"Someone's Got to Pay"- Now Available!

Someone's_Got_to_Pay
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Tomorrow is April 15th, 2008. If you haven't filed your taxes yet, you'd better get on it!
If you've filed already, and you haven't purchased a copy of our new album, "Someone's Got to Pay" yet, then you'd better get on THAT!

Those that pre-ordered a copy should be getting them in the mail today or tomorrow. But some lucky folks got to buy the first copies at our shows this past week.

One of those people is a great old friend of ours named Hamp Henning. I received an email from Hamp this morning, and he submitted the following review of the new album after his first listen...

(After reading, please re-check my post from January, entitled "Happy 2008"- lots of similarities there...bp)





This is the smartest thing the Wilders have ever done.
This is my first listen, the ‘get the feel of the thing’ review.

First, it’s an ‘album’ not a ‘recording’. This is a big, great difference.
Previous recordings (for the most part) have been you guys playing your songs/tunes. They were good. In your line of work, people come to the shows…love it…and buy a cd. They take it home, and though it’s good, it has no chance of capturing the Wilders live show. It would be impossible.

This thing is a whole new deal. This is an ALBUM. This thing is alive on its own. It’s not an attempt to send a fan home with a piece of the live show. BUT, anybody who loved the show won’t be disappointed with this album. It is all Wilders and has an energy/intensity that you get at the live show…without being a recording of the show…if that makes any sense.

This opens you guys up to all new markets. If this hasn’t been sent to XM Radio station #12…do it now!!! This album will appeal to a much larger audience than previous recordings. You just have to figure out how to get it in front of their ears! ALSO, and I feel this is very important, just as the fan who buys a copy at a show won’t be disappointed, the person who hears this thing before seeing you live will love it when they do get around to seeing a show. This is very good.

Fans of the live show will like the cd ... and fans of the cd will love the live show! What else could you ask for? It's all different, but all Wilders.

You get a little bit of everybody on this thing:

Betse’s hot fiddling and I really like her singing on this one a lot
Phil gives us his ‘Red Headed Stranger’ – awesome. And of course sweet playing and harmonies
Nate is my favorite Honky-Tonk Poet. Period. I love his songs.
Ike is so good. You can feel his charisma and charm on the rockers. But I really like the sad sweetness of some of the songs he wrote.
Dirk and Brendan round the thing out with some amazing instrumental accents and the recording quality is amazing.

…oh yeah, and this is important, the drummer ROCKS! So often when ‘acoustic’ acts add drums to the mix it sounds like crap. Like they’re playing their songs and … oooh ….. this’ll be fun ….let’s add a drum!!! It always ends up weak and out of place. Not here. These drums aren’t an add-on. They’re part of the deal…part of the Wilders. Well-done! When you said there were drums I was very scared. After listening, I love it. The drums allow you to keep the intensity without getting too busy and cluttered. They allow for some dynamics that are hard to deliver in a drumless world. The drums help to make this an album that can be listened to over and over.

Overall, after one quick listen, I’m inspired. Don’t get me wrong, I love the old Wilders, but you guys have so much more to offer. This album gives your fans a glimpse at some of that. I think they’ll be happy. I am."



thanks Hamp!
The Wilders, "Someone's Got to Pay" is available at www.wilderscountry.com

brotherphil

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy...

The following is the opinion of the author only. It should not interpreted as a view represented in any way by The Wilders or it's members (except for me that is...)

I got an email a couple of weeks ago from the advertising department of No Depression Magazine. Seems that the flagship publication of the alternative country genre (as they said, "whatever that means"), is ceasing publication next month due to declining ad revenue. This can only mean one thing- alternative country is officially dead. And there's a part of me that says, "good riddance".

I mean, who came up with the bright idea that we NEEDED an alternative to country anyway? Wasn't COUNTRY good enough on it's own?
Well, I guess it wasn't.

