were exactly what I had envisioned when I thought about doing this. There were kids there and all kinds of people there and they were buying records and things to have signed. There have been a lot of people coming out and the record stores were very happy.” She added, “There is pressure when you go on the road because you have a band and you have to pay everybody and make sure everybody’s rooms are right and all that and you have to keep everyone happy. Everyone is playing for not very much money and you don’t know if people are going to come out or not. They don’t have any money either, but with these in-stores, there’s no pressure. It’s me with my guitar and my best friend and we’re driving around the country and we’re having a great time. No one has to have any pressure if no one shows up; that’s just not even an issue, it’s fantastic.”

One point she wanted to convey was that she hoped everyone would support the record stores as much as they could. She told me “this is one thing I’d like to say is that when people come out to my shows, I don’t care if people buy my record or not, if they do it’s fantastic and if they don’t, it’s fine, but please buy something from the store. There are all kinds of great things in the record stores and I just want people to patronize the stores while they’re at the shows, even if it’s just to get a button or something. Just help the store out.”

{Photo by Ali Smith.}

{Exene Cervenka plays at Easy Street Records (Queen Anne) on Friday, April 16 at 6pm, at Tyrannosaurus Records (Renton) on Saturday, April 17 at 2pm and at Damaged Goods on Saturday, April 17 at 5pm, all free and all ages.}

Cody's Dream

Imaginary Shrie — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:46:04 +0000

7.2

http://www.amazon.com/Codys-Dream-Pickerel-Praying-Hands/dp/B00128UTYQ/wwwthreeimagi-20/

codysdream-sm.jpg

Seen busking on the streets of Seattle for money and sporting a 'do that could make even the hardest rockabilly dame go weak in the knees, Mark Pickerel is a man of many talents. A drummer, songwriter, guitar player and record store owner, Pickerel has moved from behind the set to center stage with his second solo album, Cody's Dream.

Mark sings his songs of heartache and regret with a delectably deep baritone and still hits the high notes like a hot knife through butter. The title track inaugurates the album with a foot-tapping rollicker. Breezy and energetic, "Cody's Dream" is an indie rock version of cowpoke country. It evokes the old-timers, and reigning greats, of country music like early Elvis, Bob Wills and Hank Williams with a splash of contemporary indie Americana. "Last Leaves" is a sultry rockabilly warble, pleading "Leave, just leave, do it for me..."

"She Calls" steps up the tempo, dotted with easy backing guitar quips, breathy backing vocals and a steely guitar solo. Brooding and somber, "One More Cup of Coffee" really showcases Mark's less than shabby songwriting and his whiskey-ed voice. The eerie, bittersweet vibe and somber lyrics give this an old Country & Western feel. The use of the mysteriously beautiful pedal steel, mellotron and bluesy guitars create a record that is more about the atmosphere of sound rather than useful as a track by track breakdown.

This album feels old, warm and haunting — an album for the lonesome on a heartbreakingly late night. Cody's Dream is engaging, intimate and yearning. Pickerel's songwriting spins tales of all the things that make life hard, and as a result, more liveable. It's a trip through dusty America, where tumbleweeds meet ghost towns and everything in between. As a set of songs, they are a testament to all the roads that are traveled, the loves that are lost and the hope that can barely be made out in the heat-waved horizon.

As a set of songs, they are a testament to all the roads that are traveled, the loves that are lost and the hope that can barely be made out in the heat-waved horizon.

Record Store Day @ Easy Street

Jflores — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:01:25 +0000

Music starts at 5PM with special guest star Anna, followed by Mark Pickerel, and then the incomparable Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter anchoring the show.

Scotland Yard Gospel Choir

Erik Gonzalez — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:17:01 +0000

8.5

http://www.amazon.com/Scotland-Yard-Gospel-Choir/dp/B000VAK25M/

SYGC.jpg

Let's dispel a few potential misunderstanding when it comes to the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir. (1) there are no choirs involved - at least not directly, (2) there is also no gospel, (3) they do not solve crimes, (4) they, in fact, aren't from the UK at all, but instead, Chicago. So, in total, there is really nothing accurate about the moniker of this band. We can forgive them for these misdirections because their eponymous second album is one of the spunkiest sets I've heard in a while, a rollicking good time to be enjoyed by all.

I have to admit, Scotland Yard Gospel Choir does wear its influences on its sleeve: Belle & Sebastian, the Smiths, Billy Bragg. If you're not reminded of these seminal bands when you listen to the album then you're not paying attention. This is not to say that they are just rehashing what has been done before, but much like fellow pop rock mavens such as the Push Kings or Papas Fritas, they wrap themselves in pop like a cocoon only to burst free with their only infectious blend of the stuff. Heck you'd be hard pressed to start an album with more energy than "Aspidistra," a song about the dangers of drugs and the police -- it is post-punk pop rock at its finest. However, the gentler side of the SYGC can be truly hypnotic, like "The World Has No Place for Me." It is rich and textured, much like Rilo Kiley's "Hail to Whatever You Find in the Sunshine that Surrounds You," full of tension and passion.

SYGC shares the melancholy gene with fellow mope-rockers Math & Physics Club. "Obsessions" straddles the divide between Belle & Sebastian and Bright Eyes, with cellos driving the song along mixed with vocal harmonies and lines like "I'm sitting at home whiting out the Bible." The song is beautiful pop that takes a sidetrip into a dark Oberst-like nightmare midcourse, rocking the ship back and forth across the sea. "Pins & Needles" is a little more conventional take on '60s-influenced pop rock, showing off some the band's guitar chops. However, if you're looking for pop confections, "I Never Thought I Could Feel This Way for a Boy" is a page out of the Belle & Sebastian playbook, with handclaps and strings augmenting an infectious melody and slightly off-kilter lyrical content.

