The Tracker Bar B Que:
Derek Trost- Skewers
Todd Corbett-low end and condiments
Cory Gray- Trumpet, piano and potato salad
John Askew - guitars and salsa
it has included visitations from:
Michael Schorr, Adam Selzer, Erik Herzog, Chris Funk, Dave Harding, Paul Brainard, M. Ward, Bruce Winter, Tad Wagner, Andrew Giakumakis, John Nygren, Raymond Richards and.....
Influences
Camper Van Beethoven, Roxy Music, The Coen Brothers, Tom Verlaine, Califone, Richard Linklater, Red Red Meat, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Black Heart Procession, Buellton, Giant Sand, Richard Buckner, Robert Fripp, MArc Ribot, the Silos, Wall of Voodoo, JOhn Parish, Polly JEan HArvey, Doug Sahm, TV on the RAdio, Townes Van Zandt, Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo, Mount Analog, Menomena, Ween, XTC, M.Ward, Jim White, Tom Waits, The Latin Playboys, Mitchell Froom, Roy Orbison, Charles Mingus, Monks of Doom, Headless Household, Kitty Wells, Tim Cullen, Erik Herzog, CAN, Suicide, Talking Heads, Frank Miller, Frank Zappa, Holy Sons, The Who, Television, Captain Beefheart, Fellini, Caffeine, Tom Petty, Steely Dan, Jon Brion...
Sounds Like
Can be found on the same picnic table as :
Califone
Camper Van Beethoven
Sparklehorse
Since 1997, Tracker has been the recording moniker for engineer / musician / label owner-worker John Askew. Following the release of AMES (the first proper Tracker album), a steady line-up took to the road. Often stopping and gathering random sorts along the way, Askew and Tracker recorded and toured and followed up AMES with the second release POLK and the third release BLANKETS: Recordings for the Illustrated Novel.
NOW, Askew engineers and produces at Type Foundry Recording in Portland, operates the recording label FILMguerrero (Menomena, Mount Analog, Transmissionary Six, Manta Ray, Holy Sons, Tracker) but spends most of the time in his basement studio Scenic Burrows and a Urei LA -4.
Projects he has recorded includes but is not limited to: Richmond Fontaine, Meric Long (Dodo Bird), Lara Michell, LIttle Sue, Mount Analog, Misc., Buellton, Tracker and Tad Wagner...
CURRENTLY:
Just finished recording albums for Wow and Flutter, The Dodos, Pt. Juncture WA, Stiff Wiff, The Skinnyz and about to start work on the new one from Petracovich and The Skinnyz. ALSO, scoring music for the film CALVIN MARSHALL due out in the FALL of 2008.
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Releases:
TRACKER- AMES (FILMguerrero 2001)
TRACKER- POLK (FILMguerrero 2003)
TRACKER- BLANKETS:Recordings for the illustrated Novel (FILMguerrero 2004)
To BUY Tracker records go HERE
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***********************This is the release sheet for the last album:
Portland, OR. Tracker-Blankets is the third release to come from song/ recording-man John Askew's assemblage called Tracker. Written and produced by Askew to accompany the graphic novel Blankets by Craig Thompson, this album quietly threads it's way through Thompson's stark images of Winter and first love, and the dark, yet hopeful coming of age narrative. Following Tracker’s acclaimed cinematic, backyard epic POLK (2003), and the grainy, lo-fi first album AMES (2001), Tracker-Blankets juxtaposes the loose, dusty interiors of this pair of earlier Tracker concept albums with a more spare and cinematic instrumental record. The tracks on Blankets unravel slowly, never distracting from Thompson's drawings. While listening, the book's visuals come to the forefront of memory; the recordings perfectly provide the backdrop for the story to continue and replay. The recordings are ambient and breathing (Askew tips his hat to Brian Eno's Apollo, and Fripp/ Eno collaboration) and at times, the album shares the same sonic head-space as David Pajo's earlier Aerial M records and Yo La Tengo's Danelectro.
