Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #11 :: Bryan John Appleby

I am enjoying my attempts to weave myself into the city of Portland these last few days, jogging on mossy sidewalks while the grey sky spits rain, breathing the deep smoky-damp smell through my nostrils as I walk to catch the bus, and listening to a lot of music that helps spark and warm that seeping coldness away.

Bryan John Appleby is one of those artists whose music I have been leaning heavily on since I got here for this grad school residency; his music is smart and sharp, steeped in intelligent songwriting and crowned with a piercingly pure voice that resonates with me. He was one of the first artists we welcomed into the chapel when the seasons started to turn from summer to autumn, and the night he came also brought a cold snap that sent us all inside seeking a glow.

Bryan’s debut album Fire On The Vine is thoroughly superb, from front to back. I wrote about him last summer, after seeing him live (it was “decimatingly muscular”) and before the full-length was released. I have been delighted in the craftsmanship and the illumination in this album, which takes a thousand tiny moments and holds them up to let the sun shoot through.

BRYAN JOHN APPLEBY – FUEL/FRIENDS CHAPEL SESSION
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Glory
As I sat on the edge of the stage, I had to suppress every fiber of my everloving harmony-singing self here, because this song on the album has incredible, exuberant multi-part choral joy potential. But I found it every bit as wonderful as a solo acoustic creation – something laden with truth and honesty.

Sprout
Perhaps it is my unique spiritual heritage that seems to connect on several flashpoints with Bryan, but when I listen to his music I see this complicated map of faith sprawl out before me — one that has been folded and refolded til it is faded and worn, trying to figure out how to make it fit, now. This particular song seems to be one of hope, despite lines like: “When I woke, I had been slain in the spirit of reason / Baptized in the rolling dark waters of doubt / ‘Cause I’m told it’s Your will to withhold, but it feels like treason / A rain cloud refusing to pour in a season of drought.”

Duncan (Paul Simon)
Bryan’s tenor radiates a clarity in the song that you come across just every once in a while – Paul Simon does it for me in a similar vein, and so I smiled about a thousand feet wide when Bryan launched into this cover of Simon’s 1972 song “Duncan” — so, so perfect. Listen to this and tell me he doesn’t nail it. Plus, he whistles. Yup.

…And The Revelation
This is 1/2 of the sibling duo of songs on his album that repeats the brilliant, brilliant line “you, you will not dig a hole in me, you will not chop down my tree, hold me under the water…” When I saw him live last summer, I just stood there jaw-dropped with the power of that declaration, hearing his defiant howl in concert on these words. For the full effect, also hop over to his Bandcamp and listen to the other part of the thought, “The Words of The Revelator.”

And here is one bonus song that we only have (incredible) video of. Chills:

ZIP: BRYAN JOHN APPLEBY CHAPEL SESSION

Later this night, after we recorded in the chapel, Bryan came to do a house show for me and my friends, and in honor of the stormy night, we decided to illuminate the show simply with candles, and sent out a Facebook request for guests to bring a candle or two. We got dozens, and the room flickered and glowed around his stunningly rich music. It was a good night; these are good songs.

I am seeing BJA this very Friday, at the Doug Fir with Pickwick and Jessica Dobson (The Shins, Deep Sea Diver). It is going to be a pret-ty amazing Friday, if I can make it through the week.

[video and that gorgeous still photo with the chapel ceiling by Kevin Ihle]

Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #10 :: The Lumineers

About a year ago, I had the pleasure one quiet snowy December Sunday night to go to a house of a new friend to watch a new local band called The Lumineers play a raucous, joyful house show set. A few weeks earlier, they’d played at my house show with The Head and The Heart, and after a final multi-band Bon Iver cover singalong, we all walked away singing a hearty “hey! ho!” to ourselves, shaking our heads at how damn good live this band was.

Fast forward almost exactly one year, when Paste Magazine just named The Lumineers one of the 20 Best New Bands of 2011, an assessment I can absolutely get behind. Wesley Schultz has a terrifically expressive voice with range and beauty that swoops all over the songs. Jeremiah Fraites on the drums a) always wears suspenders every time I see him, which is impressive, and b) adds a raw percussive backbone of urgency to every song, while cellist/mandolin/piano player Neyla Pekarek reminds me of a super-talented elfin rockstar, radiating joy.