As early as 1985, just as the first baby boomers moved into their forties, the sound of commercial country music started to take on a strange dissonance- it began sounding more like rock and roll. Twangy telecasters gave way to distorted Les Pauls. Outlandish sequin-studded suits and stacks of huge hairspray-solidified hair, gave way to scrubby tight-fitting stone-washed jeans, six-pack abs and the ubiquitous oversize black cowboy hat and omnipresent goatee. As the years progressed, the quaintly-old, brightly-lit stages featuring backdrops of rural simplicity, gave way to full-on rock and roll stage shows. Towers of Marshall stacks lit by dizzying laser lights and exploding smoke bombs painted a new backdrop of excess and self-indulgence. And, at the forefront, there was good old Garth Brooks swinging on a rope above the crowd with a shit-eating grin on his face and a wad of $1000 bills in his back pocket. By 1994, things had worsened to the point that the Country Music Association's Best Album of the year was "Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles". sigh...

At the time that No Depression began publishing in September of 1995, the country music industry had pretty much wrung all of the GOOD out of good old country music.

I guess it isn't that surprising that a magazine proclaiming an alternative to this, so called "new country", would find a willing audience. This alternative to country music was spearheaded by a young and resourceful contingency of disenfranchised punk rockers- kids who grew up with commercial rock forced down their throats, who were looking for something with more substance to hang their trucker hats on. Already sick to death of mainstream rock, this wayward generation looked backward for new musical inspiration. They found it in the true sounds of 1960's country icons like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. They found it in the "don't take no shit" attitudes of the 70's outlaws like Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., and Waylon Jennings. And they especially found it in" God's singer of songs", Graham Parsons, who 20 years before, had stuck his dirty hippie thumb directly into the eye of the overproduced ultra-conservative Nashville establishment of the late 60's. These artists were embraced, celebrated and imitated by hundreds of new bands- formed in garages and dorm rooms across the nation. Combat boots and flannel shirts were readily traded in for cowboy boots and fine western snap shirts; solid-body multi-pointed rock and roll guitars were swapped for simple acoustics and banjos. And new songs about drinking and fighting, fighting and loving, and loving and losing, were added to the existing mountains of old country standards- just ripe for the picking.

It was a good run. But 23 years later, alternative country is dead. No Depression is shutting it's doors for good. And WHY IS THAT A GOOD THING?

Because for 23+ years, the corporate interests in Nashville have essentially been given a free pass to promote whatever bullshit makes money the easiest. In this model, substance is the last thing in anyone's mind. Just check out CMT sometime.

I think its time for a return to a country music that actually acknowledges there is sadness and heartbreak in the world- not just sexy trucks and bloated myspace profiles.

The "alternative country" movement was a shining example that this music is still very much alive. Now that "alternative country" is dead, can we please have our country music back?

"I'll be that one..." - SXSW Austin,TX

It was back in October of 2007. I was in Nashville, hucking merch. between sets at the back of The Station Inn. Because sales were nonexistent, I had plenty of time to catch up with B.V.D., a grammy-winning bluegrass producer, and long time "deep-throat" Wilders advisor (who saw something he liked in a very-green Wilders playing in a Nashville hotel lobby 8 years ago). The conversation went something like this:

B.V.D.: What's next year look like for you guys?

Me: Well, we've got a new record coming out in April.

B.V.D.: What are you going to do to promote it?

Me: Uhm, well we're going to tour, of course, and we are going to South by Southwest.

B.V.D.: (rolling his eyes, sarcastically) What FOR?

For the uninitiated, the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) occurs each March in multiple locations throughout metropolitan Austin, Texas. For four days, the streets of Austin fill with music industry hustlers of all shape and size. Managers, agents, label and publishing reps, lawyers, producers, and a slew of other non-musicians converge to catch showcases by literally thousands of musicians that come to Austin each year in hopes of "making it big". From morning until late into the night, there's rockers, rappers, twangers, screamers, punkers and poppers everywhere- a dizzying array of musical styles blasting out of every nook and cranny, restaurant, bar, car wash and parking lot in downtown Austin.

So, five months after my conversation with B.V.D., I'm standing on a street corner outside the Austin Convention Center watching the stream of hipsters flowing around me. And it's like I'm standing in the middle of a military parade, except these soldier's uniforms are not olive drab. There's salon-fresh hair color in every shade of the rainbow carefully coifed to achieve that perfect "unkempt" look. Mirrored sunglasses, tattoo sleeves, Converse Hi-Tops and facial piercings are standard issue. Each soldier's social insignia is represented by carefully chosen graphics printed on their tight black t-shirt. And just like any military parade, the majority of the soldiers are impossibly young.

