Drew de Man--guitars, voice; Eric Amata--guitars, voice and other noises; Holly Howell--voice and stuff; Don Whitaker--drums, percussion; Kevin Leahy--vibrophone, percussion and other noises; Jonathan Bradley--drums and voice; Glen Abuwan Weinstein--bass; lots of other people whose identities will remain secret until certain ceremonial rites have been performed.
Influences
Jamming exuberantly until dawn in the woods with friends, San Pedro, wine, being raised by wolves, Eric Amata, Alan Lomax, dancing, Mulatu Astaque, Les Negresses Vertes, Leonard Cohen, Rolling Stones, Wilco, Lhasa de Sela, Boubacare Traore, King Sunny Ade, Cat Power, Coltrane, Marc Ribot, Rickie Lee Jones, Joe Henry, Bill Evans, Radiohead, Tom Waits, Grateful Dead, Gram Parsons, Al Green, Smog, you know...
Sounds Like
Heartbeats, footsteps, whispers, hollering. Sigur Ros raised in Louisiana. Free-range chicken on a cool September morning. Alleged serenades, imagistic jazz-folk...
Everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. ...maybe he didn't...?
Drew de Man spent seven years at the helm of the criminally-underappreciated alternative country act No River City, winning critical acclaim, generously dishing out lots of face-melting shows, garnering lots of hot and heavy fan emails and leaving a huuuuge carbon footprint behind. Many thousands of miles, eighteen bandmates, four vehicles and three records later, the dust settled on a broken man. Drew picked up a bullet, mashed it in his teeth, broke and removed the arrow shaft from his side, and did what any other decent guy would have done--crawled off, ditched his uniform and began reassessing his cause.
Old Custer is Mr. de Man's handle--a guise, if you will--for these strange years of pilgrimage and solitaire. Expect a revolving cast of characters, Drew playing a zillion different instruments (not at all once) and stylistic influences ranging from the Caribbean to Mali, from Ireland to Clarksdale, Mississippi, Phoebe Snow to Cat Power and from Zeppelin to Leonard Cohen. It rocks, it grooves, it lurches, it shuffles. De Man's voice has never sounded better, he's never played guitar this well. These moody, evocative songs wind themselves around birds and wind, falling down and getting up, dying and sex, hips and lips, heroes and lost loves.
Expect to rock and be rocked, to dance and to feel better.
always front row for you my dear friend! you rocked my face off. always nice hearing so many new songs, and knowing all of em but 2! can't wait to see you again soon. LOVE YOU! ~m
Well don't I feel all special 'n sparkly then! Hellzyayuz let's do some playin'. Do you have anything coming up that ya want some swamp-box fer??? Holly said something about maybe 10/23 and 11/7. I've got some scheduling to werk out. Obama ya'll!!!!
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