This set was recorded that same humid July evening that The Lumineers played the Fuel/Friends House Show with These United States. Many of these songs have been part of the trio’s live repertoire for several years, but none of them were on their self-titled EP. So these are four songs that could be considered “new,” and might make an appearance on The Lumineers’ debut full-length album, expected in March 2012 (get on their mailing list to order it early)

They call their music “front porch folk,” and they can come play on my front porch (and/or back porch; we have options) anytime. Watch for The Lumineers on tour in the springtime –they play Boulder on December 30– and go see them if they come from Colorado to wherever you are.

And man, try to listen to these without tapping SOME part of your body. Toe, finger on the desk, the head nod — I’ll even predict some stomps/dances.

FUEL/FRIENDS CHAPEL SESSION: THE LUMINEERS
JULY 31, 2011

Big Parade
The Dead Sea (umm…3:06. that’s all)
Morning Song
Ho Hey (“I don’t know where I belong, I don’t know where I went wrong / oh but I can write a song…”)


ZIP: THE FUEL/FRIENDS LUMINEERS CHAPEL SESSION

[photo of Neyla + piano by Sarah Law, others mine]

Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #9 :: These United States

Watching the five guys in These United States make music has always reminded me of a river. There is something serpentine, endless, and powerful that torrents out of the mouth of Jesse Elliott and through the arms and legs of all five of them. It rambles. It breathes. They also tour so freaking much that you would think that they’d lose those potent abilities and stray from the source in favor of rote and rockin’ performances, at some point. Yet for the handful of years I’ve known them, that has never happened. Every performance, even small ones, are infused with their trademark literacy, urgency, with dust-and-sweat notes and slide guitar quaver hanging in the air.

We recorded this chapel session back in late July when the nights were so blissfully long, and the air in the church was uncharacteristically sticky and close. We’ve never done a session with this many people in the band before, and we tried to capture more of a field-recording feel to what was happening that day. I love the way the lone central mic picks up the echo of Jesse’s voice, the cadence of the piano chords, the loose rattle of bang as Robby thumped on a few pieces of my drumkit (in its debut recording appearance).

The band is in the studio at this moment working on their fifth record.

THESE UNITED STATES: FUEL/FRIENDS CHAPEL SESSION

The Angels’ Share
This is a brand new song, and the one that first made me start thinking in the aforementioned metaphors of rivers. When I asked Jesse if the title was plural or singular, he thought about it for a minute and pensively nodded as he answered: “It’s gotta be multiple angels. One angel couldn’t catch all that.”

Yes.

What Do You Want With My Heart?
A song that’s been around for a handful of years, but just made its recorded appearance on their last album, 2010′s What Lasts. J Tom shines on the big, old, beautiful grand piano that sits in the corner of the church and occasionally gets discovered during one of these sessions. It’s a stripped song of honesty, asking a question that many of us would be well-served to listen to the answer to. I remember reading something a long time ago on Daytrotter in 2007, when Jesse spoke about the “most honest particle.” This band digs that out over and over again, and is relentless in the scouring.

Hit The Ground Running (Smog/Bill Callahan cover)
A concession to my always-kindly-suggested mantra of “you know –I mean– I love cover songs. If you wanted to maybe do one in your chapel session? Or whatever. I mean, anything is wonderful.” This one is a live end-of-the-night favorite for these guys, and more than anything for me evokes the feel of their half-Kentucky heritage (equally split with Washington, D.C.), teasing out all the rootsiness from this 1999 Bill Callahan song.

ZIP: THESE UNITED STATES CHAPEL SESSION

[most photos by Sarah Law, who I appreciate.]

Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #8 :: Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives

So, what’s a girl to do when an immensely talented band of friends is coming to visit and all of your audio recording guys are out of town? Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives looped through Colorado last weekend on their western states tour before heading into their current leg with Wild Flag, and we decided to get creative with a guerilla video session on a Sunday morning.

Kevin Ihle has done stunning video work with artists in and around Colorado Springs, filming folks like Damien Jurado, Sera Cahoone, and Bryan John Appleby (during his chapel session), but this is the first time we’ve tried recording a whole chapel session only through a visual lens. And actually — I can’t think of better guinea pigs than DGPW.

