It Looks Sad Interview

It Looks Sad: At First Glance

by Daniel Coston

With only a handful of songs released over the past four songs, It Looks Sad has received a large amount of national press and accolades. Formed in Charlotte in 2012, the quartet (Jimmy Turner, Josh Wilson, Aimee Jenschke and Alex Ruiz) have already toured much of the country, and received glowing reviews from national reviews. All this for a band that has released one four-song EP in 2014, and a few singles on the Carolinas-based record label, Tiny Engines. The sound of It Looks Sad recalls a time in the early 1990s when Indie Rock was young, and the possibilities seemed endless. Wtih the band still at work on their first full-length, Alex Ruiz checked in with Tangents for a quick chat. 

Tangents:  How did It Looks Sad come together?

Alex Ruiz: Just a bunch of friends and friends of friends who got together and decided to make a band.

Tangents: How would you describe the sound of this band?

Ruiz: We sound like that feel when you're half asleep and someone's talking to you, but you're too sad to care.

Tangents: How has the band’s sound changed from the beginning, to now?

Ruiz: The new album we're working still has sounds like the eps we put out. maybe a little different.

Tangents: Where did the band’s name come from? 

Ruiz: It's a secret.

Tangents: You all play out of town a fair amount. Was that also a decision that you made early on?

Ruiz: I think every band wants to play out of town shows when they start out.

Tangents: What are the pros and cons of touring?

Ruiz: Touring is awesome. I personally like sleeping on people's floors. The only thing I hate is needing to pee all the time while driving and not being able to stop every couple of miles.

Tangents: Which recording do you think captures your sound the best, to date? Has that recording been made yet?

Ruiz: “Creature" was an old song that we didn't put on the first EP, but we all loved it and wanted to release it, and “Nagoya" was the first song we wrote together after the first EP came out.

Tangents: Where do you draw inspirations for your songs?

Ruiz: Just the way we're feeling at the moment.

Tangents: How would you describe your audience?

Ruiz: The best. We appreciate everyone who comes to see us. Everyone's been really nice.

Tangents: Your music isn’t easy to define. Do labels, or genre questions, get in the way of people discovering, or even enjoying music?

Ruiz: I'm sure it does. Not something I've really ever thought about though. People who like good music will find good music.

Tangents: Finish this sentence. When it comes down to it, It Looks Sad is….

Ruiz: Trying to finish a record.

Show Talk This Friday

Hi Everyone-

This is Daniel, one of the original staffers of Tangents Magazine. I'm doing a show talk this Friday at the Charlotte Museum Of History. This talk will cover some of the Tangents era photos, and how the influence of the magazine has stayed with me for twenty years. Come by and say hello.

This Friday! January 15th! Charlotte Museum of History! I'll be giving about my photography career (so far), and the photos that make sure my current exhibit at the Museum, with a few surprises. Free admission, and food and drink will be available. Reeve Coobs plays at 6pm, and the trouble (as Mark Twain once said) will begin around 7pm. Hope to see you there.

Jimmy Brown, Bassh/Matrimony Interview

Jimmy Brown: Bassh & Pop
by Daniel Coston

Jimmy Brown has seen his share of changes. A native of Ireland, Brown had traveled the world before moving to Charlotte, NC, and forming the popular band Matrimony with his wife Ashlee Hardee. Brown’s latest change involves a new band, a new sound and location. Last year, Brown and brother-in-law (and Matrimony bandmate) C.J. Hardee made their way to Nashville, TN for a new project with Band Of Horses bassist Bill Reynolds. The resulting sound, now under the moniker of Bassh, is miles away from the sound of Matrimony, and allows Brown to further delve into the role of frontman. Now living in Nashville, Brown and Bassh will debut in Charlotte on January 23rd with a show at the Neighborhood Theatre. Brown checked in via email to talk about his new band, and his future plans.

Daniel Coston: How did Bassh come together?

