On The Road With Port O’Brien

I had been listening to Port O’brien for an entire week. I had gotten their album, All We Could do Was Sing, the previous year and was enamored with the eclectic mix of acoustic guitars, ancient rhythms, and choir like singing that reminded me of the Polyphonic Spree. Every track was a celebration, a group of friends who had the best time creating music. I could see them singing, dancing, playing, drinking.

Their latest album, Threadbare, has a more somber feeling to it. It is still a celebration, but in a calmer, more adult light. The songs are more lyrically focused, more mature, more structured. I listened to the album and heard an entirely new band.

When I called Van I was promptly told to hold and wait until my party was reached, and then, Usher. Well, to be fair, it was R. Kelly featuring Usher.

Van – Hello?

CMP – Yes, Van. Is that your ring tone?

He laughed to himself and rolled up the window. They were on tour along the east coast. Driving together as a band, as a family, on the road to their next gig.

CMP – So where are you guys now?

Van – We are, where are we right now? Just outside Philadelphia. We played Philadelphia last night. Yeah we stayed a little bit out of town, we stayed at Bob Evans.

I was caught off guard again. First by the R&B, and now by the Chain restaurant that, apparently offers hospitality to bands on the road.

CMP – wait, the restaurant?

Van – yeah, it was, it was interesting but, yea, it was good.

CMP – You guys are on tour right now promoting your new album, which is a little bit slower then your last one. Is it being received well?

Van – Yeah definitely, most of the songs we’re playing are off the new record, and well, it’s a supporting tour for Sea Wolf. So most of the people we’re playing for have never heard of us. Which actually makes it a good opportunity to roll out new songs.

CMP – Yeah Sea wolf is another one of my favorite artists. How did you guys end up hooking up with him?

Van – He’s kind of a friend of a friend actually, and we’ve been talking about doing a tour for a while, a couple of years now, and it just never happened. You know, we were either going to Europe, or he was doing something, and whatever, but its been in the works for a while now.

CMP – You guys head to Europe again in a couple of weeks.

Van – Yeah, for like the 6th time in two years or something like that.

CMP – You guys have a following over in Europe?

Van – Yeah, definitely. More so then hear actually.

CMP – You guys have a new album out. And there is definitely a different feel to it then your last album. Is this attributed to recording with Jason Quever in his living room studio.

Van – Yeah, he actually recorded parts of our last album too, and he’s a good friend, and a great engineer. a really great producer.

CMP – He gets a very intimate sound.

Van – Yeah, we started recording in a really big space, but it just wasn’t working. So we went back to his place. And it’s a full on recording studio, its just at his house. So it’s a lot more intimate, and personal then other studios.

CMP – How did you guys form a band? I did some research and it almost seems like this all happened on accident. You guys were just playing music together, and people wanted to hear more and more of you.

Van – Yeah, that’s pretty accurate, I mean it started I don’t know, maybe three or four years ago, and Cambria and I were writing songs together and recording. We would play little shows, like impromptu shows, stuff like that. We weren’t really trying to climb the ladder, or anything like that. But we started getting more and more opportunities. So yeah, it formed really naturally.

CMP – When was the last time you were in Alaska?

Van – It’s been a couple years now. Cambria went up this summer.

CMP – Is there any desire to get back?

Van – Yeah I just haven’t been able too. Touring and everything, it’s just hard to take time off. Hold on one sec. I’m coming up to a toll here.

He puts the phone down and I can hear him ruffling around in the car. There are voices in the background. They are really on tour. Squeezing in interviews, constantly working.

CMP – Your driving right now?

Van – Yeah, always driving.

CMP – Is the whole band in the van right now?

Van – Yeah, the whole band and our sound guy Jake. All bundled up here, heading down to, we play tonight in Baltimore, Maryland.

CMP – Your last album was influenced a lot from the Alaskan life, fishing, things like that. Is this life of touring changing your songwriting at all.

Van – In a way I guess, I mean the subject matter and the lyrics are different. It’s not about fishing or Alaska or any of that shit. But we’re not writing about touring either. It’s hard to pinpoint it.

CMP – Do you guys start with lyrics, or how do you go about your writing process.

Van – It changes, I guess you usually start with the melody. I guess the only time you really start with the lyrics is if you had like one good line.

Van has the strange habit of using “you” instead of “I“. He talks collectively, as the group and for the group. But with a selflessness that is apparent through his music.

CMP – Where did you guys get the name Port O’Brien

Van – Port O’brien is a place up in Alaska. My parents met there, in 1969. My dad, came up from La, to work on a boat, and my mom, came up with her friends,

CMP – Did you grow up there, or in California. Or kind of moving back between the two.

Van – I grew up in Cambria, in California. But we’d go up, like four months a year, so I guess in a way both were home in a way.

CMP – Okay. I saw on your Myspace a bunch of music videos. Who’s making those videos? It seems like you guys are having a pretty good time.

Van -Two of them were made by our friend Joey Izzo, from San Francisco. And the other two were done by some friends in LA.

CMP – They have almost like a Stephen Gondry feel to them. Do you have any other creative outlets, besides music?

Van – No, not really. I’ve never really been good at anything else. Cambria has baking, which is her main passion. I really like baseball, the Dodgers. I guess, that that would be my other outlet.