As the throngs move past me, I realize I'm laughing out loud. I'm remembering a comic strip by artist Daniel Clowes, (later made into a really awful movie entitled "Art School Confidential"). In the comic, an aging painting professor gives a stern "scared straight" lecture to his impressionable first-year drawing students about the reality of their career choice. He rants that only one graduate in a hundred actually makes a living as a professional artist. The other 99, having spent four years getting a degree in what is essentially a hobby, will be left to work mindless jobs at art supply stores, movie theaters and restaurants. Above the head of each student, there is a thought bubble which reads, "I'll be that one..."

And this is the tragedy of SXSW. Here, there are thousands of kids who are looking for the quick pick to stardom. And they are deadly serious about it, focusing every ounce of energy into making some kind of impact. But the reality is that most of them will zero chance of succeeding in this fickle, image-obsessed music business. The truth is that no matter how good you sound, how cool you look. or how hard you work, most success stories come down to at least 50% luck.

Based on this assumption, B.V.D. was right- what the hell business did we have going to SXSW anyway? I mean, we are already a working band with low-level success. We've all quit our day jobs, We are signed to a label that manages our recordings, and we have a booking agent that gets us work playing for money. And what about the SXSW market? Even though it takes place in the heart of Texas, there's precious little country music at SXSW. Sure, there are a lot of so-called "alternative country" bands. But, admittedly, we don't fit very neatly into that category. And bluegrass and oldtime music was nonexistent as far as I could tell. But still we chose to go and throw our hat in like everybody else.

I realize it's sort of weak, but basically my answer to B.V.D.'s question was, "why NOT?"

And, as a result, for three days, we soaked up the warm Texas sun, ate great Texas Bar-B-Que, and saw some killer bands. We also played a couple of showcases ourselves. Who knows what the impact will be? But, like the young soldiers that surrounded us the entire time we were there, we believed it was possible. You've GOT to believe right?

Happy 2008!

Happy New Year! The Brown Clown is rolling west on I-70 about 75 miles from St. Louis. We just inaugurated 2008 by dipping our touring toes into the frigid pool of the central plains. It was a quick trip, with stops in Louisville, Kentucky, then Lafayette and Danville, Indiana. Nothing notable to report. You've heard the story before: good crowds, good music, good times, blah, blah, blah. But it did feel good to get back out and play for the people after a fairly lengthy holiday break. Our winter schedule is pretty light by design. We burned the candle at both ends for most of 2007, and our middle was running out of wax. So we all agreed that it would be a good idea to snuff out the flame for awhile to recouperate. So once we get back home today, we will be off again until almost the end of February.

Our time off has allowed us to forget about the road for awhile, and focus our efforts on finishing up our new recording. The new full-length album, "Someone's Got to Pay" is scheduled for release on April 15th, 2008. The original tracks were recorded with Dirk Powell in his Louisiana studio in November of 2006. After careful listening, we decided that additional tracking was necessary, and so the entire project was moved up to Kansas City and placed in the capable hands of our old pal, Brendan Moreland. Due to our busy touring schedule, he had to wait until late October before we could begin overdubbing sessions. But ideas had been germinating all year, and it was fun to finally get them recorded. As I excitedly reported last spring, this new recording will be quite a departure from our previous recordings. Glenn Fields, from The Red Stick Ramblers, sat in on drums on many of the original Louisiana sessions. There's also electric guitars, electric piano, organ and electric bass along with button accordian, cello, viola, cajun triangle, lap steel and tambourines. Our old formula of recording as close to our live sound as possible, was thrown out the window in favor of a completely new approach.

Why the change? Honestly, we needed to be more creative this time. For one thing, all of the songs and tunes on album are original except one old fiddle tune from the Skillet Lickers. So there was really no preconcieved way of doing any of them. We were free to play around with our ideas and experiment with sounds until we got what we liked. Secondly, we were getting bored with the four instruments/ "live performance" model. Although this approach has served us well in the past, we always had to make sacrifices in sound quality in order to play all together in the same room. The bass and fiddle had a tendency to bleed into all the other microphones which really limited how much control we had over the final mixes. So this time, we recorded all of the tracks in complete isolation. For example, even though all of the fiddle tunes were played live, none of us were in the same room. Betse sat in the center of Dirk's main recording room while Ike looked on through the glass of a tiny vocal isolation booth. Nate could see Ike through another window , but was not able to see Betse at all. And since Dirk's studio only has these three rooms. I played banjo and mandolin sitting on the couch of his tiny Toyota RV parked outside the studio. It was pretty wierd, but the resulting sound was fabulous.

