Wooden Wand is James Jackson Toth, a singer / songwriter based in Eastern Kentucky. He has recorded for such labels as Kill Rock Stars, Ecstatic Peace!, Three Lobed, Troubleman, Rykodisc and 5RC and is currently signed to Michael Gira's Young God label. His most recent album, Death Seat, was engineered by Joey Kneiser of Glossary and Goose Trageser, and features performances by members of Glossary, Silver Jews, Lambchop and Mercury Rev. He has toured the world, sharing stages with artists such as Sonic Youth, Bright Eyes, Lisa Germano, Sunn0)) and Michael Hurley, and has worked with artists like Nels Cline (Wilco), Jon Tiven (Big Star), and Steve Fisk (Nirvana). According to his website, Toth is "a Virgo" who "enjoys sushi, Scrabble, and the music of Jerry Jeff Walker."
His recent project is a Kickstarter-funded collaboration with Duquette Johnston (Verbena) and his new band the Gum Creek Killers. The band is offering many cool gifts for pledging, ranging from signed LPs to a private show in your living room. Check it out here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/655 ... ref=search
Beginning with his band Golden Calves in the mid-nineties, Toth briefly flirted with pop music with his band The Blood Group, before forming Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice. Though early Wooden Wand albums show Toth’s defiantly experimental tendencies, he has always considered himself a songwriter first. This is a track from one of his stronger releases, Second Attention, released by Kill Rock Stars in 2006:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKAubmjAP68
Here he is with a full band, including Bingham Barnes of Glossary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQiKrjqxBXc
Here he is solo, performing a song that would eventually get released four years later, on his most recent album, Death Seat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01o0Ul1HRF4
Finally, a track from Death Seat (studio version of the song above):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLAHOglsO94
More info and tour dates here: http://www.woodenwand.org
Here's what his label boss Michael Gira has to say about him:
James Jackson Toth, AKA Wooden Wand is your fearless friend, the stumbling guy that goes out and gets himself into some incredibly fucked-up situations but comes out shining and lives to tell you all about it, entertaining you safely and immensely. You should be grateful. His songs are beautiful, indisputably, both musically and lyrically, and they’ll give you joy if you listen to them. In my view, he’s a great American songwriter in full bloom.
Most likely you’ll think that’s a preposterous claim, and I won’t blame you, but you’ll be totally, completely, and unforgivably wrong to think so. James is a natural. To me it’s obvious he’s animated with the same spirit that’s moved through Willie, Waylon, Merle, and Hank. Not to say he sounds like them, but his songs unfurl with a similar casual authority. There’s no space between who he is and the work he does—never without a guitar, and always writing or listening to/seeking out new music. He’s inhabited. If there were justice in this world, which there isn’t, he’d be on tour right now with Willie Nelson as an honored guest. He’s got that picaresque quality that Dylan had in his heyday, wherein the shambolic narrator undergoes various travails and epiphanies—harrowing, bleak and darkly comical—in the course of a narrative, then leaves you mystified, both smiling and sad.
I laugh out loud when I hear some of the lines in these songs, they’re just so immediate and vivid. The pathos sometimes can leave you, frankly, drained, but the language and the singing is effortless and without loaded portent—it goes down smooth. He’s got a million “zingers,” as he calls them—the sort of concise one- or two-line descriptions that set up the atmosphere for a song instantly. Really, if Nashville were a place where one could peddle great songs anymore, James would be the king of the place. He’s a passionate singer and guitar player and inhabits the songs as he performs them with straightforward, unpretentious, and confident gravitas. I’ve been listening to this record over and over for the last several months—we went through dozens of equally compelling songs before choosing the line up of tracks—and the more I listen, the more honored I am to be associated with James Jackson Toth.
Hoping fans of classic songwriting can find something to enjoy here!
-H Bleach, associate
) and I'm flattered / honored / psyched for yall to take the time to listen. 
