JD MCPHERSON
07/20/2012
Visulite Theatre (16+ (Must have ID) - Under 16 with Parent Only)
Doors Open: 8:00 - Headliner Begins: 9:45
JD MCPHERSON MAKES ROUNDER RECORDS DEBUT WITH THE RELEASE OF SIGNS & SIGNIFIERS APRIL 17
Named as an “artist you should know” in 2011 by NPR, singer-songwriter JD McPherson will make his Rounder Records debut April 17 with the release of Signs and Signifiers, “a rockin’, bluesy, forward-thinking album that subtly breaks the conventions of most vintage rock projects.” (All Music). Known for energetic live shows, JD and the band will hit the road in support of the release this spring with stops in Austin (SXSW), New York, Boston, Chicago, and other cities.
Hailing from Broken Arrow, OK, the former art teacher and his band traveled to Chicago to record Signs and Signifiers at Hi-Style studio, which is housed in the attic of producer/bassist/studio owner Jimmy Sutton’s home and is 100% analog. “I have recorded this style of music in the digital realm, and it just doesn’t quite “sing” as much. Slamming that ¼” tape really hard produced the most beautiful distortion I’ve ever heard,” says McPherson.
Featuring JD McPherson (lead and backing vocals, guitar), Jimmy Sutton (bass), and Alex Hall (drums, piano, organ), the album was recorded through a collection of vintage microphones into an old 1960’s Berlant ¼ inch tape machine. The 12-track album kicks off with the fervent pulse of the first single, “North Side Gal,” and segues into one of the albums two covers, McPherson’s take on “Country Boy,” an old R&B number originally written and recorded by Tiny Kennedy.
With over 350,000 YouTube views, McPherson’s self-directed video for “North Side Gal,” was shot by the band in the Hi-Style studio and features the classic gear used for the recording of the album.
Preferring not to be painted into a corner with labels, McPherson asks, “What is retro? Is Adele too retro? Is La Roux too retro? To me, Adele sounds like a product of her influences… as is the case with anybody else. With the recurring interest in soul or even R&B, there seems to be a line most artists won’t cross — that line into the world of the swinging, visceral abandon of real rock ‘n’ roll.”
The album hosts an array of guest musicians, including Scott Ligon on piano (NRBQ’s Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet); Jonathan Doyle (Nick Curran & the Lowlifes, White Ghost Shivers); Chicago’s Josh Bell (The Del Moroccos) on tenor and baritone saxophones; Susan Voelz (Alejandro Escovedo, Poi Dog Pondering) on violin; Allison Chesley (Helen Money) on cello, and Joel Paterson (The Modern Sounds) lends choice guitar work to the Joey Simone classic “Your Love (All That I’m Missing).”
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As a visual artist, Broken Arrow, Okla., native JD McPherson is well versed in the process of working within clearly defined formal parameters, and he employs a similarly rigorous discipline with his music. On Signs & Signifiers (Rounder, April 17), McPherson’s seductively kickass debut album, produced by JD’s musical partner, Jimmy Sutton, this renaissance man/hepcat seamlessly meshes the old and the new, the primal and the sophisticated, on a work that will satisfy traditional American rock ’n’ roll and R&B purists while also exhibiting McPherson’s rarefied gift for mixing and matching disparate stylistic shapes and textures.
“There are little subcultures within the roots scene, where people are really into rockabilly, traditional hillbilly stuff or old-timey music,” JD points out, “but there aren’t a whole lot of folks making hard-core rhythm & blues hearkening back to Specialty, Vee-Jay or labels like that. That’s what Jimmy and I really like, and our only intention going in was just to make a solid rhythm & blues/rock ’n’ roll record. But I didn’t want to make a time-machine record, so we tried to make something relevant but with all the things we love about rock ’n’ roll and rhythm & blues and mesh it all together. We both have eclectic tastes; Jimmy likes the Clash as much as he likes Little Richard, and I like the Pixies, T.Rex, hip-hop and all kinds of stuff. So we came up with a couple of weird songs and put them on the record, hoping that it wouldn’t scare off any of our ultra-selective fanbase.”
JD needn’t have worried. It’s highly unlikely that even the most discerning listeners would guess that the arrangement on his cover of Tiny Kennedy’s R&B chestnut “Country Boy” incorporates not only the tambourine beat of Ruth Brown’s 1955 Atlantic single “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean,” but also Raekwon and RZA’s “abstract, out-of-tune piano loops” on Wu-Tang Clan’s innovative ’93 LP Enter the Wu-Tang; or that the mesmerizing churner “Signs & Signifiers” is powered by an unchanging tremolo guitar figure modeled on Johnny Marr’s part on the Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now.” Then there’s “Firebug,” which JD “wanted to sound as if Stiff Little Fingers had recorded at Del-Fi Records.” And while it may not have been specifically what McPherson and Sutton were going for, the haunting dreamscape “A Gentle Awakening” seems to chart a course from “Heartbreak Hotel” through Terence Trent D’Arby to Amy Winehouse.
Never has an album of so-called “retro” music been laced with such a rich payload of postmodern nuance. But that was precisely the intent of what JD describes, only half-facetiously, as “an art project disguised as an R&B record.”
“It’s weird,” says Sutton, “when you grow up being a fan of ‘older’ music and all of a sudden you’re making a record, you’re thinking, are we just recreating something—a museum piece—or are we actually bringing it forward? It’s interesting, because if you make something today and it moves you today, in that sense it’s contemporary. I like that juxtaposition of classic and fresh, something old yet new that can actually take you somewhere now.”
MOOKIE BRILL DUO
Start Time: 8:30