Finally, we wanted to make a record that people would actually WANT to listen to this time. I'm not saying that our previous recordings aren't good, but for the past 10 years, we’ve made records that attempted to accurately represent us as a live band. Although we’ve been pretty happy with the way they’ve turned out, you can’t really get that “live” experience from audio content only. There is a visual element that is missing. Because of this, I've always felt like our recordings were a pale imitation of the “real thing”. And usually when people purchased our albums, it was because they had just seen us play a live show. Then, when they listened to their new cd at home, I guess they were probably thinking, “man, I just loved seeing them live, this reminds me of that great experience”.

But for this new album, we wanted to make a record that people would want to listen to over and over- a record that would musically stand on it’s own- a record that people might even hear first, then want to come see us play live because they enjoyed the cd so much. So we set out to make each song unique- to add instrumental textures and production that would be impossible to recreate in a concert setting- to use the studio as a palette to make something richer than just four people playing together.

An "album" is actually a pretty hard thing to find in today's downloadable world. In fact, it seems like we've almost drifted back to the time when people bought 45rpm singles. Then, If you liked an artist, you'd pay a couple of bucks for their new single, take it home and put it in the stack next to your turntable. Now, if you like an artist, you pay your 99 cents to iTunes, download a song and slap it on your iPod where it appears in a playlist along with thousands of other songs. How the song relates to other songs on the same album is now meaningless. In fact, most "albums" nowadays are really just a bunch of songs slapped on a cd with no relationship to each other at all. The concept of sequencing a record- putting songs in order to tell a story with the sound is now a lost art. But this is exactly what we did on "Someone's Got to Pay". There is a beginning, a middle and an end. And hopefully, when you start it, you will WANT to keep listening until the last note. Maybe I'm full of crap for thinking we've made something a little bit better, but that's what we were trying to do. I guess you can be the judge on April 15th.

"Sittin' on a Jury" now available on iTunes!

Sittin'_on_a_Jury
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Hey folks,
For all of you digital downloaders out there, our new e.p., "Sittin' on a Jury" is now available at many of your favorite digital download sites. You can download the entire album for $3.96!!! Or you can buy each track for 99 cents each. Of course, you won't get the cool red vinyl, or the cover art, liner notes or anything else besides the actual music. But hey, if that's enough, by all means knock yourselves out.

But for the luddites out there, you can still purchase the actual album on our website, www.wilderscountry.com/goods.asp. Remember, we only pressed 2000 copies. When they are gone (which many are gone already), they are gone for good. Thanks for your support!
p

Angels Still Exist!

Back in the summer of 2004, not long after we launched this blog, I wrote several posts regarding the kindness paid to us by strangers on the road. We dubbed these folks "angels", for their unbelievable willingness to help us fix our broken vehicles, stay in their homes, loan us their cars, feed us wonderful home-cooked meals, etc. Most of these people provided these services with little or no compensation, and many times, did so after knowing us for only a few hours. As I unwind after returning from our second-to-last tour of the 2007, I feel compelled to again recognize the continuing appearance of these angels. They are still very much alive and well. In fact, we meet them in some shape or form almost every time we go on tour. Here are a few short tributes...

To the rider's club crew in Ulm, Germany- who not only welcomed us, but two weeks worth of our stinking, dirty laundry into their home. We made a great afternoon of it, eating doner kabobs, checking our email on your computer, listening to your cd's, and running your heavy-duty-american-made washer and dryer in tandem until each and every sock, shirt and skirt were neatly folded and repacked into our suitcases. Sure we were a little late arriving to our gig that night, but we felt and smelled SO much better...

To our "North of 60" pal George (see "Alaska Part Three" June 2006)- who, without any communication from us whatsoever, was waiting patiently with his wife outside the Whitehorse, Yukon bus depot when Betse and I lumbered off, after a grueling day of travel. You grabbed up our bags and cases, loaded them into the trunk of your car, then took us out to a wonderful dinner, gave us a car-tour of your town and, finally, shuttled us to our motel... Earlier that day, I remember saying to Betse as we neared Whitehorse in the bus, "I have a fantasy." "What is it," she asked. "I have a fantasy that when we get to the bus stop, George will be there waiting for us." She responded, "Yeah, that WOULD be great." Well, it wasn't a fantasy was it? Thank you George. Your generosity will not be forgotten...

