Terry White (guitar, harmonica, vocals), Rob Pierce (vocals, guitar), Kevin James (bass, vocals), Phil Levin (drums), Tom Kneesel (pedal steel, guitar)
The YellowHammers’ latest recording is self-titled. With this album, it’s as if they’re brand new, and being introduced; yet the new life they have created is in fact their fourth record. Fixed in an American blend of rock that draws from blues, country, and folk, the band is loose not sloppy, tender not soft, forlorn not pitiful, but always hopeful. This is roots rock from Chicago’s West Side.
The YellowHammers began writing as a trio in 1994 when Terry White (guitar, harmonica, vocals), Rob Pierce (vocals, guitar) and Kevin James (bass, vocals) left Los Angeles and regrouped in Chicago. It was there that they honed a new sound, as well as found two additional members in Phil Levin (drums) and Tom Kneesel (pedal steel, guitar). The melodies that resulted revealed a musical influence from Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones, with lyrical influence from Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed. As stated in the Chicago Tribune, their “songs are almost as beautiful as they are haunting.” With each new track, the YellowHammers are adding to a rich catalog of scenes and landscapes teeming with characters that are confused, lost, fallen, sincere, honorable and salvaged on the shoulders of each other.
Chicago music legend Jon Langford produced the band’s latest effort, leaving his unique fingerprint sonically, as well as on the album artwork. Langford came to Chicago via Leeds after creating the iconic English punk band the Mekons in the late 1970s. He has produced and played on recordings by the Old 97s, Kelly Hogan, Sally Timms and Alejandro Escovedo, as well as his own band, the Waco Brothers.
Having shared the stage and studio with artists ranging from Joe Walsh and Billy Preston to Jane’s Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins, the YellowHammers currently perform throughout Chicago, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They plan to tour extensively in support of their new self-titled release, which falls on the heels of 2005’s Satellite, 2000’s All the People Some of the Time, and 1996’s Suffer Fools Gladly.
1 Everybody's Joking
2 Just The Same 7
3 Don't Slow Me Down
4 St. Clair, The Cop And Ann Marie
5 Someday Down The Road
6 Women Strong
7 C'mon Elvis
8 Holding Hands
9 What I'd Do
10 (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
11 Just The Same
Hey Yellowhammers, I love your eyes, I know they can stare through my thoughts. Your beauty is equal to the smoothness of a polished gem. I desire to see life through your hallucinations so that they massage my viscera into an eternal state of turgid flux. Your cleverness helps me breathe without the need of oxygen. Your eyes show as many deep and full shades of fire as a volcano in heat. In your absence I am forced into finding other forms of amusement while thinking about you. Your eyes are like spheres of crystal water filled with shimmering dreams. I relentlessly desire cotton candy lollipops. Your tears evoke a taste as memorable as honey. Transistors bridge where your vanity would never go. The skin I shed is a perfume that makes water bubbles so terribly clear to me. You breath as delicately as vapors flowing towards an attractive flame. How it passes there and back again like a tear drop glistening in moonlight. You turn the atmosphere ablaze with currents of sweet ethylene when you smile.
Wow! Yellowjackets, well done, and Jon Langford cudos for the splendid guitarsound on the Elvistrack (unfortunatly the only song I could get running at the moment??)! Good fun to have a pleasant surprice from a (to me) new band! Cheers! P. :>D
