Tom Wuest, Josh Garrels, David Wolfenberger, Cat Stevens, Chris Haubner, Paul Simon, Jack Johnson, Brandon Dawson, Morrissey, Janet Pressley, Mike Helm, Matthew Shelton, Sharon Udoh, tons of other people, don't know if I sound like them or not...
Sounds Like
Post-impressionist, post-modern songwriting with acoustic guitar, piano, harmonica, and gentle rhythm section with occasional electric guitar.
Originally from New Jersey, Eric Falstrom spent his formative years in Cincinnati, where music and art occupied his time since the age of nine. He attended Cincinnati's School for Creative and Performing Arts and later the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but a fall from a 150-foot cliff while backpacking in California nearly took his life in the early 1990s. He was discovered by a park ranger and underwent several surgeries and hospitalizations that sidelined him for many years following until he emerged with a design degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2002. By this time, Falstrom had honed his skills as a singer-songwriter playing in various bands.
Continuing to look for the power of healing and restoration that music can often hold, he has been a regular in the Cincinnati scene while continuing to perform to new audiences. His latest CD is entitled LOVE WILL COME THROUGH and is available in the Cincinnati area at Everybody’s Records, Shake It, Mole’s, Joseph Beth, Barnes and Noble, and online worldwide via CD Baby, iTunes, many other distributors.
To order your copy of LOVE WILL COME THROUGH, click on either icon below:
from Cincinnati CityBeat
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Labor of 'Love'
By Mike Breen
Singer/songwriter Eric Falstrom has been performing locally for several years, including with the rockin’ Mystery Wagon in the early ’90s. Since then, Falstrom has been working the solo route, releasing his own records off and on since the end of the Wagon.
But Falstrom’s latest disc, LOVE WILL COME THROUGH, feels much like a reintroduction, featuring some of the best writing and performing of his career so far. The album is rich and focused, bringing Falstrom’s strengths — poetic lyrics, a heartfelt singing voice and beautiful arrangements — to the forefront.
Helping the cause are the local artists he chose to work with on the project. Singer/songwriter/keyboardist Sharon Udoh (who also works with The Newbees, Lines and Spaces and several other local acts) offers some elegant, sweeping keys, which add depth and vibrancy to the songs’ gorgeous, romantic sway. David Prues, responsible for the album’s crisp production, also lends some rock-solid drumming to the tracks.
Falstrom, of course, is the album’s heart and soul. There is a passion to his writing and delivery that drips from the speakers. With a voice that’s part Morrissey-sincerity, part Nick Drake-wispiness, Falstrom paints his songs with broad, folksy strokes while retaining a Pop-like hookiness throughout the record.
On tracks like “Remembering Your Love,” Falstrom’s Folk leanings come through strong. While remembering lost loved ones, Falstrom sings earnestly on a bed of acoustic guitar and harmonica. Opener “Angels Will Sing” is more in the Pop vein, but it still possesses a lush romanticism, reflecting some of today’s “New” Folk practitioners, as well as some of the Twee British Pop of the ’90s. Fans of Belle and Sebastian, Andrew Bird, Daniel Martin Moore and Damien Jurado will find a kindred soul on LOVE WILL COME THROUGH.
from CIN Weekly
January 13, 2009
Local Watch: Eric Falstrom
By Rich Shivener
It's time to smile. We're dominated by negative energy these days, says Eric Falstrom, who recently penned the folk record Love Will Come Through.
"I've written a lot of down-and-out, negative songs," the songwriter says. "This was a conscious effort to focus on positive things. There were 15 tracks recorded, and I couldn't decide which tracks would be on it. I didn't know which to leave off."
He ended up with 10 - and here he explains each one.
1. Angels Will Sing: "That's about marriage ... about dreaming of a healthy marriage."
2. (My Love is Like a) Rainy Day Fund: "Love is worth more than money."
3. Changing the World: "It's about wanting to do something good in the world."
4. Love to Someone: "Needing forgiveness, confessing weaknesses and fear."
5. Follow That Thought: "This is a world that tends to bring people down. A lot of people are in need of encouragement."
6. Remembering Your Love: "My dad loved Bob Dylan. He and my stepmom are entering their retirement period. And it's a remembering of all the things they've done."
7. Good Sister: "It's asking for permission to start over."
8. Love Will Come Through: "The strength of love and that it's stronger than death. We get so caught up in negativity."
9. Cincinnati: "It's kind of a celebration of some of the things that I love about Cincinnati."
10. Returning: "That's a vision of the end and being received from the place you came from. You get to see anybody that you ever lost (again)."
hey eric! thanx for coming up to the boston stoker open mic! enjoyed your set :) hope u have a wonderful week!! making music, marianne www.pearinthepinkthing.com
hey there eric! how goes it? hope very well :)) i'm playing the patio at winan's fine chocolates & coffee 8-10 pm saturday night at the villlages @ the dayton mall... love for you to come up!!!
Hey Eric, thanks for coming out last night. Great job...after you took off a couple of people asked about you and said how much they enjoyed your voice. Come up any time, man. good luck friday.
Hey man. We're actually playing Final Fridays in Oakley this week. Starts around 7pm. How was Rohs St? I've been trying to get them to let me play there.
Hey man, thanks again for having us at the Speckly Boid Cafe. Sorry I had to leave so early. It turned out to be the burner assembly on the water heater by the way - manufacturer's recall, so I got the parts for free. Hot damn! Congrats again on the new CD! = uncle smokin' joe