Jimmy Brown: C.J. [Hardee] and I had been writing tunes together more and more and they weren't sounding like "Matrimony" tunes so we decided to make a record.

Coston: What was it about the sound that the three of you (with Bill Reynolds) made that excited you?

Brown: The timing felt right for all three of us and the energy was there. We worked long days and nights and really put our guts into this one. When we listened back, the work sounded surprisingly good. I remember looking around the room asking the others if I played that part or if they did. It was swirly few weeks but a healthy dose of chaos seems to lend itself well to these types of things.

Coston: How would you describe the music of Bassh?

Brown: Druggy emmo indie rock pop type stuff.

Coston: How do you think that the lyrics that you’re writing for Bassh is different than what you wrote for Matrimony, or any of your other creations?

Brown: I'm in a new place in life, new city, new friends, new outlooks, etc.. It's only natural to write from that existence.

Coston: How are Bassh’s new songs translating to a live setting?

Brown: We shall see Jan 23 & 24, as those are our first shows. Five piece band, but you may not see all of us due to the amount of smoke on the stage.

Coston: How is being a frontman for Bassh different than any other band that you’ve been involved with?

Brown: I love the challenge of morphing into a new thing. I think we should be always evolving and pushing ourselves beyond what we've done so this is unchartered territory for me, and I fucking love feeling scared and excited at the same time!

Coston: What are Bassh’s touring plans?

Brown: US nationwide tour dates TBA soon!

Coston: How are things in Nashville? You moved out there in the past several months.

Brown: Been here a year now and I honestly can't imagine living anywhere else. Cool spot.

Coston: What plans are there for Matrimony in the future? We got a show May 28 at The Fillmore in Charlotte to help raise money for the homeless folks of Charlotte. Aside from that we've no "plans" but Ashlee and I have written a few songs together recently, and we've been toying with the idea of cutting them, but honestly Bassh and her solo project are our focus for now.

Coston: Finish this sentence. The future of Bassh is….

Brown: Release music, tour the world putting on crazy shows, write, record.

Four Short Poems, March 2010

Four short poems, March 18, 2010


1. Running down
a jealous moment
Locked in the
arms of shifting
evolution,
torn between
how I feel
and what I want.


2. The lights fizzle
in the haze of the evening,
peering out
over the distance
between there and here.
Motion hints at other
life,
letting us know
where something else resides,
and where I stand.


3. Once
I passed a friend's house
in the night, each of us
knowing nothing
of the other.
If I had never met them,
what would I have
thought of their place,
their possessions,
coupled with my assumptions,
Would I have moved on,
taking it as another
distant light in the darkness?

4. I hear
your voice again,
and I am there,
the thoughts of that time
thrown back in my head.
I am reminiscent,
wistful,
unsure of the footing,
and how to proceed
from here.

-Daniel Coston

Ranger Doug/Riders In The Sky Interview, 2010 Online Redux

Riders In The Sky: Always In The Saddle
Introduction, interview and photos by Daniel Coston


For nearly 35 years, Riders In The Sky have carried on the traditions of original country and western music, while marking out their own place on the musical map. With 700 Grand Ole Opry appearances, movie soundtracks and over 6,000 shows performed by the time you read this, Riders In The Sky are to today’s western music what Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters were to first generation Americana music. Night after night, from albums to CDs, this Nashville quartet has been the living, touring embodiment of western music, and the ones that have helped to keep this music in the here and now.

Made up of guitarist Ranger Doug, fiddler Woody Paul, bassist Too Slim, and accordionist Joey The Cowpolka King (who also produces the band’s records), Riders In The Sky are also to many kids through their work on the Toy Story soundtracks, and two Grammy winning children’s CDs. However, any band that proudly endorses the slogan, “Always drink upstream from the herd,” shows that there’s a little something there for kids of all ages.

Along with their annual shows at Tweetsie Railroad, the band recently made a stop at the Old Time Threshers Reunion in Denton, NC, which is where I talked to Ranger Doug.



