We got a couple songs in the last season of Eastbound and Down. And while the show certainly has it’s moments, it has yet to deliver as many laughs around the office as the comment it inspired:
“You get this concept of propinquity in which you’re more likely to have an affinity with people that you are close to, which is a concept from Jeremy Bentham. I get the sense – when I listen to this record now – that what we found was really just a community of people that couldn’t really have thought that they were going to be rich and famous.”—Rob Sevier
Filed under: Living Liner Notes, Lowlands, Newsworthy | Tags: Living Liner Notes, Lowlands
Two podcasts in one month? We can’t believe it either, and yet despite having Renaldo Domino as a guest on our first we felt there was much room for improvement. Living Liner Notes 002 finds us delving deep into the Lowlands tape vault, listening to a dozen+ songs that didn’t make Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands or the bonus Lizard disc and giving as much background on them as we could. Some are even calling it our best effort yet.
After nearly two years of combing through the remnants of Mickey Rouse’s short-lived Lowland studio, today (July 13th, 2010) marks the first time in forty years that this music can be heard outside a 1/4″ tape deck. Listen to the clip for a sip of the juice – or just purchase here now:
And if that doesn’t convince you, let the opinions of others sway you:
“A beautifully vibrant set which more than carries the tradition of this remarkable label.” — Record Collector
“A fascinating and highly enjoyable record of the time, a forgotten double or mirror image of the period’s popular music.” — Dusted
“An amazing portrait of that part of the 70s before punk or even metal caught on, when “being in a band” meant you looked like a long-haired roustabout in your 30s and sang lite-bluesy Bread-esque odes to buying a house/having a kid/cheating on your old lady that sound like they were recorded in a jam session where everybody was sitting on their amps.” — Vice
“Has a filial unity and stoner ease reminiscent of the carousing spirit in DAZED AND CONFUSED.” — Oxford American
And if you want a more in depth look at our process, listen to the podcast found here.
Filed under: Lowlands, Press Archives | Tags: "Give Me Time", Circus, Oxford American
Oxford American weighed in with a great review of our upcoming release, Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands. Click on the picture above to read the review and hear “Give Me Time” by Circus.
Filed under: Lowlands | Tags: Burlesque of North America, Mike Davis, Pete Frame
Awhile back we posted a crude family tree of the Golden Triangle scene that we’ve documented in our upcoming Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands compilation. With the discs just a week or so away from arriving in our warehouse, we thought it might be nice to show off the lineage of the insert.
We needed a visual way to keep all the details straight while we crafted the liners. After Tom insisted we check out Pete Frame’s Rock Family Trees for inspiration, Ken put pen to paper and sketched this rough draft:
We liked the idea so much that we thought it might be cool to include it in the package. Of course our first email was to the master himself, Pete Frame. But he never replied, so we went to our go to guy for all things drawn, Mike Davis at Burlesque. A few weeks later he came back to us with his rough draft:
After adding a few lines and correcting a handful of names, Mike returned with this:
Want a poster sized version of this for your wall? No problem, The CD and LP include a fold out version! Don’t forget that we’re offering a 20 track bonus CD only if you buy it direct from our site (subscribers, you’re covered).
Filed under: A Light On The Southside, Al Jarnow, Boddie, Eccentric Breaks & Beats, Good God!, Lonesome Heroes, Lowlands, Playlists, Syl Johnson | Tags: Sea Of Sound
So, I gotta little jealous last week that we didn’t have something as slick as Josh’s new online ghetto blaster and decided it was time to revive my old podcast, The Sea Of Sound. This episode below in it’s fancy Flash 1.0 player – give it a few seconds to load – is a healthy mix of past, present, and upcoming Numero tracks, side by side with some old favorites, and a few cuts from various new releases for your listening pleasure. Enjoy, Michael
“Don’t Trade Love For Money” – Jackie Russell
“Woodpiles On The Side Of The Road” – Jack Rose
“Hummingbirds” – Kieran White
“Jane, Jane” – Tia Blake
“Yellow Roses” – Heron
“Lonely Son” – Vernon Wray
“Nobody Wants A Lonely Heart” – Arthur Russell
“Tried So Hard” – The Flying Burrito Brothers
“Never Too Far” – Tim Hardin
“I Found My Music” – Sage
“Every Day We Grow Closer” – Alex Chilton
“The Ballad Of El Goodo” – Big Star
“The Summer Sun” – Chris Stamey
Beaumont, TX Dodge Commercial
“I’ve Got To Get Over” – Syl Johnson
“Bring It Down Front” – Hugh Hawkins
“Lean Lanky Daddy” – Little Ann
“You’ve Got To Steal It” – The Flairs
“I’m Drunk & I’m Real High (In The Spirit Of God) – Ada Richards
“Cosmic Clock” – Shoes
“Love Letter Full Of Promises” (Rehearsal) – Juanita Rodgers
Filed under: Lists, Lowlands | Tags: Bill Swicegood, Doc Swicegood, Lowland, Patti Baker, Patti Swicegood
As discussed frequently in By The Numbers, the process of researching any of the Numero projects is lengthy. One thing that we don’t always talk about are the remarkable personalities we get the opportunity to know. Bill Swicegood is a major character of the new Local Customs installment, writing more of the material than anyone else (although he himself only sings on two tracks). Right along side him was his wife Patti. Ultimately, she’s not as big a part of the Lowland Studio story, but she’s a charming person with a great story of her own, and we were all disappointed that more of it didn’t make the notes.
