FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2010
STAN RIDGWAY’S NEW ALBUM NEON MIRAGE,
INFORMED BY LOSS AND LIGHT, IS ARTIST’S MOST
ECLECTIC AND REVEALINGFormer Wall of Voodoo frontman is flanked by Dave Alvin, Pietra Wexstun, Ralph Carney, Rick King and the late Amy Farris
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — “You never really have a choice about the tone and subject matter of the records you make,” confides veteran L.A. singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway about his new album, Neon Mirage. “At least I don’t. They’re obsessions, really. Things happen, good and bad. And for most people, the passing of a parent or a close friend has an impact. It’s really about the music, and how it heals the mind. The records I grew up with still inform me, and the best were like an inner journey — mixing up blues, jazz, pop and country to make something fresh and, in the end, positive. But you can't ignore the darker side of things, either.”
Stan Ridgway’s Neon Mirage, due for August 24, 2010 release, is arguably the most emotionally revealing, musically far-ranging — dare we say mature? — album of the L.A. singer-songwriter’s accomplished career. Yet it’s also a project whose troubled circumstances might tempt Stan to paraphrase John Lennon’s familiar wisdom: Life is what happens when you’re busy making another album.Indeed, in many ways Neon Mirage can’t help but feel like an elegy to the colleague and family Stan lost in the midst of writing and recording its dozen, typically eclectic songs: gifted Texas-born violinist/session player Amy Farris; a beloved uncle; and the man who helped forge the very foundations of Ridgway’s unique outlook on life and music, his own father. “Events like that can’t help but have an impact on the music you’re making at the time,” Stan admits. "You’d be lying to yourself — and your listeners — if you thought otherwise.”
Ridgway quickly sets the album’s tone with a warm, accomplished recasting of “Big Green Tree” from Black Diamond (his forceful 1996 debut as an independent) produced by Dave Alvin. The L.A. roots rock legend reinvents it here in a gentler, more hopeful ethos around Ridgway and his longtime keyboardist/collaborator Pietra Wexstun, with Brett Simmons on upright bass and Amy Farris, then a member of Alvin’s own Guilty Women ensemble, on violin. Alvin had heard Stan perform the song solo at a special show for mutual friend and fellow songwriting legend Peter Case, and early sessions also yielded Neon Mirage’s memorable, Alvin-produced cover of Bob Dylan’s elegy to his own fallen hero, “Lenny Bruce.”
It’s an album in which Ridgway’s familiar wise-guy wit and cinematic lyricism are further tempered by an ever-inquisitive mindset that ranges from the haunting, candid introspection of “Behind the Mask” to an effusive, wistful tribute to lost friends and the Nashville of record producer Owen Bradley, “Wandering Star.” Elsewhere, Neon Mirage centers around more impressionistic takes on the toll patriotism extracts from its warriors (“Flag Up On a Pole”), the reality of being closer to the end of life’s rich pageant than its beginning (“Halfway There”) and the human propensity for myopia in the face of looming catastrophe (“Turn a Blind a Eye”).
Yet, as the foreboding and darkly loping guitar lines of “This Town Called Fate” and the album’s infectious instrumental title track attest, Ridgway’s new songs are also graced by the inventive musicality and unique viewpoint his fans have become well acquainted with since his early days as the driving force behind L.A.’s favorite ’80s experimentalists, Wall of Voodoo. But while the album’s expressive baritone and deft harmonica flourishes are instantly familiar, Stan employs them here on an ever-restless musical odyssey. Ridgway expands an already impressive musical palette via Wexstun’s always intriguing keyboard melodies and textures, the masterful sax, flute and woodwind work of Ralph Carney, the deft acoustic and electric guitar lines of longtime band mate Rick King and the rich symphonic string orchestrations of Amy Farris.