Tangents: When did you first start traveling to North Carolina?

Doug: We first started playing in North Carolina  some thirty years ago. We’ve always enjoyed playing here. It honestly ranks as one of the best states for us to play in. The folks in this state have always had a fascination with cowboy music, which has benefited us.

Tangents: Do you think that the fascination is due to the fact that the cowboy landscape is something different to the people in this state? That it seems a bit exotic to us?

Doug: Yes, to a degree. But folks in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, even, haven’t responded to western music the way that this state has. The state of North Carolina has always has the most fascination with western music. I really don’t know why.

Tangents: How do you guys come up with material? Do you find songs together, or separately?

Doug: That’s a three-pronged answer. One, we write our own songs. All three of us write. Second,  we introduce classic cowboy songs into the set. Woody just picked a song for us to play that we’d known forever, we just had never learned it. The third is when we have a project. We’ve been writing for a new project, which is an inspirational album, which we’re going to start recording next week. People have been asking us to record an inspirational album for some time, and we’ve been putting it together.

Tangents: Is it easier to write for a project, as opposed to on your own?

Doug: Yes, it is. It was easy to write for the Disney album we just did. The characters were already laid out for us, and we had a really good time.

Tangents: You’ve been doing your own show on cowboy music for XM. How has that been to do?

Doug: Great. We were just in the XM offices yesterday, and the guy that runs a couple of their channels told us that Willie Nelson had just been in there, and he wants our show to be on 24 hours a day! There just aren’t enough shows to do that.

Tangents: How do you put those shows together?

Doug: We usually record three of four of those shows at one time, at [producer] Joey’s studio. It takes at least an hour to record the introductions, and edit them. The recordings depend on when we can fit them into our schedule. We discuss tunes what tunes we’d like to play, and then we make a CD of those songs, so that I can have them on my computer. It sometimes takes us a few different takes to get the introductions, as we sometimes mess up a word, or something else. We leave a lot of the goofs in the show, if it wasn’t too bad.

Tangents: Which sometimes give the show some of its character. You know that you’re really listening to you guys talking about the music.

Doug: That’s true, and we want that in the show.

Tangents: Has the way that people discover you guys changed with technology? Are more people discovering you via the internet, or records, radio or TV?

Doug: It has always been a word of mouth thing. Radio helps, when we can get it. The Disny movies have helped,TV appearances do help. Basically, its still people seeing us, and telling their friends, “You’ve got to see this.”

Tangents: Where are you recording your new album?

Doug: In Nashville, where we live. We were going to record in Nashville this paast May, but we got flooded out. We weren’t home at the time, our wives had to deal with that. I made a reference to that during our afternoon show, and nobody in the crowd got it. A lot of jokes are like that!

Tangents: Have you gotten to explore some of the more famous music spots throughout the Southeast?

Doug: Not much. People mostly assume that we got to do a lot of sightseeing. We see the highway, we see the hotel room, we see the venue, and move on to the next place. It’s not always a glamorous life. We did recently get to visit this radio station in Virginia that Flatt & Scruggs played at for a couple of years, and met with the crew. But mostly, it’s getting to the next show.

Tangents:Tonight’s show is show number 5,964 for Riders In The Sky. How in the world do you keep up with that?

Doug: When you start it with show number one, you just count up from there! It’s been 35 years, coming up on 6,000 appearances and counting, its more and more amazing as it goes along, and we’re very thankful for that.



My thanks to Greta Lint and the Old Time Threshes Reunion for helping to set up this interview.

Bruce Hazel Interview, 2010 Online Redux

Bruce Hazel: Classic Sounds For The New League

introduction, interview and photos by Daniel Coston

For over a decade now, Bruce Hazel has put his stamp on rock n' roll throughout the Carolinas. Be it with the Noise, Bruce Hazel & Some Volunteers, Temperance League, or under his own name, Hazel has merged his love of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and other classic sounds to form his own version of what Rock can be. His current project, Temperance League, joins him with longtime local starwarts Shawn Lynch, Mark Lynch, Chad Wilson and D.K. to create an inviting merge of garage rock and classic-sounding guitars riffs. Temperance League are now touring throughout the East Coast of the U.S., in search of the wider audience that they deserve.

