Artist of the Week 12/19/10 & 7/11/11 (Son Volt/Jay Farrar)

[LBRod]

2013 tour dates announced.

damn, everywhere but here

I hope that's a partial list. There is nothing in the west.

[Zip City]

2013 tour dates announced.

damn, everywhere but here

He didn't want to subject you to a bunch of nasally crooning.

I'd suffer for the cause

[Iowan]

Iowa City, Minneapolis, and Madtown. All easy destinations (2 hours from all of them), all within a week of my wedding.

Fuck.

[cortez the killer]

[PeterJ]

Iowa City, Minneapolis, and Madtown. All easy destinations (2 hours from all of them), all within a week of my wedding.

Fuck.

99% sure I will be at the Iowa City show. So excited. Missed a solo Farrar show due to pure laziness and have been kicking myself since.

[blackwll]

Bunch more tour dates all over the Eastern half of the US just up on the Son Volt page. Good stuff. Not familiar with the Atlanta stop but looks like a nice place, not too high ticket price either. I think it was Friday, April 12th?

[Zip City]

[StormandStatic]

It seems to me this new album has the potential to be pretty weighty. As much as I've been enjoying Dust lately, it just feels kind of inconsequential, like Farrar just had a couple songs kicking around so he recorded them.

[cortez the killer]

Whole enchilada over at Spinner.

[cortez the killer]

My favorite "teaser" yet.

[Iowan]

It seems to me this new album has the potential to be pretty weighty. As much as I've been enjoying Dust lately, it just feels kind of inconsequential, like Farrar just had a couple songs kicking around so he recorded them.

Welcome to my thoughts on every non-Trace SV album.

Every album has like three mind blowingly good songs, a few good ones, and a couple skippers. Trace was a perfect album.

I have a feeling this will be a complete album.

[Zip City]

Just listened to Trace and although I wouldn't call it "perfect", I think the great songs are head and shoulders above most other SC songs.

[cortez the killer]

"perfect"

Doesn't exist.

[Zip City]

"perfect"

Doesn't exist.

Agreed.

[StormandStatic]

It seems to me this new album has the potential to be pretty weighty. As much as I've been enjoying Dust lately, it just feels kind of inconsequential, like Farrar just had a couple songs kicking around so he recorded them.

Welcome to my thoughts on every non-Trace SV album.

Every album has like three mind blowingly good songs, a few good ones, and a couple skippers. Trace was a perfect album.

I have a feeling this will be a complete album.

See, I listened to Wideswing Tremolo and Straightaways again the other day, for the first time in a while, and those are top-flight albums too. Maybe not Trace, but they're not going to be.

[Clams]

"perfect"

Doesn't exist.

Agreed.

Disagree. There are many perfect/complete records. Hundreds. Thousands.

[Iowan]

It seems to me this new album has the potential to be pretty weighty. As much as I've been enjoying Dust lately, it just feels kind of inconsequential, like Farrar just had a couple songs kicking around so he recorded them.

Welcome to my thoughts on every non-Trace SV album.

Every album has like three mind blowingly good songs, a few good ones, and a couple skippers. Trace was a perfect album.

I have a feeling this will be a complete album.

See, I listened to Wideswing Tremolo and Straightaways again the other day, for the first time in a while, and those are top-flight albums too. Maybe not Trace, but they're not going to be.

Those are very good albums. I would call every Son Volt "very good", other than Trace.

I really think that my inability to embrace Son Volt at the same extent as others here has a lot to do with how I view Trace. If I had 10 albums to take to the Desert Island, its making that cut.

[cortez the killer]

"perfect"

Doesn't exist.

Disagree. There are many perfect/complete records. Hundreds. Thousands.

Hundreds & Thousands, huh? Interesting. I'd be curious to see what the 1st 100 "perfect" records are. It would be simply scratching the surface for you, so I imagine it would be an easy exercise.

[Clams]

Disagree. There are many perfect/complete records. Hundreds. Thousands.

Hundreds & Thousands, huh? Interesting. I'd be curious to see what the 1st 100 "perfect" records are. It would be simply scratching the surface for you, so I imagine it would be an easy exercise.