To the two Wisconsin farm hands who saved our necks at Larryfest- For two days, the swollen storm clouds had dumped a flood of biblical proportions on the festival grounds- turning our only exit into something resembling the Grand Canyon. Just when we thought we would be trapped there for days, the rain let up. For the next hour, you worked feverishly with tractor, shovels and elbow grease to create a thin, mushy and very temporary bridge that stood for only a few minutes. You guided us across, pulling, then pushing the van after it got stuck (almost tipping over the tractor in the process). And then once we were on the other side, you shook our hands, bid us farewell, and then went back to work straight away. Later that day, we learned that the skies had opened up again, washing the road away beyond any possible repair. You were there at the right time in the right place. Without your efforts, we would NOT have made it home in time to catch our flight to Scotland.
And I never even got your names...

Finally, to our most recent angels Red, Nita and M.D. in Knoxville, Tennessee- You got off from a grueling day of work, drove through a pounding thunderstorm (the first rain storm in months) to free us from our boring Motel 6 prison. You took us back to your house, let us dig with abandon from the Pabst Blue Ribbon box in your fridge, played us great music and engaged us in the first lively conversations we'd had in days. And to top it off, you made us home-made chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to refill our empty souls. Sometimes it's the little things that make such a difference. We didn't ask you to do it. But we were so glad that you did...

There are so many more stories. These are just the ones that come immediately to mind. It's just such a weird thing. I mean, we don't really do that much to warrant such generosity. We stand up on stage, and make our music, and enjoy the hell out of it all the while. People seem to like what we do, and honestly, that's enough for us- In fact, it makes us feel great. But there must be something special, something I have no way of defining, that sometimes occurs during this interchange between band and audience. And I believe that this indefinable thing must lie near the heart of this unique angel phenomena. Regardless of the reason, I know that each of us appreciates our angels whenever they come around.

Thank you again. Thank you for everything.

The Wilders- "Sittin' on a Jury" available Sept.11th, 2007

Sittin'_on_a_Jury
Originally uploaded by brotherphilwilder.

Howdy folks,
We are proud to announce our most recent release: "Sittin' on a Jury" . Recorded during our November 2006 sessions at Dirk Powell's Cypress House Studios, this limited edition 10" album (on red vinyl!!!) clearly marks a transition from the old school country and old time music you've grown to love, to the original music that's been germinating in our subconscious for the last year of so.

Side-A opens with an old Flatt and Scruggs gem, "Bringin' in the Georgia Mail". Then we put the honk in the tonk on Hank Williams' classic, "Long Gone Daddy". We round out the side with a wonderfully sloppy and loose version of "Brown's Dream"- an old time fiddle tune pushed to its limit, with Dirk Powell sitting in on banjo, and the band sounding like it might be the last thing we would ever record (it WAS, in fact, the last song we recorded during the session).

Side-B is the title track, "Sittin' on a Jury"- a 9+ minute meditation on yours truly's experiences while sitting on a Kansas City 1st degree murder trial jury in 2005. It is completely different that anything you've ever heard from us before, with surpising instrumentation and unbelievable additional production from Dirk Powell.

Sound great? Well, hell yeah. But I can hear the critiques coming in now..."But I don't have a turntable any more..." Well, no problem, because inside each 10" vinyl jacket, you will find instructions to acquire a free digital download from Free Dirt Record's website. Follow the instructions, and you can burn a cd version of the EP, that will play on any old regular cd player. Or, better yet, slap them directly on to your Mp3 player and listen to them in the privacy of your own brain. So, even if you don't have the archaic technology to actually play the beautiful vinyl version, we've made sure that you can still enjoy the music, without any additional cost. Warning! Free Dirt Records is only pressing 2000 copies of the vinyl version. So I urge you to go to wilderscountry.com and order a copy now. It is certain that we WILL SELL OUT OF THESE, and once they are gone, they are gone forever. So please, reserve your copy as soon as possible. Thanks friends.
brotherphilwilder