Hazel is also well known in Charlotte for heading up the Fool's Brigade, an annual event that covers a famous musician or band for charity. This event has become that many look forward to, and has packed whichever venue its held in every year. Hazel is also a fun frontman and an all-around good guy, a frontman you can root for when he's onstage.

Tangents: How did the Some Volunteers evolve into Temperance League?

Hazel: The Bruce Hazel & Some Volunteers moniker was something I could put on anything I was doing at the time. This is something different. This is a band.

Tangents:  How do you feel about this lineup now?

Hazel: I remember Mark and Shawn talking about the early days of Lou Ford. How they were a gang. I wanted to be part of a gang.

Tangents: You've been writing and playing a lot of new songs, and you have been recording with this new lineup, as well as the Volunteers. What's your plan for the next record?

Hazel: There are a ton of songs. We have enough completed material for a Volunteers record. We should have probably put it out by now. But at least I have it. Currently we are trying to make something that represents Temperance League. I want to capture the raw energy with minimal overdubs. The Volunteers record is layered. I want the Temperance League record to be stripped. I want all the records I make to be something I'm excited to listen to. I would like to make something that represents us and our live show.

Tangents: Talk about your role as a frontman. What do you have to do to get people into what you and the band are doing?

Hazel: It is the simplest thing that took me the longest time to realize... to just be honest and be myself.

Tangents: What has been your favorite Temperance League gigs so far?

Hazel: It's always nice to be home at Snug Harbor.

Tangents:. The League has been playing more out of town. Do you hope to continue that for a while?

Hazel: As much as possible.

Tangents: What changes have you seen to the Charlotte scene over the past several years?

Hazel: More beards.

Tangents: Between The Journey And the Destination (released in 2004) is still one of my favorite records to come out of Charlotte in the past ten years. What do you think about when you hear that record?

Hazel: I'm very proud of that record. We had a blast making it. Justin [Faircloth, of the Houstons]  was the most comfortable producer to work with. I just invited all my favorite players to stop by Cougar Camp [Studios]. We had DK, Chad [Wilson], Benji [Hughes], [John] Morris, [Chris] Lonon, Rodney [Lanier], Joey Stephens, Michael [Anderson] and [Brent] Bagwell. We had everybody. Somebody was always hanging out or stopping by. Mark [Lynch] came by to offer his sage advice. But I don't think we ever got Matt [Faircloth] or Mark on tape. 

It was easy. Very casual. We'd have lunch and some drinks and just play. Shawn was living at [Cougar Camp] at the time, so when he'd get home from work I'd say, "Get in there and play this guitar part," or, "We need you to play drums on this." I think the record reflects how much fun we were having. When I listen to that record I picture us hanging out in the kitchen listening to someone tracking in the next room. They'd come out and say, "How'd I do?"  I'd yell to Justin in the control room "How was that?" He'd say, "Perfect." I'd say, "Sounds like you're done." But you were there, you know?

Tangents: How did the annual Fools Brigade shows start?

Hazel: Just thought it was time to get involved in my community. It was during the time the Pillowtex factory closed down outside Charlotte in 2004. I organized a fund raiser for those families affected. It happened quick. I made some calls and everyone responded. We raised a little money and had a good time. Later that year I got involved with Rock The Vote, and put together a show to get people registered. Again the neighborhood responded. There is a mission statement on the Fool's Brigade site that Phil came up with so we could sound more official. But really The Fools Brigade Annual Benefit is as much for us as it it is for the charity. It's fulfilling and satisfying that feeling of knowing you belong to a community.

Tangents: Do you have any favorite years of the Fools Brigade shows?

