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| From | Jonathan Rundman <rundman@msn.com> |
| Subject | Owsley Borders show review |
| Date | Fri, 12 Mar 2004 16:29:20 -0600 |
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Hey folks,
Today is the first day of Owsley's tour in support of his new album The Hard
Way. I just returned from a free in-store acoustic performance that Will
played at the Borders bookstore in downtown Minneapolis.
There were about 8 folks in the audience. Five of us were fans who had both
albums, and the other 3 were just random bookstore patrons who were there
for a cup of coffee.
Will was supposed to start playing at 12:30PM, but instead of playing right
away, he sat down to talk to the 5 of us who were there to see him. We hung
out and he answered questions for 30 minutes! Needless to say, it was an
ideal music nerd experience. Will turns out to be quite a music nerd
himself. Some things we discussed:
+ Will was buying two copies of the Tenacious D movie on DVD.
+ He talked about the gear he was using on the tour...a Matchless amp and a
'68 Fender guitar.
+ He mentioned that 2 days ago he performed for 40,000 people while backing
up Amy Grant (and Vince Gill) at some rodeo in Texas. And he accidentally
smashed his hand on a catwalk while walking off the stage.
+ He raved about working with Amy Grant, saying that she was like a sister
to him and that she was a beautiful person.
+ One of his fans mentioned how his new album sounded like he was trying for
a more "mainstream" sound...and Will quickly responded by saying how he
didn't want to ever make the same album twice. He really defended his new
album's style, saying how all artists should grow in their sound. He said
"The Beatles didn't stay with 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'....they grew, and
recorded songs like 'I am the Walrus.'"
+ He talked about making his albums in his own house, and went into detail
about getting the amazing drum sounds on "Zavelow House" by putting one mic
in his kitchen when the drummer was playing down the hall.
+ He refered to Led Zep's "Houses of the Holy" being recorded in a castle,
and how he prefers taking studio gear into a house, rather than working in a
formal studio setting.
+ He mentioned that his band noticed on their tour a few years ago with
Fountains of Wayne, that whenever they began to play "Zavelow House" the
whole audience would jump up and down, so he decided that he better write
even more songs for the next album that used the "Zavelow" drum groove.
+ He talked about working with engineer Tom Lord-Alge and what a genius he
is.
+ He talked about how he is interested in songs with straight mono-tone
single note melodies, after writing so many hyper-melodic songs.
+ He was very pleased with his label's promotion of his new album. He
mentioned that the distributor for Best Buy, Wal Mart, and K Mart had just
purchased 2000 units of the album.
+ He was also glad about the radio airplay he's been gettting, especially
here in Minneapolis, AND in Boston where he's been selling 350 CDs a week
thanks to the airplay of "Be With You."
+ He invited us to join his email list. He mentioned that occasionally
someone posts a negative review of his new album, and his list manager asks
if that post should be deleted, but Will insists that even bad reviews get
posted to the list, saying "Bad press is better than no press." He said he
was glad that people were talking about the album, regardless if they liked
it or not.
He was a very down-to-earth person, an obvious fan of music, and very
excited to meet folks who were interested in his songs. Eventually his label
representative suggested he play some songs (by this time it was 1PM). He
performed with a seemingly new Martin acoustic guitar w/ cutaway, and said
he would take any request we had.
1. CLASS CLOWN: by request...he said he wouldn't be playing it on tour, and
he hadn't sung it in three years, so he wasn't sure he could do it. But he
did fine.
2. ODE TO A BUTTERFLY (instrumental cover song, by Nickel Creek): someone
asked what he's been practicing, so he said "bluegrass" and launched into
this very fast and complicated picking song.
3. SHE'S THE ONE: a fan asked if Will was a fan of King's X, because this
song sounded like the work of guitarist Ty Tabor (which I had not thought of
before, but it TOTALLY sounds like a Ty song). Will said no, he'd never
heard any of their music.
4. MATRIARCH: by request...Will was hesitant, saying that "this is a piano
song" but he tried it anyway, played the first verse and then quit. But he
was good natured about it.
5. GOOD OLD DAYS: Wow...great guitar part to this song, and it worked very
well solo-acoustic.
6. ZAVELOW HOUSE: by request...Will was unsure he could play it solo
acoustic, but it was AMAZING.
7. RISE
He then thanked us for coming, and said he would love to play for us all
afternoon, but he wanted to rest his voice before the full-band show
tonight.
I'll be attending his full-band show (featuring Millard Powers of The
Semantics!), and I'll give a report about it tomorrow.
-Jonathan Rundman
http://www.jonathanrundman.com
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