I could probably come up with 50 or 75* but if we took a poll here, I'm sure we could come up with lot more than that.** Sure, people would argue about some/most of them but it's obviously a subjective thing.

* here's a few off the top of my head: Exile/Sticky Fingers/Some Girls, Car Wheels, Darkness on the Edge of Town/Born to Run/Nebraska, Decoration Day, Trinity Session, Joshua Tree, Trouble in Mind. I could go on but have no desire to do so.

** in my mind, a "perfect" record does mean that every song is a stone classic - it means that each one is part of a perfect or complete whole. Or some shit like that.

[cortez the killer]

Disagree. There are many perfect/complete records. Hundreds. Thousands.

Hundreds & Thousands, huh? Interesting. I'd be curious to see what the 1st 100 "perfect" records are. It would be simply scratching the surface for you, so I imagine it would be an easy exercise.

I could probably come up with 50 or 75* but if we took a poll here, I'm sure we could come up with lot more than that.** Sure, people would argue about some/most of them but it's obviously a subjective thing.

* here's a few off the top of my head: Exile/Sticky Fingers/Some Girls, Car Wheels, Darkness on the Edge of Town/Born to Run/Nebraska, Decoration Day, Trinity Session, Joshua Tree, Trouble in Mind. I could go on but have no desire to do so.

** in my mind, a "perfect" record does mean that every song is a stone classic - it means that each one is part of a perfect or complete whole. Or some shit like that.

Subjective as all fuck. Still don't see a "perfect" record on that list. Some of them are amazing, none of them are perfect, but thanks for supplying 11 of the thousands of perfect records. Pulling it back into this thread, none of those records are better than Trace.

[Iowan]

Hundreds & Thousands, huh? Interesting. I'd be curious to see what the 1st 100 "perfect" records are. It would be simply scratching the surface for you, so I imagine it would be an easy exercise.

I could probably come up with 50 or 75* but if we took a poll here, I'm sure we could come up with lot more than that.** Sure, people would argue about some/most of them but it's obviously a subjective thing.

* here's a few off the top of my head: Exile/Sticky Fingers/Some Girls, Car Wheels, Darkness on the Edge of Town/Born to Run/Nebraska, Decoration Day, Trinity Session, Joshua Tree, Trouble in Mind. I could go on but have no desire to do so.

** in my mind, a "perfect" record does mean that every song is a stone classic - it means that each one is part of a perfect or complete whole. Or some shit like that.

Subjective as all fuck. Still don't see a "perfect" record on that list. Some of them are amazing, none of them are perfect, but thanks for supplying 11 of the thousands of perfect records. Pulling it back into this thread, none of those records are better than Trace.

Decoration Day and Darkness on the Edge of town are perfect.

[bovine knievel]

perfection

[cortez the killer]

The entire album (Honky Tonk) is now streaming here.

[Clams]

The entire album (Honky Tonk) is now streaming here.

Excellent, thanks. Been waiting for that.

[Penny Lane]

wonder how insightful this will be..

Yet there are even deeper thematic continuities between this new music from Son Volt and its past endeavors. Honky Tonk – as well as Farrar’s forthcoming book, Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs (Counterpoint) – both continue his ongoing exploration of America’s landscape through the redemptive power of its music.

[Zip City]

Just tried clicking the "new album" thread and got a huge malware warning (due to something being linked from Paste?)

[cortez the killer]

Full video for "Heart and Minds" now playing over at CMT.

[cortez the killer]

01. Windfall
02. Back Into Your World
03. Dead Man's Clothes
04. Tear Stained Eye
05. No More Parades
06. Driving the View
07. Carry You Down
08. I Got a Right
09. Chickamauga

Jay Farrar - vocal, acoustic and electric guitar
Dave Boquist - electric guitar, violin, fiddle
Jim Boquist - backing vocal, bass
Mike Heidorn - drums

A collection of live recordings hand-picked from the Son Volt vault. 'Artifacts' was recorded in 1998-99 and features the original Son Volt lineup. This is a digital-only release available in mp3 or flac (lossless) formats. Exclusively available here.

[TW_2.0]

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17771-son-volt-honky-tonk/

[StormandStatic]

That's like double what they gave Dust.