“I've probably confused people with my music, my choices, the albums and the changes in direction from year to year,” Ridgway admits. “But I can't help it. That term ‘eclectic’ fits me perfectly and there are just too many musical styles and songwriters and singers I enjoy to just involve myself in only one type of music. I try to bring all the things I love into the sound. There’s a weird old American jukebox in my head and it still plays everything that’s ever got under my skin.”
Stan is quick to note where his often-mischievous musical curiosity came from: “Your parents’ record collection can be a big influence growing up. Something you thought was corny has a way of hangin’ on if it’s good to begin with. My dad was a big fan of country & western music, comedy records, hi-fi playboy stereo lounge stuff. Hank Williams, Dean Martin, Ernest Tubb, Sinatra, Johnny Cash of course, Allan Sherman, Charlie Rich, Patsy Cline, and Marty Robbins — all of the great originals. I learned to love the singing, the stories, and even when my tastes in music grew far too weird for my dad, we could still come together on those old records we loved and listened to together. The old western myths of heroes and villains and storytelling of Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs was an important one. And I never would have thought of covering ‘Ring of Fire’ with Wall of Voodoo without my dad’s influence in the beginning.”
Ridgway also credits his father with informing much of the wry personal/musical viewpoint that’s always been central to his songwriting. “A sense of humor is important in handling the disappointments in life,” Stan notes. “My father taught me that, too. Along with a strong work ethic. A certain type of ‘black humor’ helps put a light on the darker realities of living and let’s you get above them by making a joke about it. But it wasn’t a cynic’s view, more of a frustrated romantic’s perspective over a developed sarcasm about the way things really are and not how they seem to appear.”
Stan explains: “In the last few years in his 80s, he always knew my mother and all of us right up until the end. But memory could sometimes be sketchy for Dad. Even so, he never lost who he was or his love, loyalty and dedication to family and working hard in life to achieve results. Or the hard won values of his generation and what they’d sacrificed to achieve for a greater good. All the great adventures he’d had, the global travel and work, the grand victories he’d experienced along the way were never lost to him. And he recalled them all in great detail with pride and a singular sense of humor. And us there with him.” Ridgway’s father passed in December 2009.
But while Ridgway had long girded himself for his father’s passing, he admits the suicidal death of brilliant violinist Amy Farris in the midst of Neon Mirage’s sessions felt “abrupt and brutal.” When Amy phoned him to cancel an upcoming appearance with his band because she wasn’t feeling well, Ridgway assured her it was no problem, saying, “‘health is everything.’ But that weekend she took her life,” he recalls sadly. “Possibly even the night we were on stage at McCabe's. Dave (Alvin) called me Monday morning with the news and I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. But mental illness and depression are like any other illness, and Amy struggled from childhood with them.”
Despite the troubled times it was recorded in, Ridgway insists Neon Mirage represents something even more personal than the sum of its songs to him. “It’s as much a journey as a destination,” Stan says of his music. “If I don’t try and create something of my own, I just feel that I'm hangin’ on a corner waiting for someone to tell me what to think and do. It’s a mad society. But the best therapy for me is always creativity and invention. And a dedication to the people and things you love. Most people live their lives upside down and backwards, only jumping in when the consensus says it’s safe. That’s just human nature — who doesn’t want to be safe? But is that really possible?”
###
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 2005
STAN RIDGWAY’S DRYWALL OFFERS CHARRED MUSIC FOR SMOKIN’ BBQs
Barbeque Babylon: 15 Choice Cuts for Your BBQ Party slated for January 10, 2006 release
VENICE, Calif. -- Songwriter and musical alchemist Stan Ridgway has taken a short break from his solo endeavors (last year's acclaimed CD Snakebite, the DVD Holiday in Dirt) in order to deliver another installment from his Drywall side project, Barbeque Babylon: 15 Choice Cuts for Your BBQ Party, on redFLY records (distributed by Bayside Distribution).
Drywall is Stan Ridgway, guitar and vocals; Pietra Wexstun, keyboards and vocals; and Rick King, guitar, bass and vocals. Other musical friends join in from track to track. Street date for the album is January 10, 2006.
