The nonprofit AT&T Performing Arts Center, AEG Live and KXT 91.7 announced today that tickets for the California-based roots rock band Dawes will go on sale Friday, April 24th at 10 a.m. Dawes will perform on Wednesday, June 24th on The Shannon and Ted Skokos Pavilion at the Center’s outdoor venue, Annette Strauss Square, which was recently named “Dallas’ Best Outdoor Venue” by the Dallas Observer.
Langhorne Slim will open the show at 8 p.m.
Center Members get access to the best available seats. Call Membership Services at 214-978-2888 or go to www.attpac.org/support to join. Center Membership
presale begins tomorrow, Tuesday, April 21st at 10 a.m.
Ticket prices are $33 and $28 and can be purchased, beginning on April 24th at 10 a.m., online at www.attpac.org, by phone at 214-880-0202 or in person at the AT&T Performing Arts Center Information Center at 2353 Flora Street (Monday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Tuesday thru Saturday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.). This is not a BYOB event.
Dawes
“And may all your favorite bands stay together,” sings Taylor Goldsmith on the title track to Dawes’ fourth album, All Your Favorite Bands, on their own HUB Records, harking back to a time when that very special rock group helped define who you were, expressing the joy and passion the foursome put into the release.
“Your favorite band can identify you, express how you see yourself,” explains Goldsmith, who co-wrote the song with Jonny Fritz and is the sole author of the album’s other eight tracks. “They enable you to articulate your feelings through the way they play their instruments and the lyrics.”
On All Your Favorite Bands, Dawes manage to transcend their well-documented Southern California influences to establish their own sound and themes, which range from the glass half full optimism of the first single, “Things Happen” and the minor-chord tension of “I Can’t Think About It Now” (featuring background vocals from Gillian Welch and the McCrary Sisters) to the soulful gospel of “Waiting for Your Call,” the rocking tongue-in-cheek lyrics of “Right On Time” and the epic, Dylan-esque set piece, “Now That It’s Too Late, Maria.”
Produced by David Rawlings (Dave Rawlings Machine, Gillian Welch, Robyn Hitchcock, Old Crow Medicine Show, Willie Watson) at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, Dawes recorded these new songs after they had already been road-tested in front of live audiences in intimate venues from Sonoma to Santa Barbara, with Rawlings in tow. The producer even played guitar solos on two of the tracks (including that jangling noir Epiphone acoustic on “Somewhere Along the Way”), with Richard Bennett on acoustic guitar and Paul Franklin on pedal steel, also contributing.
“We played and recorded the songs as a band, with very few overdubs,” explains Taylor. “It was a real joy to work with Dave, who is such an incredible musician with a deep understanding of what goes into a song. We found ourselves immediately speaking a language we both understood.”
Rawlings originally jammed with the band when they were Simon Dawes in their North Hills, CA, rehearsal space around seven years ago, then joined the group on one memorable occasion at the tiny Crepe Place in Santa Cruz for a raucous encore after one of his own shows down the street. Dave threw his hat in the ring to produce them, mutually agreeing on the goal of making their recordings sound more like they do live.
“I was always a big supporter of the way they went about things, and how hard they worked,” said Rawlings. “I was also impressed with their growth as musicians.”
The pairing of Dawes with Rawlings couldn’t have been a more perfect match of band and producer.
“Playing these songs with them in a live setting in front of an audience before we ever set foot in the studio was a lot of fun,” enthused Rawlings. “I was really pleased to see the new material not just holding its own with the older stuff, but in some cases sound even better and fresher.”
Fresh from his game-changing experience working on the New Basement Tapes with producer T Bone Burnett and bandmates Marcus Mumford, Elvis Costello, Jim James, Rhiannon Giddens, Taylor took the spontaneity and organic interaction of those sessions – along with a newfound self-confidence – into recording the new album.
“We didn’t get super-precious about it,” he said. “The rest of the band were able to react and respond in the moment, so even during the guitar solos, you can hear everyone else expressing themselves as well.”
The first single, “Things Happen,” is accompanied by a video that expresses Dawes’ joie de vivre, a bittersweet tale of a Beatles busker (played by their actor friend Nate Michaux) who works Hollywood Blvd., where he meets fellow street performers Charlie Chaplin (Taylor), Elvis Presley (Gelber) and Marilyn Monroe (Strathairn in drag).
