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