Much like Cats on Fire, SYGC loves to write songs that have a driving, "dance" beat that are impossible not to tap your feet to, even when SYGC midwestern roots get exposed on "Then and Not a Moment Before." One of the real highpoints on SYGC has to be the closer, "Everything You Paid For," where you find an extension of this country-western melancholy, open and hollow but optimistic at the same time - you'd think that your iPod had shuffled to some Tiger Saw. The song is beautiful and stark. Oddly, it's so different that it almost doesn't fit in on SYGC, but you wouldn't want to be without it.

You have to love any band that can cram so much great pop into a nine-track disc, and that is exactly what you get from Scotland Yard Gospel Choir. Sure, they're not experimenting with augmented notes and bizarre 5/8 times, but they can really knock your striped socks off with pop songs that you'll be humming around the halls. Sometimes you're just looking for fun when you pop on an album and really, Scotland Yard Gospel Choir is just that: good, old-fashioned fun.

You have to love any band that can cram so much great pop into a nine-track disc.

Mark Pickerel Busking in Queen Anne right NOW!

Jflores — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:47:50 +0000

If you aren't in the neighborhood, be sure to check him out at The Tractor this Saturday!

Steel Guitar Heart Attack

Phil Duncan — Thu, 10 May 2007 05:56:43 +0000

8.7

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000MR9C1O/wwwthreeimagi-20

jonrauhouse07may.jpg

Excluding enthusiasts, an album consisting of purely guitar instrumentals can get old real fast. Even though I possess an amateur proficiency on the instrument and think that it has contributed as much to the world as, say, electricity, I must admit that I was a little skeptical of Jon Rauhouse’s Steel Guitar Heart Attack. Never hearing of Rauhouse before, I assumed that I was in for a few minutes of mild enjoyment followed by an hour of clock watching.

But I’ll be damned if I wasn’t proved terribly, tragically wrong.

Not only was a proved wrong, but I was also completely floored by Rauhouse’s quirky, vibrant, and downright masterpiece of an album. The repertoire covers everything from jazz, blues, country, and even the theme song from Mannix and the Andy Griffith Show. If this wasn’t good enough, Rauhouse called upon a myriad of sultry female vocalists to sing classical standards, including Visqueen frontwoman Rachel Flotard and frequent collaborator Neko Case, who delivers “East of the Sun” with a Fox Confessor-type of eerie siren sincerity.

While Rauhouse’s guitar is inspired, the album also features a line-up of phenomenal musicians. “Begin the Beguine” is a saucy, downbeat number complete with oboe and a 1930s legion hall horn section. And to showcase his versatility, the track is followed by “Holiday for Strings,” a snappy and expansive piece that would be the perfect radio song when riding shotgun with George Jetson (did his car even have a passenger’s seat?). Banjos float down “Hood Canal” while “Bongo Ride” features, well, bongos as the backdrop for Rauhouse’s slick guitar melody.

Why can’t there be more instrumental albums like this – records that feature such depth, diversity, and pure unfiltered fun? Steel Guitar Heart Attack is all over the place, without ever detaching fully from its core.

The title of the album comes from Rauhouse’s first hand experience with chest pains, emergency procedures, and angioplasty. And after hearing this album, everyone should thank Jon for powering through and sticking around.

I was also completely floored by Rauhouse’s quirky, vibrant, and downright masterpiece of an album. Why can’t there be more instrumental albums like this – records that feature such depth, diversity, and pure unfiltered fun?

Freedom And Weep

Chris Estey — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 07:00:00 +0000

8.3

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009YAYV2/wwwthreeimagi-20

wacobrothers05sept.jpg

This is a PISSED OFF album, made by a gin-soaked gaggle of British and American club-crawling punk Godfathers, and it's full of snarling but smart complaints and lamentations about dumb-ass Christians and greedy fucking Texas warlords and how "If you think you're getting screwed, join the club!" The tasty minimum wage gruel of timeless rock, fuel-pungent gas station 70s folk and country, and it's-fucking-late-I'm-out-of-here pub-punk, perfectly matches the kidney-punch of the working class poetry smoothly sung by several of the musicians.

Speaking of the musicians, it's hard to believe that various Waco Brothers have been doing this for seven records, but Jon Langford (Mekons) sexily leads his band through these lucky thirteen songs about bad luck and bad faith, featuring Wreck's Deano, Graham Parker's drummer Stephen Goulding, mandolin player Tracy Dear, and the bass player from Jesus Jones (!-Alan Doughty) and Mark Durante, the steel guitarist from — KMFDM? The Revolting Cocks? What the fuck?!

Oh, what the hell — times have been weird for everyone, and we're all in the same post-election shit-hole. Anyways, the Waco Brothers are coming to the Sunset Tavern on September 25th, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. Just seeing Langford brings back for example the gorgeous raw energy of Joe Strummer at the Showbox a few years ago — these are the equivalent of blistered bluesmen, full of stinking anarchist urine from the most fermented swing-time wine. Don't miss it, this guy's a swanky goddamn comet, and just gets full of more roots-rock fire with each passing year.

The songs you'll be hearing in a couple weeks will include the opening not-making-it-by-payday basher "Nothing At All," the have-hope-or-die atheist-gospel flow of "It's Amazing," and especially "Chosen One," one of Langford's greatest rants ever ("Loaves & fishes — guns and drugs — cruel New Jerusalem — You're faith is shaken, no mistaken — We're only as strong as the drugs we're taking"), feeling like something Dylan would have imbibed, scribed, and shrived for "Highway 61 Revisited" (seriously). In fact, the fed-up, mystical, religious-political melancholy of that classic rock album feels like a hurtful hangover all the way through Freedom And Weep.

It's that good, that sad, and that NECESSARY.