Fall update 9/1/24

Oh, hi there, everyone!

Time for an update as we swing into September. There are a ton of links, so follow 'em all!

The dB's

Photo by Lindsay Metivier

Many of you already know that the band I played with in the 1980s, The dB's, are going to be playing dates in support of the reissues of our first two albums, Stands for deciBels and Repercussion which now reside on Propeller Sound Recordings. It will be the lineup from those albums going out on the road (myself, Gene Holder, Will Rigby and Chris Stamey). Here is the list of the shows that are confirmed--ticket links are here, but they can also be found on the landing page of The dB's website. 

9/4 The Rialto * - Raleigh

9/7 Hopscotch - Raleigh (we're on the Moore Square stage at 3:15 pm)

9/13 The Atlantis ** - Washington DC

9/14 Johnny Brenda’s ** - Philadelphia PA

9/15 White Eagle Hall ** - Jersey City NJ

9/19 The Foundry *** - Athens GA

9/20 Eulogy - Asheville NC

9/21 Eddie’s Attic - Decatur GA

9/22 Stage Door Theater - Charlotte NC

10/11 Amsterdam Bar and Hall - St. Paul, MN

10/12 Old Town School of Folk Music - Chicago IL - show is sold out, link is for waitlist

10/13 Shank Hall - Milwaukee WI

11/16 Zebulon **** - Los Angeles CA

11/17 Zebulon **** - Los Angeles CA - show is sold out, link is for waitlist

*with Kate Rhudy

**with Mayflies USA

***with Pylon Reenactment Society

****with Vicki Peterson & John Cowsill

More dates are being confirmed, so check the aforementioned landing page for The dB's for updates.

Continental Drifters

Photo by Julia Ewen

White Noise and Lightning: The Best of Continental Drifters is being released on Omnivore Recordings September 13. It's a collection of songs by the band drawn from the four albums we released (Nineteen Ninety-Three, Continental Drifters, Vermilion and Better Day). This will be available on vinyl LP and CD, the CD also featuring an unreleased live version of "Who We Are, Where We Live" from the Court Tavern in New Brunswick NJ. The band is very proud of this release and hope you'll find a place in your record collection for it. You can pre-order the LP and CD here. And, as you know, Omnivore Recordings released Drifted: In the Beginning and Beyond, a 2-CD compilation of early tracks and 'odds and sods' in 2015, which you should already have but can order here. 

Our friend Sean Kelly has written the biography of the band, White Noise and Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story which will be published by Cool Dog Sound September 27. You can pre-order the book here. It's a comprehensive look at the band's history, with interviews from all the members, our many Auxiliary Drifters and our friends and fans. 

Sean will be doing some book events around the biography:

9/29 - virtual Q&A with the Vermilion-era band and Sean, hosted by Brett Milano

10/1 - Rhodes College - Memphis TN - Sean and Robert

10/2 - Euclid Records - New Orleans LA - Sean and Peter, Robert, Russ and Susan

10/3 - Thacker Mountain Radio Hour - Oxford MS - Sean and Tim Lee (publisher/owner of Cool Dog Sound)

10/30 - Page 158 Books - Wake Forest NC - with Peter and David Menconi, also discussing David's book Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music 

Alongside the biography is this amazing 2-CD tribute to the band's music, We Are All Drifters: A Tribute to the Continental Drifters, co-produced by Sean Kelly and David Jenkins. Included are tracks by Don Dixon, Marshall Crenshaw, Rosie Flores, George Porter Jr., Robbie Rist, Steve Wynn and a host of others, including some of the aforementioned former Drifters and Drifter Auxiliary members. It's just humbling to see the love show to the band here. It's only available for pre-sale here! 

Continental Drifters are putting together showcases for 2025, although nothing is confirmed presently. But do visit our new website, won't you?

***

I'll have more to say about other projects soon, but this oughta hold you for now, right?

Love,

PeterH

Please donate to help out with Gene Holder's family emergency

Gene Holder, as you know, is a founding member of The dB's and a friend of mine since we were  teenagers in Winston-Salem.