Patti and Bill met at Forest Park High School in 1967, their junior year. The strict rules required short hair for men, and Bill was trying to keep his rep with his garage band, the Cambridge Lads, and maintain acceptably Beatles-length hair. He would stand next to Patti in the lunch line in order to be camouflaged by her long blond locks. During their senior year, still 17, they snuck off to Mexico and got married in a church with dirt floors and chickens running lose. They didn’t tell a soul until 90 days had passed since the parents still had the right to annul before they turned 18. After high school, Patti got a job at Firestone Tires, stuffing envelopes in a windowless room, to help keep the dream of Bill’s band Brandy alive while Bill attended Lamar University.
We first heard about Patti from a friend of ours, Steve Tounsand, who met Patti randomly in Austin. This was around a year ago and we had already secured the Lowlands tapes and were slowly figuring out the contents. We knew that the name Swicegood factored prominently, we just didn’t know how. We got an email from Steve telling us that he met a woman named Patti and she was involved in a lot of recordings back in the 1970s and we should really get in touch with her. When we realized who she was, we knew that she was now in Austin and finding her became a breeze. Talking to her is even easier. We’re working with her now to track down some of the recordings made in the mid-1970s when she was the vocalist, if for nothing else than to bring back some good times.
Filed under: Lowlands, Methodology, Syl Johnson, Uncategorized | Tags: Lowlands, Syl Johnson
If you’re a frequent reader of By The Numbers, you may have noticed a bevy of posts, but all with little text. The fact of the matter is that we’ve been using our best words and sentences in the liners notes for Lowlands (5800 words) and Syl Johnson (30,000 and counting), and by the end of the day there’s just not that much left on the tips of our fingers. At 3:18PM yesterday we put to bed the second draft of Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands, and after Judd does his thing, and we fight about a turn of phrase or two, the 34th set of Numero liner notes will be ready to be inserted into Tom’s design.
Not including any interviewing or researching, we spend about 2-3 weeks per release just writing. Often times it will start out with a few paragraphs about the main person or entity, sprawling in whatever direction gets researched first. The hardest parts tend to be introductions and closing paragraphs, which are argued over passionately until someone capitulates. As always, the clock rules how much time we can spend wanting to kill each other. In the case of Lowlands, we wrote the introduction first, filling it to the brim with details about the history of the Golden Triangle (Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange, TX), its music history (the Bopper, the Winter bros, Joplin), and the minutia that makes up a scene (record stores, gear shops, clubs). We go 2000 words deep without even talking about a single artist or song on the record. Even the exposition has its own exposition.
Syl is broken up over two sections, the first a biography of his life and music through roughly 1972, the second descriptions of the box set’s 80 tracks by the deeply knowledgeable Bill Dahl. The 40-page, 12X12 booklet also going to have a samples index, discography, bibliography, and dozens of previously unpublished photos. Syl smoking a pipe in a house jacket? Check. We’ve got a few more ‘graphs to put down about his time at Hi, and then the epilogue, which should be interesting seeing as we’ve never written one before.
Perhaps the most interesting development to come out of all this text is the creation of the Numero thesaurus. We’re offering a $20 gift certificate to the person who can name our most common adjective and five words to use in place of it.
Filed under: Lowlands | Tags: Bruce Tinch, Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands, The Clique
After several weeks of calling his studio number, we finally reached Bruce Tinch from the Clique. Best known for their REM-covered minor hit “I Am Superman,” the Clique bump up ever so slightly against our upcoming Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands compilation via the thinnest of threads. And yet, we couldn’t resist tugging on it, or him, as it were.
Before the Clique was on their way to being the greatest Tommy James & the Shondells cover band, they started out playing teen dances around the Golden Triangle as the Roustabouts. The line up of Tinch, John Kennesaw, Johnny Swaford, David Balsano, Larry Lawson, and Ross Griffith played the Rose and Crown rooms, clam bars, armories, and any other place that would have them before transitioning into the Sand Pipers, and finally, the Clique. As others have told their story in greater detail, we’ll focus on the Numero connection and let you search out their fantastic White Whale singles on your own.
When the Clique moved to LA in late 1968, a handful of the members decided to stay home, including Bruce Tinch and John Kennesaw. Needing to keep their chops up, they joined a cover band with local cats Bill Swicegood and Don Lackey.
Tinch and Kennesaw wouldn’t last long, but then again, no one who joined Brandy would. By 1971 the group had gone through four line up changes, leaving Bill Swicegood as the only original member. It’s doubtful any of their covers will make the comp’s cut, so here’s a few wild jams as proof they ever existed:
