Filed under: Good God!, Lonesome Heroes, Methodology | Tags: Ada Richards, Good God! Born Again Funk, Josh Bearman, Lonesome Heroes, Tucker Zimmerman
We sent a few CDs to Ada Richards, who is included on the next Good God! compilation (030, available at the end of January). One of them made it into the hands of (we believe) one of the patients at the hospital where Ada volunteers. She sent this enthusiastic letter.
My favorite thing about the letter is that usually friends and family members of the artists are only excited about the track or tracks they have a personal connection to. Our friend (as best as I can tell, her name is Carrie) is excited about the whole thing, even mentioning particular tracks she’s fond of. Refreshing to say the least.
Another thoughtful missive came from Tucker Zimmerman. It’s been 8 or 9 years since my friend Josh Bearman turned me onto Tucker’s Song-Poet LP and it’s long been one of my favorites. It’s sufficient to say, I’m very excited about working with him on the recent collection, 028 Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes.
This is our favorite kind of mail!
Almost eight months past due, we finally got a solid review on Pitchfork for NUM027 Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace. We also got a thoughtful review from them last week on NUM028 Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes. Both images link to the reviews for your reading pleasure.
Filed under: Lonesome Heroes, Numero Vinyl, Subscription | Tags: Folk, Lonesome Heroes, Neil Young, Wayfaring Strangers
Finally! The Lonesome Heroes LPs are in and ready to sell. Vinyl subscribers look for your copies in the mail during the next week. It really is the finest looking LP set we’ve released in my opinion. We even went an extra step and printed label images instead of text and the artist bio layout is a little different. All in all, I’m personally proud of this love of labor and we hope you will be too. Here’s a look….
I know, I know, times are tough and looking at the new release schedule today you might be torn between our new comp, Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes, or the Collective Soul reissue, Billy Ocean’s City Limit remastered, or relive your tortured youth in a more sophisticated way with, Megadeth: String Tribute. I can assure you that as enticing as the latter releases sound, ours trumps them all. We’ve got 17 tracks of rare private-press folk and a 40-page booklet filled with notes and ephemera for each artist. Below is an MP3 sampler of the CD if we haven’t convinced you yet, and for all you vinyl collectors the wax should be in next week.
Filed under: Lonesome Heroes
Here’s a needle drop of our new release which you can purchase here or stop by your local shop on August 25th. Also, LPs should be in stock at the end of the month.
Filed under: 24-Carat Black, Lonesome Heroes | Tags: 24-Carat Black, Lonesome Heroes, vinyl
2009 has been, without a doubt, our busiest in the six years since we threw open our bank accounts. Beginning in January with Caroline Peyton’s Mock Up and Intuition, we’ve been on a tear, issuing Niela Miller’s Songs Of Leaving, Local Customs: Downriver Revival, This LP Crashes Hard Drives, Eccentric Soul: Smart’s Palace, Pisces: A Lovely Sight (LP+45 version is nearly sold out, FYI), and 24-Carat Black: Gone The Promises Of Yesterday. And it’s only August.
That said, the two latest additions to our ever shrinking warehouse have arrived safely and gorgeously:
The larger item is the LP version of 24-Carat Black, with its Smell The Glove inspired all-black jacket, black on black text, and embossed silhouette of the group. It’s probably the nicest single LP we’ve ever made, and is ready to be ordered now. The smaller item is the CD version of Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes. Built in the same manner as Guitar Soli, the all-matte affair includes a 40-page booklet rich with the kind of banal factoids you’ve come to expect in a Numero dig. It won’t be released for another two weeks, but you can procure a copy for yourself now. Vinyl fetishists fear not! The LPs will be monopolizing valuable space shortly.
Filed under: Lonesome Heroes
if only from the artists compiled therein! If the release gets panned, at least we’ll have made a few guys happy to be included. Rob Carr and Robb Kunkel let us include their notes here.
Dear Numero,
What I can say is that after returning from a period of isolation in the north woods, I have listened to No. 028 nonstop for over five hours and am literally brought to tears. By the music, by the stories of my peers, by the genius of your hand upon so many divergent forces, by the memory of a time, my time of youth, of a world that seems, in retrospect, so foreign and magical compared to the shrink wrapped corpratocracy, the sterile veneer foisted on today’s youth.
Because I spend time teaching tennis to junior high and high school kids and because I am not, (their words) “like other adults” they share with me the personal details of their lives and ask constantly “what was it like in the 60’s?” And I always tell them the same thing… listen to the music – followed with a long list of albums and for those special few some CD’s to get them started. All three Wayfaring Strangers releases are on this list. These kids know, just as we knew at the time, the difference between music from the heart and bubblegum! Many are now in colleges across the country, others are out in the world and it is still the music that keeps us in touch. And it is a two way street! Only recently did I discover through one of these kids, Nick Drake.