“Drywall,” explains Ridgway, “is a mad musical project of ours that gets nailed up every once and a while when things of this nature pile up. Our experimental eletro noise combo. I still enjoy messing with sounds. Drywall music attempts to give ‘sonic understanding’ in a world that too often does not. It’s also about saying we're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. These days, there's a lot to get angry] about, too. We feel it’s the best Drywall record we've done. Pietra, Rick, myself and our studio gang cooked it up this last summer in a way to gather some equilibrium emotionally. We hope it does the same for listeners. It’s about trash and frustration, fear and control."
Not that Ridgway doesn’t address trash, frustration and fear on his solo outings. But Drywall ups — or downs — the ante, addressing warmongers(“Wargasm”), middle age ennui ("Somewhere In The Dark"), economic hardship (“Something’s Gonna Blow”) and robbers, bandits, bastards and thieves (“Robbers & Bandits & Bastards & Thieves”) in a mix of tropical rhythms, acid jazz, electronica, country and funk. Despite its topics, lots of Barbeque Babylon is quite\danceable, and certainly will be fine accompaniment to any BBQ party . . . as the world burns.
Stan Ridgway's musical career began in the late ‘70s as part of a soundtrack company to create music for low-budget horror films. From its ashes, art-punk outfit Wall of Voodoo was born, and with Ridgway as lead\voice, released an EP, two albums, and the 1982 single "Mexican Radio.” Ridgway then embarked on a solo career that has included work in film
(Rumblefish with Stewart Copeland, other independent film soundtracks) and artist production (most recently Frank Black & The Catholics’ Show Me Your Tears, 2003, and Blood, 2004, with composer Pietra Wexstun, a musical score to accompany the paintings of artist Mark Ryden) in addition to numerous critically acclaimed solo recordings.
Stan says, "This CD completes the ‘trilogy of apocalyptic documents’ we started back in 1996 with the first Drywall record, Work The Dumb Oracle. Drywall music is like a weather report, really. The songs are written by all of us in a topical vein and you might even call this our blow-yer-mind/protest record, in the grand tradition of recordings we grew up with like Country Joe & The Fish's I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die. It also puts your head in a different space to make a band record, even though it’s more of a project than a real band. Still, we'll be playing some of this out on tour if we can just calm down long enough."
Further, Stan has a suggestion for meeting others if you'll be listening in your car: “Place a big dirty sock over your car radio antenna to alert like-minded others that you are listening to Drywall in there. Then form a convoy and head towards your state capitol at breakneck speed. Do not stop. Do not pass go. Park in handicap spaces and wait for further instructions.
”Some early critical reaction to Drywall:
"A strange look at a strange land by a strange man.." -- Boise Weekly
"They're selling pure gold with this record! . . . Not only does Ridgway make a great carnival barker at the gates of Armageddon, but the music here is some of the strongest he's ever done." -- Santa Fe New Mexican
"Ridgway has transformed himself into a decidedly offbeat version of Johnny Cash and Captain Beefheart, Rod Serling and Tom Waits all rolled up into one."
-- LiveDaily.com
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2005
STAN RIDGWAY RELEASES HOLIDAY IN DIRT DVD ON NEW WEST ON FEBRUARY 22
Video Counterpart to 2001 Album Enlists 14 Filmmakers;
Will Debut in Special Screening at Largo in Los Angeles, Sat. Feb. 26
Ridgway Also Signs on for SXSW and March Tour Dates
LOS ANGELES -- On the heels of his widely hailed 2004 CD, Snakebite - Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs (redFLY Records), New West Records will release a DVD version of Stan Ridgway’s 2002 album, Holiday In Dirt, on February 22. But it is not your run-of-the-mill music video counterpart.
Instead, the DVD of Holiday In Dirt is a compilation of 14 short films by 14 different filmmakers. The directors got total artistic freedom, but a budget of only $500 dollars. Each film uses a song from the album as its basis.