Hazel: Luckily each show we've done has been a success. All have had memorial moments but something really special happened in the room the night we did Bowie. 

Tangents: What records are you listening to these days?

Hazel: I can't stop listening to Reigning Sound. I'm going thru a huge Greg Cartwright phase right now. 

Tangents: Okay, here's the scenario.... Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits are gonna settle things once and for all, but they're gonna dance it out, like the gangs in West Side Story. Who wins, and why?

Hazel: I never saw West Side Story.

Tangents: Was there any person or show you saw, or met when you growing up that made you want to be a musician?

Hazel: Some I've know personally and some I've just admired as a fan but I continually seem to discover them just when I'm ready to throw in the towel. 

Tangents: Any questions for the interviewer?

Hazel: Of all you've interviewed who was the toughest to get a straight answer out of?

Tangents: There's been a couple... and I'll tell you about them the next time I see you.

Houston Brothers Interview, 2010 Online Redux

The Houstons: Back To The Future

The Tangents interview by Daniel Coston

For nearly ten years, brothers Matt and Justin Faircloth have pulled off a musical tightrope act like no other. Simultaneously playing multiple instruments while singing two-part harmony, the brothers perform with a dexterity that often leaves first-time witnesses in awe. The Houstons, as they now go by now (after being shortened from Houston Brothers), have recently returned to their original-two piece lineup, and released a new EP, The Archer, an excellent showcase for their ambient, literate sense of pop music.

Justin Faircloth is also a longtime veteran of the Charlotte and North Carolina music scene, with a resume that includes Jennyanykind, Flyweb, Goldenrods, Les Dirt Clods, and several others. But its the music that he continues to make with his brother that both friends and fans clamor for. 

Tangents: After playing with other bands, what led you to form the Houstons with your brother?

Justin Faircloth: Matt and I had been bouncing this idea of a two person band for a long time, back to probably '97 when we were living in Wilmington.  We didn't know how we wanted to make it happen and started out experimenting with a drummer and some keyboard bass, then I learned to play bass, then drums and guitar, acoustic guitars, you name it.  Then I moved to Asheville and I was playing in a sort of country-punk band called The Rich and Famous and started to work on this keyboard and drumming thing, only it was with a snare, a small tom for kick drum and a Casio.  

Matt and I booked our first show at Vincent's Ear and coming right up to it we didn't have a name, so our buddy Jeremy Boger named us the Houston Brothers.  We played acoustic guitars and did some beat looping, etc.  Maybe a little Rhodes.  After I moved to Charlotte, and Matt moved to Asheville (!), we started in with the Goldenrods, which was a larger 6-person outfit and became this traveling entourage of everything rock and roll.  Matt and I decided that we could make the Houston Brothers happen as a 2 piece and travel really light, and go for this really minimal sound that still had all the essentials to fill a room with tons of vibe and character.  We bought some old Crumar bass synth pedals--the ones we still use today--and we were off.

Tangents: You play keyboards with your right hand, while drumming with your left band, all while singing. 1. How did you come up with that? and 2. How do you DO that?

Faircloth: Well, I touched on this above, but we were just trying out different ways of being able to create a full band sound without the extra members.  Our fans and press have always made a pretty big deal out of the piano-drum-sing thing, but it's not much different than a good piano player that has a developed left hand for walking bass and comping chords.  It all becomes one thing, not several, at least in the way that I hear it.  I have to say that what Matt does, walking bass with his feet and playing guitar and singing has got to be just as difficult.

Tangents: Contrast the music of this new EP with the first two Houston Bros. CDs (pre-Still).

Faircloth: The first record, I Take Care of You, was very different.  It's out of print now, and is soundtrack music with a dark bent and perhaps a preview to our eventual Houstons vibe.  The Houston Brothers, or the blue record as we call it, is probably the most similar to our new release The Archer.  Matt and I play nearly everything, with a few guests here and there.  We use the instrumentation that we use live with only a few extra parts, usually supporting guitar textures, synth bits or percussion.  Thematically, though, we're talking about two records that are about 8 years apart and the songs really illustrate that span of time in ways I couldn't hope to describe.  Matt wrote two songs on the blue record, and that is something we intend to bring back on our next release.