Each of the four people in this band is fascinating to watch perform. There is a deep authenticity and soul in their music that works its way out through all of their faces and every fiber of their beings. Heads are thrown back, eyes squinted shut, bodies bent at the waist. You know, for sure, that in the music they mean it.

Their songs also lend themselves extremely well to the sort of collective uprising of the spirit that we typically associate with churches, chapels, and other spaces for the sacred. Buoyed by the incredible acoustics we discovered in a small side-chapel once we wandered from the stage (think: reverberation from every angle, almost overwhelming), this represents a cherry-picking of songs from their catalog perfect for the setting.

Starting with the grand-piano-laced “Bon Voyage Hymn,” Drew & Co sang of a mighty chorus that sets slaves free, then moved to a brand new (heartbreaking) song “Pony” and an vocally-focused older song called “Us,” circling back thematically for a deeply-redemptive closing rendition of “Do You Feel It”: so break into a chorus, maybe a saving melody….

Indeed.

Bon Voyage Hymn

Pony (brand new song)

Us (from 2007′s Next Lips)

Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #7 :: Tyler Ramsey (Band of Horses)

The tall and lanky Tyler Ramsey is best known as the guitarist for Band of Horses, but wise folks also caught on to his two solo albums (s/t debut in 2004, A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea in 2008) and his upcoming third solo release is out this week. Hearing him open the two recent Colorado BOH shows with his own material was stunning. On a recent Saturday he met me for coffee at the shop by my house, and we headed over to sit beneath the tall arches of Shove Chapel for an hour of intricately-wrought magic.

This session is easier to write about as one complete unit, because all of the songs Tyler performed seemed to radiate imagery of birds and angels, songs of flying away and rivers of sorrow that flow out into the blackness of the night.

I thought as I sat on the edge of the stage, my back against the giant stone pillar, that this was the most celestial-feeling of the chapel sessions so far. Tyler’s voice is high and vulnerable, and in that fragility can be all the more powerfully piercing. He reminds me some of the effect Neil Young has on me, making me feel helpless, or Mark Kozelek in the smoky honesty, and sad glory. The echo of his voice seemed right at home in that space.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen Band of Horses live, but it’s spellbinding to watch Tyler’s fingers fly over the guitar strings. From a few feet away I kept furrowing my brow trying to keep up with the sounds I was hearing and how quickly and effortlessly his fingers moved on the frets. Tyler played a worn Gibson Folksinger guitar from the 1960s, one he bought in a pawn shop in Fletcher, North Carolina. It seemed to somehow carry all sorts of stories within the wood.

These songs come from Tyler’s third album, The Valley Wind, out this week on Fat Possum. For as beautiful as these chapel arrangements are (note the loooong extended intro Tyler puts on “1000 Black Birds”), the record takes it to a whole new, lush level — very highly recommended.

Tyler ended his set with a wrenching cover of “All Through The Night,” which my ’80s-loving sister recognized immediately from her pew seat as being a huge Cyndi Lauper hit. Since the ’80s usually give me hives, I learned from Tyler that this was written by Jules Shear. The way Tyler performs it here, it sounds like an old country rambler on the AM radio, completely stripped of any veneer. It was perfect.

Take and digest this session as a gorgeous, substantive whole:

TYLER RAMSEY CHAPEL SESSION:
Angel Band
1000 Black Birds
The Nightbird
All Through The Night (Jules Shear/Cyndi Lauper cover)

ZIP: THE FUEL/FRIENDS TYLER RAMSEY CHAPEL SESSIONS

when her feet hit the ground / she could still hear the sound

So this happened last night:

Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #6 :: The Changing Colors

There is a sweet intuition in watching brothers playing or sisters singing together. Some of that familial DNA seems to weave its way through the verses, the octave changes and the rhythm shifts. When my sister and I sing together, it’s like singing with myself but in stereo. Watching Colorado Springs’ Conor and Ian Bourgal of The Changing Colors play together, it’s as if one person splintered into two – a river of fraternal goodness.

I’ve come to know Conor and Ian as some of the finest purveyors of good music in Colorado Springs — our town known for many things but not necessarily that. Originally from New York, this twin superpower finesses the audio behind both my chapel sessions and for local label Blank Tape Records (Haunted Windchimes, Joe Johnson), but they also make beautiful music in their own right. I’ve been wanting to feature The Changing Colors in their own chapel session since the beginning, and finally got my chance on a recent Sunday, together with their cellist Aaron Fanning.