In an era where invention, concept, and the visual seem to be rapidly dissolving in modern recordings, Blankets: Recordings for the Illustrated Novel satisfies one's need to again experience story and image meeting with music. With Thompson's graphic novel already considered a timeless, illustrated masterpeice, Tracker's soundtrack will dutifully rest by the side of Thompson's epic, as a beautiful and moving, recorded classic.After receiving massive critical praise for his 2003 graphic novel Blankets, (Harvey award winner for
Best Graphic Novel of 2003) comic artist/ writer Craig Thompson approached Tracker's John Askew to do a "soundtrack" for his book. With the song writing/ production duties accomplished by Askew in his Scenic Burrows, Craig Thompson designed the package with all original art to suppliment the book Blankets. The package is hand crafted and assembled by Stumptown Printers and Pinball printers in Portland, OR.
dear john, thanks SO much for all of the lovin during your mixing days at Flora. earl and i have really liked getting to know you and hearing the hot jams! xo
Hi brother Johnny, I hope you are well!! Please vote for me online Dec. 28 to Jan. 1 www.WeHoAwards.org "Friend of the Community" Nominee Juli Star Askew DON'T FORGET TO VOTE FOR ME and of course also vote for: The Life Group LA (Community Organization) Legendary Bingo or POZ Life Weekend (Community Event) Jeffery Bowman aka Bingo Boy (Community Volunteer) and Gil Kaan (photographer) Cosmosis Graphics (Digital Artist) Shorty's (Salon) The Normandie Room (Woman's Bar) Marika Tjelios (Female Bartender) Tracy Ward (Business Manager)
Thanks!! and pass it on so tons of people vote this year! The event is Jan. 21 if you want to come!
Hey, I just want to thank you. You're album Blankets has helped me through endless all-nighters leading to my high school graduation. I just recently realized you're from Portland, so I hope you have some kind of performance soon, so I can go. Much love =]
John, that night would have been complete if you had been here, in Paris with Craig, Danny, Justin, Brent. If you want to know more, check some photos on my blog.
Dude! When is the santa barbara band reunion festival happening with you, wasted tape, creature feature, toad, cory s, spencer the gardner, brad is sex.......?
Hey John & familia,... hope everything is allright in & out of Portland,... Wish you all a nice summertime & hopefully I..ll get a film G - update,... Regards to all,... Frank
as they say on the streets "YEE YEE" .....btw i like the word burrows, i like when ferrets burrow or pets, i like to burrow in my blanket.....yeah ;) haha
So it's a capital 'T' that's been hanging you up? Don't worry, it's only paint. And paint is easy to remove. If I was your mother and you were my daughter, you would be sleeping already. I wear these pajamas only on weekends. And you think that's healthy? People don't listen to their body until it's too late. I am not dramatic, I am merely being practical.
yo you know how you see all the comments for free 500$ target card....they really work lol, i put my email in twice and today
two 500$ target cards came in th mail LOL i didint think it was real but they came , i know you dont belive me lol so
i took a pic , try it out and tell me if it works for you...took 3 days for them to come..
After last night's lecture, someone commented to me that I must be an army brat because I had such fantastic teeth. Such teeth, he said, could only be the result of good breeding and access to the finest dental care. I explained that though I descend from a long line of Bulgarian nobility, when I was a boy people were still having infected teeth removed by a donkey tied to a rope. Happenstance, I explained to him, is the main reason behind Mustafio's distinguished countenance.
Wooowee. I tell ya, it's been a spell since I dun kicked off my boots and spit up some dust. I long for the shimmy that escaped my soul, and look foward to a wide-span, hoe down with the likes of this world. Keep on truckin my friends.
I done been through the ringer again my friends. It looks as though I've brought a heap of trouble upon myself through that damned yarn of good intentions. This darned self reflection is taxin' my soul. I look onward to days of the new, when this heart of mine is well represented by the skins that house it.
Yessir it's time for that good ol' tyme slang slappin. Been a long while this week I been thinkin bout' the harder things. Truth is, when you stop to look at em', the hard things is a bunch of simple things tied up in a big nasty knot. So here's to a week of untyin' knots.
.....btw i like the word burrows, i like when ferrets burrow or pets, i like to burrow in my blanket.....yeah ;) haha