“In a literal way, I’m singing to a friend, but I’m also giving myself a pep talk,” said Taylor. “Things might be bad, but the only thing you can do is shift your perspective to deal with it. Hoping it will go away by itself is a little unreasonable.”
There are also glimpses of past relationships in “Somewhere Along the Way” and “Waiting for Your Call,” while “I Can’t Think About It Now” offers a disquieting view of how repressing your problems ends up making things worse, and “Right on Time” describes the serendipity that makes up a long-lasting romance, posing a dichotomy between the dramatic music and the blatantly over-the-top lyrics. The sprawling, nine-minute-plus “Now That It’s Too Late Maria” was the first song the band recorded in the studio, and set the template for the album’s loose-limbed, yet deliberate approach.
“Griffin played a relaxed, mid-tempo beat and I just started singing it that way,” recalls Taylor. “Dave just told us not to think about what we were doing, just do it, and that’s what we did. It was a very special moment for us as a band. It really set the mood and made us confident and comfortable in our own skin, helped us embrace ourselves as a band. We realized nobody could do what the four of us do together.”
Making the new album helped Dawes realize just how special – and unique — they were as a unit. It’s a worthy addition – and a noticeable advance – on their three previous albums, 2009’s debut North Hills, 2011’s Nothing Is Wrong and 2013’s Stories Don’t End.
“They are a tremendously talented group of guys focused solely on the music as part of their lives,” offered Rawlings. “I remember sitting in the control room with Taylor and Griff as they went through their iPods and pulled out pieces of songs, swapping ideas back and forth over a great breadth of different styles from all different eras. There’s a good level of passion and friction, and there was a
healthy give-and-take, of questioning things, then coming to an informed decision in the studio. I certainly learned a great deal working on this album.”
Taylor suggested the energy of All Your Favorite Bands matches that of their very first album, though this time the spontaneity was part of a concerted plan rather than the necessity of budgetary limitations.
“There is so much joy in these songs, they make me smile when I hear them,” he concluded. “We woke up every day looking forward to the fact we would be playing together in the studio. That’s all we ever care about doing.”
All Your Favorite Bands is the kind of album that could well make Dawes your favorite band.
Langhorne Slim
There is nothing like the challenges and camaraderie of the road to inspire a songwriter who thrives upon the emotional energy and exhilaration only travel can deliver. Some singers are devoted to the pursuit of perpetual motion, and Langhorne Slim releases his wild soul in ways that come out of the discipline of live performance.
The 13 songs that compose Langhorne Slim & The Law’s new “The Way We Move” are road-tested, rollicking and very rock ‘n’ rolling tunes that the songwriter perfected with his loyal band, and come out of the kind of good times and bad experiences that songwriters of Langhorne’s lofty stature can turn into life-affirming rock ‘n’ roll. You could also call what Langhorne Slim does folk music, but then there’s his sly, charming and open-hearted feel for pop music — those summertime melodies that nudge you into a grin even when the song is about something bad.
For Langhorne Slim — Pennsylvania-born self-taught guitarist who moves to Brooklyn at 18, begins feeling out his place in a burgeoning punk-folk scene, wends his way to the West Coast, and finds himself celebrated from Newport to Portland as one of today’s most original singers and songwriters — “The Way We Move” represents the sound of a band devoted to living in the moment. Riding the success of his 2009 full-length Be Set Free, Langhorne went through some changes over the last three years — he lost his beloved grandfather, who is the subject of the new record’s moving “Song for Sid,” and moved on from a relationship that had lasted five years.
And there was the physical moving — the literal side of the record’s title. Pulling up stakes from his home of two years, Portland, Ore., Langhorne also has been touring non-stop with The Law. As he says, “I’m in a bit of a transitional period — currently, the road will be home. That’s just kind of my spirit, to be slightly restless.” Perfecting their rangy sound out on the endless grey ribbon, Langhorne and The Law — bassist Jeff Ratner, drummer Malachi DeLorenzo and banjo player and keyboardist David Moore — went down to rural Texas in the summer of 2011 to work on new material. With some 30 tunes to consider, the quartet soaked up the Lone Star sunshine and developed arrangements and approaches for Langhorne’s latest batch of songs.
