the rolling thunder revue, kinky friedman, talking heads, roger miller, leonard cohen, geto boys, kris kristofferson, mickey newbury, lard, townes van zandt, e street, john prine, sun city girls, metuchen, david milch, rhadhana's thai kitchen.
Sounds Like
“It has narrative substance (like a door stopper-sized book) and just as many hooks, tons of heart. Or, in other words, and to carry the book metaphor way too far, this one's going to make a lot of noise when it drops.” -Stereogum
"The Roadside Graves' affection for the American landscape-- both physical and musical-- hearkens back to the days when long-distance drivers were at the mercy of whichever classic rock or country station carried the strongest signal, and those lonely instances when a well-timed selection from Creedence, George Jones, or the Band might make your whole evening...Performed with an uncommonly deft touch and subtle grace. (7.5)” -Pitchfork
"Like The Band before them, the New Jersey group pull from several different genres – country, folk, Cajun, southern gospel, and big-time rock ‘n’ roll – to produce something that can maybe only be called American Music." -Aquarium Drunkard
"Timeless melodies, riveting harmonies and vivid, memorable songwriting. Yes, the Roadside Graves love America; now it's only a matter of time until America returns the favor." -New Jersey Star Ledger
“Perfectly illustrated stories, captured in song, that will make you laugh, cry, and want to drink one more than you probably should.” -Muzzle of Bees
"Each song is unique in sound with exceptional lyrics that strike you between the eyes. For those unfamiliar with them, I would liken their sound to a blend of Felice Brothers, Trainwreck Riders, Son Volt and The Band." -Hear Ya
"My Son's Home is an 18-song comprehensive tour of quality American music. Deftly moving from folk, to rock, to back-porch country, the Roadside Graves have produced one of the best roots-Americana records of the past five years, hands down." -Stark Magazine
"A mesmerizing journey that finds a top notch band hitting their stride behind a captivating singer/songwriter and is one of the best albums in its genre of the year." -Culture Bully
Get prepared to be hearin' a lot more about NJ's The Roadside Graves in the next several months. The gritty Americana inspired 7 piece will be dropping their new disc, an 18 song epic called, My Son's Home sometime in April. From the previews that we've heard it sounds like it well may deserve the building hype. -Burn the Bowery
"A collection of colorful razor sharp songwriting with Steinbeck-esque narratives that finds the band at their best ever." -Some Velvet Blog
"Any fan of good Americana music should keep an eye out for My Son’s Home. It will undoubtedly be a highlight of 2009." -Pop Headwound
My Son’s Home is our third full-length record. It was conceived of as an album about soldiers and their complicated struggles to forge identities and relationships in times of war. The idea was inspired by the Bobby Bond song “Six White Horses” and a short John Steinbeck novel entitled The Moon is Down (which we recently learned was also the basis for the film Red Dawn). Other subjects emerged during the writing sessions, and the record slowly evolved into an eighteen-song cycle about the lives of individuals, families, and friends in a variety of familiar settings: the homestead, the battlefield, the country and the city.
The album is populated by familiar faces from American folk and rock songs, ranging from the back-story told in our “Ruby” of the embittered Korean War vet who vows to shoot his wife in Mel Tillis’s “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”, to the Aesop-like fable of “The Snake and How It Lost It’s Legs”, in which Dear Henry and Dear Liza from the children’s folk song “There’s a Hole in the Bucket” are responsible for the snake’s brutal dismemberment. There are cops and spiders lurking in the cigarette trees from “The Big Rock Candy Mountain”, and Johnny B. Goode faces a flurry of nightsticks, bringing him back down to his knees.
We found ourselves increasingly influenced by David Milch’s television series Deadwood. Milch's characters are dynamic, in perpetual interaction with one another and the values that shape their community. We wanted our songs to speak to the conflicts- tragic, humorous, absurd- that arise in an individual as one attempts to eke out an authentic existence in the face of the challenges that characterize social life. The songs celebrate and eulogize this process and the costs it exacts on the souls of the characters. They are songs about birth and death , and everything in between.
The basic track recording and mixing took place at Hypersnakes in Sayreville, New Jersey- a modern recording studio sandwiched between a bus depot and a rundown strip club. Listen closely and you might hear our neighbors Biohazard tuning up on the quieter songs. Listen even closer and you might discover the sounds of a gospel group that was warming up on stage while we recorded on the half-broken Steinway piano in the lobby of The State Theater in New Brunswick. Many of the other tracks were recorded at dawn in attics and basements throughout New Jersey, in towns like Collingswood, Metuchen, Edison, and Pt. Pleasant.
The players were the Roadside Graves- John, Colin, Rich, Mike, Jeremy, and Dave, along with special guests like Fun Machine’s virtuoso keyboardist Johnny Piatkowski on the farfisa and mellotron. The sound is that of the teetering ramshackle wall of sound, the sparse and tenderly haunted fingerpicked ballad, Irish table chantey, the harmonium soaked funeral march, dark rumbling surf-folk, the ocean floor.
Our goal was to create music for people who love music, in all its many facets and faces. My Son’s Home traverses a wide landscape of topics and sounds, and it is our hope that it will prove as good of company to our listeners in their lives as it has to us in ours as we wrote and performed it, for it’s yours now.
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