CMP – So what do you guys have planned next?

Van – Well we got about three weeks left of this tour. Then we go to Europe for like four weeks. Then we’ll take a break for the Holidays. We’ll be back on the road in early Spring in the states, Then probably another Europe tour.

Life on the road is endless. Van and Port O’brien have moved on from the harsh weather, and endless summers of the Alaskan wilderness, but have found a new life, and a new voice on the open road. Port O’brien’s latest album Threadbare, opens up a new chapter for this very impressive band.

Woody Guthrie – “My Dusty Road”

Woody Guthrie Rediscovered

It isn’t often that a legend gets the chance to be reborn, but listening to these four disks is like hearing Woody for the first time. His voice is clear on all of the tracks. The hiss and background noise that is so familiar to any Guthrie recording is virtually unnoticeable. My Dusty Road presents Woody Guthrie in an all new natural light that uncovers nuances never noticed before. But if the pristine recordings aren’t enough, the four disk box set unveils never released, and practically never before heard tracks, which for an artists as widely covered as Guthrie, is a very rare find.

In April of 1944 Woody Guthrie, along with Blind Sonny Terry and Cisco Houston recorded over 250 songs. These are the songs on these disks. These are the songs that lay buried for nearly 60 years. Some of the songs are informal, some are rehearsed, and all of them transport you to an earlier era.

The first disk is a collection of Woody’s greatest hits including “This Land is Your Land,” “Going Down the Road,” and “Hard Traveling.” And although some songs, like “This Land is Your Land,” is played traditionally with Guthrie accompanying himself on the guitar, he also picks up the mandolin, let’s Cisco take the lead, and is never afraid to let Sonny blow that harp.

The songs on this disk cover the dust bowl and the depression. They hit on legends like Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Reuben James. Guthrie also demonstrates his prowess at the talking blues, a technique that is musically sparse, and lyrically poignant.

The second disk concentrates on Woody’s ability to document folk songs. Woody was an encyclopedia of songs. He plays here, traditional songs that he heard on old 78’s. He plays songs from the Carter family. He plays songs that he learned from his mother Nora, and from George, the shoeshine in Pampa.

This disk demonstrates Woody’s vast knowledge of folk music and uncanny ability to tell stories through song. On “Buffalo Skinners,” a dramatic ballad that sings like a novel, Woody mournfully works his way through accompanied only by his guitar, to tell the sad tale of the American Indian and the lonesome great plain Cowboy.

Woody The Agitator, the third disc in the set concentrates on Woody’s ability to write protest songs. Woody rallied for workers rights, the equality of African Americans, and helped stage strikes and organize unions. He wrote songs like “I’m Gonna Join That One Big Union,” “Hangknot Slipknot,” and “Tear the Fascist Down.” The last of which is a virtually unheard song about the second world war.

Woody Guthrie is as influential as a singer can be. Without him there’d be no Cash, no Prine, no Dylan. He was a cowboy troubadour, and a poet balladeer. He represents an almanac of work, a library of songs that documents the past, and inspires the future. My Dusty Road presents a rich history of early America, that can, of course, be hummed along too.

County Music Pride

 

The Complete Recordings of The Red Fox Chasers

Features, Record Reviews — By Dan Evon on October 12, 2009 at 8:18 pm

Sitting around a camp fire in the woods of North Carolina, Guy Brooks and Paul Miles begin to play. They play songs they learned from their fathers, from hunters, from farmers, from the people of the mountains. The fire crackles and they play real appellation mountain music. It’s been a long day hunting foxes along the blue ridge mountains and the two men drink, smoke, and share their songs. This is the beginning of the Red Fox Chasers. A band that not only played memorable music, but were the embodiment of the mountain men that they sang about. They were, in fact, red fox chasers.

The Red Fox Chasers had a very short, but lasting, life span as a band. They were only together for three short years, between 1928 and 1931 and these two disks document the bands entire history. The music hisses like the fire crackled, and the songs are as authentic as they can be.

In 1928 Miles and Brooks attended the Union Grove Fiddlers Convention. After hearing A.P. Thompson and Bob Cranford, the four decided to form a band and make a record. In the next two years, the band put down the forty two tracks that you hear on these recordings. The banjo, fiddle, guitar and harmonica gracefully play classic tunes like “Arkansas Traveler,” Honeysuckle Time,” and “Turkey in the Straw.”

But The Red Fox Chasers did more then play traditional songs, in fact, they were considered a little reckless for the time that they were playing. They performed skits, which can be found on these recordings, about bootlegging liquor and recorded songs like “Virginia Bootlegger,” and “Makin’ Licker in North Carolina.” These songs caused controversy, and even got Brooks, a Baptist preacher, kicked out of his church.

The Red Fox Chasers were shortly lived, but their music leaves a lasting impression. It not only tells the story of the time, but it is told by the people who lived it. Listening to the album makes you feel the warmth of the fire, and the cold of the night. You can hear the laughter between friends, and the genuine love for the music.

I’m Going Down to North Carolina: The Complete Recordings of the Red Fox Chasers is a documentation of mountain life in the 1930’s. From moonshine to hunting, from traditional ballads new age comedy skits. The Red Fox Chasers are a band that should not be forgotten.

Countrymusicpride.com