Tangents: How did The Archer come together? And describe the music on this EP.

Faircloth: Matt and I had a collection of songs that we wanted to release as a more stripped down production, relative to Still.  Our friend Mark Lynch got involved with pre-production and insisted that we track the songs as we play live, the keys/drums and bass pedals included.  Two of the songs were years old and the other four were new tracks.  I'm not going to tell which ones are which!  But they all fit cohesively and were a good representation of where we are with the Houston Brothers, ten years from when we started.

The songs are a bit more outwardly aggressive in some ways than ever, but I'd like to think also more refined in scope and in theme.  We have always wanted to relate our lives through the music and I think these do just that.  For now.  It's more appropriate for me in my life now to rely on love rather than be angry with it, for example.  We are celebrating life and at the same time targeting some aspects that we find provocative.  That's the art, I suppose.

Tangents: After starting as a duo, you spent a few years working with other musicians in the band, culminating with a six-piece lineup for the 2006 CD Still? How did the music change during that time?

Faircloth: The songwriting changed a bit before we put he band together. . . I was in a more introspective place and trying to put some pieces of my life together.  The songs on Still basically chronicle those times, or as much as I would want to put out there.  Matt and I also felt that we needed to try some different sounds and new directions so we put together a band packed with badass musicians.  We made the record with very little rehearsal and some highly charged-up creative days, mostly at my house in Charlotte.  The recorded music became quite a bit more arranged and dense--interestingly, on a collection of very personal songs.  Our live shows were fun, I got to really focus on singing and improved at that quite a bit, and we had great rhythm sections and textures.  We were both able to open up quite a bit relative to having to do so much at once.  I think this was a time of really learning about who we are and what we really want to do.

Tangents: What brought you and Matt back to the two-piece lineup?
Faircloth: We felt that we had lost some of our uniqueness. To be honest, a bunch of our friends and fans demanded it. And it's really hard to even hold a band together when you're not 20 and everyone has tons going on in their lives. It's so easy for Matt and I to travel together, find the vibe we want, learn songs really fast. . .whatever.  It's what we do naturally at this point.  As much as we want to break free of the constraints sometimes, they can become what sets our creativity free. My wife would call it Tantric.

Tangents: What's next for the Houstons?
Faircloth: We're taking most of the summer to quiet down and write, record, experiment, play new instruments.  I think that whatever we accomplish at the end of the day, I want it to constantly grow and change around our minds and what we find interesting, provocative, outrageous, compelling.  I don't want to ever make the same record twice and I don't want to regurgitate issues or themes.  I'm learning how to write an unbridled love song and a song for nothing but dancing.

Tangents: How has your fanbase changed over the years?
Faircloth: They've grown up with us.  Which is awesome.  I mean, we attract fans of all ages and I am still surprised by some folks that love us, who I thought would hate us. 

Tangents: How has the Charlotte music scene changed?

Faircloth: It's larger and more diverse.  More than ever when traveling I hear other artists, musicians and otherwise, asking me about what is going on in Charlotte.  I think our Southern town is almost a city.  But what I really love about Charlotte musically is the people--there's very little hate and a whole lot of love.  We support each other no matter what the opportunity or style of music.  Our label, Chicago-based Chocolate Lab, just signed another Charlotte artist (our friend Jon Lindsay), so we are seeing more and more interest.  And the successes of folks like The Avett Brothers and Benji Hughes are pretty awesome.

Tangents: So what happens if and when your kids form their own band?

Faircloth: We're already on it!  Their first experience will be our family band.  They are both incredibly musically talented already and writing original music.  So it's on.  Whatever they do later. . . what can I say?  Dad's seen it all.  Well, most of it.