Jeff Ratner had joined the group at the time of Be Set Free, and brought on multi-instrumentalist David Moore not long after. Moore and Ratner go way back, having moved to New York around the same time, and they’ve played together in what Jeff estimates are 15 bands. Langhorne’s association with Malachi is equally deep. As the group played together through tours with the Drive-By Truckers and the Avett Brothers, and made appearances at the Newport Folk Festival and Bonnaroo, their bond became ever stronger, their music more confident. This is what you hear on “The Way We Move” — forward motion meeting deep cohesion, all in the service of Langhorne’s amazing songs and compelling vocals.
“We wanted Langhorne’s songs to shine, and be as raw as the creatures that we are,” Jeff says of the recording process. The band set up in the Catskill, N.Y. Old Soul Studio, a 100-year-old Greek Revival house retooled for recording. With studio owner Kenny Siegal co-producing, Langhorne & The Law fearlessly ran through an astounding 26 songs in four days, with Langhorne putting finishing touches on new tunes as they recorded. Langhorne says it was an intimate affair in Old Soul, with Moore’s “banjo room” in a coatroom and the piano in the living room.
It comes through on “The Way We Move” — the live feel of the sessions, which found Langhorne singing along with the band on every track. “Singing with the band that way, it’s almost like I was performing on stage,” he says. Cutting everything live to tape gave the band exactly what they’d been looking for: a super-charged evocation of their raucous, friendly stage performances. Langhorne and Jeff value in music for its rawness, and it doesn’t matter whether that rawness — the insurgent spirit that unites the Clash and Charlie Poole — comes from in punk, country, soul or folk. Langhorne is a fan of Porter Wagoner, Jimmie Rodgers, Waylon Jennings, and early rock ‘n’ roll in general. But there’s nothing referential or detached about the music Langhorne & The Law make. Langhorne writes songs that are yearning, sad, happy, defeated and optimistic, with hints of ’50s rock ‘n’ roll balladry.
“We all love Wu-Tang Clan as much as we love Bowie, or Brazilian psychedelic pop,” Langhorne says. On “The Way We Move,” David’s probing piano often provides focus for Langhorne’s tales of love and loss. “On the Attack” begins with a delicate, watercolor section that turns into an ingenious variation on a classic soul ballad — Solomon Burke meets punk blues in a smoky folk club. Langhorne addresses it to a current or past love. Similarly, “Past Lives” sports a piano introduction that gives way to a melancholy 6/8 ballad that perfectly supports lyrics about possible past lives and their interaction with the present.
It’s a spirited, inspired slice of real rock ‘n’ roll — exuberance meets hard-won experience in an explosive combination. David’s banjo and Malachi’s walloping drums add up to a new kind of folk music. The music drives, but there’s no loss of subtlety. And when the group lays into the garage-rocking “Fire,” with its funky electric piano and supremely callow lyrics about first kisses and the hot-burning passions of adolescence, it’s clear Langhorne is one of the great rock ‘n’ rollers of our or any time.
Road-tested as the band is, the new music also shows just how far Langhorne Slim has come as a singer. He croons, exults and sings the blues throughout “The Way We Move.” And there are his lyrics, which are about strange dreams featuring women who want him dead even as he desires them, the pressures of small-town life, ambition, and how much he appreciates his mother’s love and support. That’s all Langhorne and his life — his mother, he says, really was amazingly supportive of his ambitions to become a musician, as was the rest of his family.
It comes through as you listen to his virtuoso demonstration of a singing style that seems alive to every fleeting emotional shade of meaning. Langhorne puts you in mind of John Lennon’s singing from time to time — it’s nothing exact, and Slim doesn’t do much music that is very Lennon- or Beatle-esque, but it’s something in the timbre, and the openness of his vocals. It’s worth repeating here that Langhorne learned Nirvana songs as he began to explore the guitar and songwriting, and Kurt Cobain’s intense singing is another reference point.
But these guys don’t play the reference game, and like to keep it raw. The new record moves in ways that are fresh for Langhorne Slim & The Law, and demonstrates all the ways we can go forward while keeping an eye on the mirror. They’re laying down the law. It’s very American, and when Langhorne Slim contemplates whether or not he fits in to any narrow-cast definition of this country’s music, he replies with a perfect, laconic joke: “I think we fit in most places that would take us.”