I hesitate to even use the word “autumn” in this still-summer context (don’t go, August, please, I’ll change, come back baby) but true to the innuendo established in their band name, these songs usher in a particular crimson and orange wistfulness, and whisper to us about the season that’s just right on ahead. When I first saw The Changing Colors perform live, I was grabbed by Conor’s husky, rough-hewn voice – try and not be reminded of Ray LaMontagne. You can’t. I’ve been listening to this session all day.

THE CHANGING COLORS
On The Side Of The Light
I’m Going Away
Take Care Of All My Children (Tom Waits)

ZIP: THE CHANGING COLORS – CHAPEL SESSION

The final song is a Tom Waits cover from the “Bawlers” disc of 2006′s Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards collection, and sounded pretty much perfect in a church. And after you enjoy that sweet, sweet slide guitar in “On The Side of the Light,” listen for the perfect timing of the church bells that started singing above our heads with Conor’s final guitar strum. We always try to time the recording in the fifteen-minute windows between chimes and this time our calculations were off, but also wonderfully so. I hope the Bourgal brothers never go back to their native New York; heaven knows our city needs them here.

The Head and The Heart Chapel Sessions to be officially released

I am beyond thrilled to announce that the Fuel/Friends Chapel Sessions recordings with The Head and The Heart will be officially released on August 15th as bonus tracks on the deluxe UK version of their debut album, via Heavenly Recordings/Rough Trade. Import-only bonus tracks have always held a certain music nerd mystique to me, so the 15-year-old Heather is totally geeking out right now.

If you want to complete your collection and come over to nerd out with me, you can pre-order it here via Rough Trade. Wahoo!

PS – We still have some of those posters from that same weekend in stock, all screen-printed and shimmery!

Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #5: Denison Witmer

Philadelphia songwriter Denison Witmer crafts songs of uncommon incisiveness, sung directly and piercingly in his simple tenor. I’ve known his music for a few years, having probably first noticed him through his musical collaborations with his friends Sufjan Stevens and Rosie Thomas.

I fell hard for his cover of “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” years before that fella from Wisconsin did it, and his song “The Gift of Grace” scores every Christmastime for me. I’ve adopted “California Brown and Blue” as a (slightly depressing) theme song. There’s something in the way that he sings that just lays it all out for me, bare and unadorned.

But there is also much more to Denison’s music than I was familiar with. On a sticky hot Sunday last weekend, he sat comfortably in a big empty church, slight and snappily-clad in a pink micro-checkered shirt. He unfolded four of his songs for us, and each one blew us away. His voice is unassuming, and I find it all the more powerful for that – similar to how one of those nimble lasers can cut you so much more quickly and effectively than the big heavy scalpels. If I had to pick one single word to describe his music, I would call it simply “piercing,” right to the core.

DENISON WITMER CHAPEL SESSION, JULY 24, 2011

Take More Than You Need
This. Song. Is. Amazing. Denison hopes to release it on a future EP, and I had never heard it before. As I sat next to Conor the sound guy while Denison did a few takes of this, we kept looking over at each other, wordlessly saying “Wow.” To me, this is a stunning song about authentic (and scary) intimacy. Intimacy is a word that gets thrown around a lot, with varying meanings and depths implied. But the way Denison understands it reminds me of Kelli Schaefer’s song “Gone In Love” as she sings: “When the burden is love, it is the only weight that ever was worth carrying.”

It’s an invitation to gorge on a reliable love. We get so damn used to taking just the minimum from each other, afraid to be ravenous at times, afraid to be desperate, even though we all are.

Stay, stay with me here for a while
when the water in me dries, when the water in me dries
Wait, wait with me all afternoon
when the spirit in me moves, when the spirit in me moves

…If you’re lying awake
with my hands on your waist
wondering what you can take from me
…take more than you need.

California Brown and Blue (revisited)
I came across this perfect song when I was crafting the very personal San Francisco mix last year, full of all the songs all about and for and reminiscent of my hometown area. It does a really good job at getting into this hot-edged tangle of feelings I have in my belly and my heart for California, and for the people that live there and still hold parts of me. The arrangement Denison played at the chapel session is elegant and reinvented as something even more stunning. Another coastline gives in to waves and fades away…

Your Friend
According to Denison, the themes of his newest record are patience, mindfulness, and reverence. This song carries through some of the themes of the work of growing in intimacy that I hear in “Take More Than You Need.” Denison wrote:

“I wanted to take a very simple phrase like ‘I’ll be your friend’ and dive into what it truly means. I wrote this song for my wife… so it is primarily about getting married — the long term implications of that type commitment. It feels overwhelming because there is a certain death of self or lack of ego required to make things work. I don’t see the death of self as being a bad thing at all. I see it as a positive. We have much more to gain from losing our ego than we do in holding tightly to our selfish motivations.

Jennie and I got married in our early 30s. We had both been in a decent number of serious relationships before we met each other. We all carry the baggage of our past into our future relationships. We carry the baggage we create in real-time in our relationships as well. In the last verse of the song leading up through the ending, I sing: “…scattered our young hearts in the stones / in the weeks away / how your garden changed / but day by day you’d hardly know / now the fruits of our love fall out of the trees…” Even though we feel like we aren’t improving at times, being patient and mindful can result in true change within… The garden grows even when we don’t notice it.”


Three Little Birds (Bob Marley)
Denison is known for loving covers, arguably as much as I do. It’s one of the reasons we get along so well. He’s reinvented so many fantastic songs in his own vernacular, as part of his Covers Project (now permanently hosted over at Cover Lay Down); he probes the underpinnings and the rough edges in songs, bringing them to us in ways we’ve never heard them. Instead of a steel drum dancealong tune, this one becomes a simple little wisp of reassurance.

ZIP: DENISON WITMER CHAPEL SESSION

Denison’s new album The Ones Who Wait is out now, as well as a great collection of live material from house shows in the past year, Live In Your Living Room, Vol. 1. The live album is fun because it also captures Denison’s banter; for all the pristinely humble beauty of his songs, he can absolutely tell a great story or ten. We went out for beers after the chapel session and he had us in stitches with his story about the worst Denver show he ever played: it involved a dude with a skullet (bald mullet) and a lady that looked like Stevie Nicks, lifting up her flowy skirt during his set. It was incredible.

If you’re new to Denison, I would strongly recommend his 2005 album Are You A Dreamer? for a starting point (Sufjan appears on almost every track; this was around the time they were touring together), and watch for his new EP sometime later this year. Denison is a gem.

Fuel/Friends Chapel Session #4 :: Strand of Oaks

I try real hard not to peg musicians based on appearance, but when you meet Strand Of Oaks for the first time (aka Tim Showalter) you can’t help feel that he should maybe have a CB radio handle and/or make music that sounds like The Allman Brothers. But then he wraps you in a big bear hug and you learn that he used to be a second-grade teacher, and you realize he is a study in contrasts.

His music made my jaw drop the first time he heard it live, there in the church. It was completely unexpected. I am not savvy in the use of pedals and effects in music; as far as I am concerned, it may as well be magic. From the first song “Kill Dragon” that Tim played in the big gorgeous church, there was this polyphonic, shimmering wall of sound that he created with just him and his guitar. It sounded like a thousand pipe organs, or angels, or something extraordinary.

As I interpret it, this first song is about wrestling with talking to a God that seems to have vanished: “Lately he hasn’t been listening to me / I guess he’s a man and he’s meant to leave.” In the void he’s left, Tim traces the litany of things that have gone awry in his life (deaths, sickness) and says he is coming up with an interesting new prayer – to run away with Mary. A little surprised the walls of the church didn’t like, you know, crumble all around us.

Tim writes thoughtful, piercing songs about sleeplessness, faith, and that which we’ve lost. This music is mesmerizing.

CHAPEL SESSION: STRAND OF OAKS
Kill Dragon
End in Flames
The Golden Age (Beck)

ZIP: STRAND OF OAKS CHAPEL SESSION

If you like this music, check out Strand of Oaks’ haunting, gorgeously wrought album Pope Killdragon, and his cover of Joe Pug’s “Hymn #101.” Tim also sang on that cover of “Hard Life” with Joe Pug in this same chapel session.

ALSO: That Beck cover he did reminds me of the version that Beck himself did, also in a chapel – Union Chapel in London.