Category: news

“My Artist Of The Decade – Will Johnson”

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NO DEPRESSION 12/22/09:

The noughties were the decade when the music community liberated itself. Suddenly any ‘musician’ with half a voice could record an album at home, create a website and sell it on-line. The downside was that there were suddenly thousands more ‘recording artists’ competing for our attention and some of the finest songwriters of the decade really didn’t get the attention they deserved. One of those is Will Johnson.

Let me tell you a little about Will. He’s a workaholic; this year alone, he has toured with his own bands, Centro- matic and South San Gabriel, performed a few solo gigs and played guitar and provided backing vocals for Drive By Trucker Patterson Hood’s solo venture ( including a fine set at No Depression’s first festival at Marymoor Park in July). More recently, he could be found on the road playing drums for indie ‘supergroup’, the Monsters Of Folk and has just released a duo album with Jason Molina ( of Magnolia Electric Co ). Did I mention that he had exhibition of his baseball art in Dallas, Texas back in August ? [ READ MORE ]

Jason Molina and Will Johnson

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SC195-300pixJason Molina and Will Johnson Collaborate on New LP, Plot European Tour

Call this the Phantoms of Folk. Call this two lone wolves running together for one dark blissout of a night. Two of the finest indie-folk songwriters of the last decade come together under the Texas sky to quietly lay to tape 14 crushing, haunting tunes, leaving space enough in each to match their surroundings. In this collaboration between Jason Molina and Will Johnson, each seem to hold the other’s talents to fire and elevate both performance and creativity. In the friendly sharing of ideas, Molina and Johnson become two poet’s poets in a workshop, aimed to craft a singular, searing elegy.

Will Johnson describes this alignment of two red stars: “For ten days we wrote, co-wrote, workshopped, complimented, scrutinized, drank, invited friends to come play music, smoked, made lots of notes and drawings, drank a little more and shot the BB gun off the back porch when we just needed some time and space. In the throes of all this, our record was made in the late February sun.”

The album is also abound with contributions from other fine musicians, such as Magnolia Electric Co.’s Michael Kapinus and Texas songwriter Sarah Jaffe, whose plaintive vocals “All Gone, All Gone,” accompanied by the sound of a crying saw, will stir in your gut for days. Other accomplished contributors include Howard Draper, Bryan VanDivier and Scott Danbom.

Hear an mp3 of Molina and Johnson’s “Twenty Cycles to the Ground” HERE.

Molina and Johnson will be available on Secretly Canadian November 3 in the US, and November 2 in the UK.

Centro-matic World August 16-18, 2009

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Here’s a video blog, of sorts, from Centro-matic about August 16-18, 2009.

August 16– Good Records hosts an exhibition of Matt Pence’s photos and Will Johnson’s paintings. Will and Scott Danbom played some songs, and included is Riot Jack from Will’s Murder of Tides album. Somebody forgot to charge the camera battery, or more would be included from that show.

August 17– Centro-matic begins work on album #9 (or is it #10?) at the Echo Lab in Argyle, TX. Scott Solter is producing along with Matt Pence. The overlay music is some guitar tracks from the first song we started, “Around, Pullin’ Vines”. Day one means lots of work for Matt Pence and Scott Solter.

August 18– A few studio shots from the first day of actual recording. With a nice little Danbomian piano moment to round out the day.

Centro-matic Dispatch August, 2009 – Denton, Texas 76201

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No Funny/ The heat situation’s not really all that amusing anymore. Seems like the romance that comes along with those first few weeks of sweltering temps is long, long gone. Been spending a lot of time on the banks of the Colorado in Bastrop, Texas of late, harvesting inspirado from some of the folks I run into down at the river every now and again. I see smalltown progressives and conservatives, too. There’s cliff jumpers and nice families and some high school crusties and time-killing trashers. There’s a pink-haired girl that carries her acoustic around caseless, and I think even a couple of ex-cons. I’m not sure but I do think that was a couple of ex-cons sharing (liquor?) out of a 44oz. Sonic cup last Monday. Anyway, writing a good bit. Settling in.

“Late Blooms/Quality Starts”/ Matt Pence and I are having an art show at Good Records in Dallas on the evening of Sunday, August 16th. A more formal announcement will be made, but the general idea is that it’s a joint exhibition that will include his photography and my little baseball paintings. We’re both pretty enthused about venturing into some new creative territory these days, and we figured why not sail some of those waters together. There may well be some music involved with the whole thing, too. Stop on down. It’s free.

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See more Matt Pence photos
See more Will Johnson paintings

New Texas Solo Shows/ All with my golden-voiced Georgia friend, Liz Durrett.
Sept. 10/Dallas – Doublewide
Sept. 11/Denton – Dan’s Silverleaf
Sept. 12/Austin – Space 12 Gallery

Recordings, Releases/ Lotsa you friends have asked, and the Centro-matic Live DVD is in its latter stages of production. We’ll have a formal release date announced soon. Centro-matic also returns to camp in the latter half of August to start work on our next full length release. Looks like a 2010 release will be in the cards. Lastly, the record I made with Jason Molina will be released later this fall courtesy of Secretly Canadian. We are assembling a band, and full European and US touring will follow. I’m really looking forward to all that. For now, good summer salute to you, and we’ll talk to you soon.

-Will J.