The way you have created flow on these works is amazing. And the copious, sensitive liner notes leave me wanting more. “We spend most of our lives missing things” a friend of mine told his daughter when she lamented that she just couldn’t be everywhere at once. But these compilations help so wonderfully in reducing the “misses”. Of course what I now want is for you to reissue the complete albums of all the artists on the Wayfaring Stranger series. Is this too much to ask?
I am in your debt.
with great respect,
Rob Carr
Dear Numero—Just received the CDs——-I love the package and liner notes–great work!———I have not listened to all the cuts as of yet but checked out a few bars of each—most sound very home studio with unusual reverb on some——-will check out lyrics and structure and have more to say in a couple days. the BIG surprise was O Light———amazing job of digitalizing the song——-I am impressed with the quality and tone expansion——-sounds better than the original recording on tape!!!———–Excellent job my friend. I am very pleased that you chose me and I really like being last on the CD as my tune is the most studio and orchestral sounding. Hope you can sell them —many many—————–thanks for the fine work——I am really very happy with this. Robb Kunkel
Thanks… this is why we do it. And the money… the tiny, tiny amount of money.
Filed under: Lonesome Heroes | Tags: Bob Brown, George Cromarty, Jack Hardy, Jim Schoenfeld, Lonesome Heroes, Sixth Station, Tucker Zimmerman
We’ve gotten a handful of emails inquiring about the mysterious nature of the Lonesome Heroes track list. Some wondered if it would cover major label also-rans like David Blue and Bill Fay, others sent in recommendations, and still others just wanted to know if it would be on wax (resolutely, yes). The suspense is probably killing you, so without further ado…
Numero 028 Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes
01. Jim Schoenfeld – Before
02. Jim Ransom – It’s So Profound
03. Richard Smyrnios – As I Walk
04. Tucker Zimmerman – No Love Lost
05. Kieran White – Hummingbird (previously unissued)
06. Les Moore – Ooh-Pah-Do-Pah-Do
07. Rob Carr – RNB II
08. Jack Hardy – The Tailor
09. George Cromarty – Little Children
10. Jay Bolotin – Dear Father
11. Tony Trosley – Deep Night
12. Roger Lewis – Autumn
13. Tim Ward – Good Morning
14. David Kauffmann – Kiss Another Day Goodbye
15. John Villemonte – I Am The Moonlight
16. Bob Brown – Close Of Day (previously unissued)
17. Robb Kunkel – O’Light
Stumped by most of the names? Don’t worry, all will be explained upon release on August 25th 2009.
I recently enjoyed the privilege of corresponding with George Cromarty’s daughter. She shares with me a fascination with his life and his music. Unfortunately, we also have many of the same unsolved mysteries. Large portions of his life story are unknown. Cromarty’s “Flight” was featured on our Guitar Soli album, and he will be reprising his role on our upcoming Lonesome Heroes compilation with “Little Children.” Procured from an old friend, his daughter passed this photograph along to us. It is a moment of reverie consistent with his contemplative music. We wish we had a chance to know him.
Filed under: Lonesome Heroes | Tags: Angels & Demons, Lonesome Heroes, Sixth Station
Numero scribe and editor Judson Picco has been in a deep editing cocoon these past few days as we work towards the completion of Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes. We’ve posted on Sixth Station before, but here’s a draft of what should appear on pages 26-27:
During the 1960s and early 1970s, guitar-wielding men of the cloth came somewhat into vogue. Brother Juniper, Father Tom Belt, and the St. Louis Jesuits each found modest success with their takes on liturgical folk music. Born in 1951, Father Tony Trosley launched out of this tradition to land in quite a different place. Raised in the St. Louis area, Trosley entered the seminary immediately after high school. It was there that he took up guitar and set out on a musical sojourn that would result in an LP more than a decade later.
Assigned to a parish in Peoria, Illinois, Trosley charted his long course toward Deep Night, adding crew along the way to fill out the recordings. He called the ensemble The Sixth Station, in reference to a powerfully tender moment in the Passion, when Veronica washes the face of Jesus. Deep Night’s title cut is its purest moment, featuring Trosley alone and transparent, his 12-string tone shaped by a phaser pedal. The entire album, tracked in a tiny chapel with rented equipment over one extended evening, was mixed live with only a handful of overdubs. A few disastrous live performances around Central Illinois sealed the album’s fate as a one-off, though producer Scott McDaniel proposed a second LP. Father Tony Trosley, cloistered as he was from popular music culture of the day, could hardly avoid recording a folk and rock anachronism, but the sound of “Deep Night” defies placement on any timeline, aural or historical. It’s every bit as darkly profound and eerie as its name implies.
Having just seen the painfully awful Angels & Demons, Judson couldn’t help but suggest:
“With symbologist Robert Langdon’s unflagging assistance, we plumbed the craggy depths of the Vatican’s psych-folk archives, but located no such follow-up LP.”
Dan Brown, we’ve got the soundtrack to whatever you’re working on in hand.