His family is facing an enormous and expensive medical emergeny and could use your help.

Please consider making a generous donation if you can. Thank you for considering this request.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-gene-holders-family-medical-emergency

It's My Time - The Face of 68

The Face of 68

In January, I went into Overdub Lane studio in Durham, about six minutes from my house. Overdub is owned and operated by my friends Lisa and Wes Lachot, Wes being a studio designer of great repute. 

And I have recorded there with The dB's in the past, but most recently with The Paranoid Style, the brilliant brainchild of writer Elizabeth Nelson and her husband Timothy Bracy, recording The Interrogator last year. 

Our engineer was the extraordinarily talented sonic architect Jason Richmond, who took the directive to 'make the guitars sound like Eliminator' and ran with it. 

It was, to say the least, a transformative experience for me, as I jumped willingly out of my comfort zone and became lead guitar player for one of the coolest bands I've heard in decades. The proof is in the pudding, which was baked the next month at the 40 Watt in Athens when Paranoid Style opened for Drive-By Truckers at the latter's annual HeAthens Homecoming. I think it's safe to say we wowed the DBT fans (as well as wowing ourselves in the process).

I'm incredibly proud to be a part of this group now, and I am eternally grateful for Elizabeth and Tim's confidence in me, which has given me a new reason to believe IT'S MY TIME finally. 

That said, strapping on that new-found confidence like an explosive vest, I booked time at Overdub with Jason to cut a solo album. My plan was to upend what I did on Game Day several years ago by hiring a real producer (Don Dixon), a real bassist (Robert Sledge), a real drummer (Rob Ladd) and work in a real studio like Overdub with a real engineer like Jason at the board. 

It's tentatively entitled The Face of 68.

Having already made the 'one-guy-plays-and-records-and-mixes-everything' record, it was time to present my new songs with something more, erm, palatable and listenable. 

So we went in with no rehearsal, just my demos for the gents to acquaint themselves with. We cut eleven basics, of which we are using ten (and Dixon has 'tarted-up' one of the demos for the eleventh). 

The sensitivity of the rhythm section to the songs was nothing short of remarkable, like a big gift to me and my tunes. We should all be so fortunate to have people like Rob and Robert play on (and apparently really like) recordings like these. 

I sang every take with my new post-potsmoking voice, which was stronger and brighter and able to wrap around the words like wisteria on a trellis. My feeling was that, after 50+ years as a pot-smoker, it was time to move on, which proved invaluable to me as a singer.

I played almost exclusively electric guitar, using my roadworthy Tele/Esquire, my finally-deserved Les Paul Standard and my workhorse Epi ES 339. I used my Silvertone 604EAVS parlor acoustic for one song (I am, after all, a Silvertone endorsee). The studio's amp selection is immaculate, but I used my trusty Fender Pro Jr for most of the record, with a couple tracks through their Princeton Reverb and a Carr of unknown model designation. Once I even went through the Leslie. 

(And we even tried to contact the actual Face of 68 to get Peter Frampton to play a brief guitar solo, but he was busy preparing for the tour he's on at present, so that was a no-go, unfortunately.)

We had Mark Simonsen come in for some Hammond B3 also, and he, too, captured the spirit. 

After 3.5 days, we were done at Overdub. Dixon went home to Canton OH where he began mixing. He added some bits and filigree, and I was able to persuade Marti Jones to sing harmony on one song, which elevated it to the stratosphere. Marti, as you probably know, is not actively pursuing music as a vocation these days; her paintings are simply stunning and are a perfectly good reason for having left 'the biz.' But her singing is as sterling as ever, and I'm thrilled she agreed to sing on my record.

The mixing process is in its second phase (where I tell Dixon what all I like and what I'd change and why, and he changes things or he tells me why it might be a bad idea to add something, and we end up with something better sounding). 

And we've begun sending it out to some labels we think might have an interest in releasing it.

I like it an awful lot. I hope you will too, once it's released. Stay tuned!