The filmmakers comprise a who’s who of MTV video directors and art film provocateurs: Phil Harder (Incubus, Matchbox 20, Remy Zero), Rick Fuller (Wilco, Paul Westerberg, Barenaked Ladies), Steve Hanft, Carlos Grasso (Cracker, Oasis, L7, I.R.S. Records’ Cutting Edge), Jim Ludtke (The Residents), Chuck Statler (Devo, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe), Katherine Gordon, Simon Blake, Dan Brown, Hernan Barangan, David Roth, Heidi Frier & Charles Bowe, and Dave Moe.
The project was produced by Chris Strouth and Rick Fuller.
“Most music videos these days really suck,” says Ridgway. “Mostly because they’re made to show just the band and the singer all the time. What happened to just making a cool interesting film with the music? When producers Chris Strouth and Rick Fuller came up with this idea, I said it will be. Hey! I could get my friends to make a film!
“These great directors were given only three instructions. Do whatever you want. Make it for 500 bucks. And I’m not in it! (But I AM in the inserts in between, guess I couldn’t get outta that one!) You’ll be surprised with what all these great folks came up with and I am extremely happy with the results! I gotta go write some songs now...”
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2004
STAN RIDGWAY’S FORTHCOMING CD, SNAKEBITE: BLACKTOP BALLADS AND FUGITIVE SONGS, CONTINUES ARTIST’S REMARKABLE HISTORY OF AMERICAN STORYTELLING
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Echoing swamps, talking beer cans. Midnight mystery trains and singing tumbleweeds. Lonely soldiers & voodoo chain gang ghosts. Must be a new album from Stan Ridgway. Well in fact, it is. Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs, the forthcoming album from the Wall Of Voodoo mastermind, finds Stan offering 16 brand new songs in three acts. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Ridgway continues his signature tradition of American storytelling with Snakebite, a recording that places him in the good company of Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits as songwriter and storyteller.
Stan Ridgway is an American music original. From his early days with L.A. art-punkers Wall Of Voodoo to his even more intriguing solo career, Ridgway has created a considerable body of work.
In Snakebite, what begins as a collection of hard, two-fisted tales for a desert road trip riding shotgun with characters populated from America's far away fringes, slowly turns autobiographical as Ridgway takes a personal inventory -- marking the trail with slashes of slide guitar, brass, exotic percussion and his inimitable vocals and detailed lyrics.
Always on the darker side of the road, Snakebite slinks and slithers its way through tightly wound arrangements, where echoing swamps, talking beer cans, lonely soldiers, and midnight mystery trains, all spin and float like ghostly mirages on the highway ahead.
Stan Ridgway's musical career began in the late seventies as part of a soundtrack company to create music for low-budget horror films. From its ashes, Wall Of Voodoo was born, and with Ridgway as lead voice, released an EP, two albums, and the 1982 single "Mexican Radio.” Upon leaving, he embarked on a solo career that has included work on the film "Rumblefish" with Stewart Copeland, other independent film soundtracks, artist production (most recently Frank Black and The Catholics’ Show Me Your Tears (2003) in addition to numerous critically acclaimed solo recordings -- most recently Holiday In Dirt (2002) on New West Records and now Snakebite (2004) on redFLY Records.
Snakebite contains a now-it-can-be-told story of Ridgway’s early years in “Talkin’ Wall of Voodoo Blues, Part 1.”
Rolling Stone called Ridgway, “America's lost frontier. His songs tell stories that unfold gradually and trade in old fashioned narrative devices like character and suspense. It's a move at once conservative and daring -- but, best of all, it works.” Added the LA Weekly, “Stan Ridgway is the Nathaniel West of rock.” And the San Francisco Chronicle: “In fact he's an ingenious writer with a grip on lowlife imagery that hearkens back to that of Burroughs, Bukowski and Brecht."
The album, distributed by Bayside Distribution, is scheduled to hit the streets on August 20. It is also available by pre-order at http://www.stanridgway.com# # #
Stan Ridgway Official Website:
http://www.stanridgway.com
