Austin Sound

Normally, we probably wouldn’t post this, as its relationship to Austin is somewhat tenuous. Yet the just released video for Gil Scott-Heron’s take on local luminary Bill Callahan’s “I’m New Here” is pretty danged stop-you-in-your-tracks worthy. The song, originally from Callahan’s 2005, new-to-Austin album A River Ain’t Too Much To Love (back when he was still operating under the Smog moniker), serves as the title track for Scott-Heron’s recent comeback venture - the famed Sixties songwriter’s first in 16 years. Safe to say, Scott-Heron thoroughly makes the song his own, and it is both haunting and redemptive, served well by his aged perspective and voice. The essential Smog-iness of the song still lingers, however, so we give it thumbs up all round. We also wonder what Bill Callahan actually thinks of Scott-Heron’s take on it. Maybe we’ll find out one day, despite his typical, soft-spoken reticence. (We’re still not sure what “Sycamore” is based on). In the meantime, we’ll have to make due with Callahan’s new Drag City release of live recordings, Rough Travel for a Rare Thing. Watch Scott-Heron’s video below, as well as a Youtube of Callahan’s original.

We love Waterloo Records. We’ve friended them on myspace and facebook, signed up for the newsletter, followed the tweets. Hell, we even shop there when we have an extra buck. So all of our various means of showing support for Waterloo lit up yesterday when the store started blitzing the world with the news that they had just confirmed Bill Callahan for an in-store this Friday, May 8. Seriously, we got hit with about twenty different notices! But that’s cool, because it is a big deal. Though Callahan is still a local, he doesn’t have any shows schedule in Austin in support of his awesome new album, I Wish We Were An Eagle, until July 5 at the Parish. And when he announced his current record store tour, Austin was notably not included. Never fear though, all will be set right tomorrow. The show is scheduled to start at 5:30, but you’re going to want to get there early for this one because no doubt it will be at capacity and they’ll have to turn folks away. Check out a video of Callahan doing “Faith/Void” at Columbus, Ohio’s Used Kids Record Store below:

If 2007’s Woke on a Whaleheart signaled a coming out for Bill Callahan, as much from the caustic, gloomy temperament of his previous work as from the Smog moniker, then Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle presents the still-local songwriter searching for his way in the newly broken sunlight. In fact, much of the album plays as if waking questioningly from a dream, still caught in the lost space between sleep and consciousness and trying to gather one’s senses and realize what the day has to bring. Yet there is a much deeper and personal drama unfolding in these songs, one that moves constantly from a vulnerability and fear to beautiful reflection and hope. Callahan has always had the ability to distill some of the most brutal realizations into striking phrases that pierce with his dry, repetitive delivery, so what makes Eagle so stunning is the range of his outlook, and the seeming exposure of the songwriter in ways that were before buried behind his dark humor or Smog-draped distortion.

Bill Callahan will be releasing his follow up to the stunning 2007 debut under his own name, Woke on a Whaleheart, on April 14 via Drag City. Recorded out in Plano and titled I Wish We Were An Eagle, the preliminary reports hold it to be every bit as surprising and impressive as Whaleheart. He let loose an mp3 of new song “Eid Ma Clack Shaw” (no, we have no clue what that means), and yeah, it’s good. Download it out below.

As we reported along with the demo of the Monahans’ song “Into the Expanse,” a 3 CD box set of tunes about each of the 43 US presidents, written by Christian Kiefer, Matthew Gerken, Jefferson Pitcher, is set for release this September, and joining the Monahans among the many contributors is Bill Callahan. The two Austin acts get back-to-back billing on the first disc, with Callahan taking on “John Tyler: Hindsight Falls On Deaf Ears” and the Monahans doing “James Polk: The Other is Better / The Landscape to Transform.” Other artists on the set include Califone, Mark Kozelek, Alan Sparhawk, Rosie Thomas, and Tom Brousseau, to name but a few.

Pitchfork has an exclusive stream of Bill Callahan’s song that you can check out here. And to see the rest of the tracklist, simply jump…

We love the internet, being a part of it and all. But one of the things we love it for the most is that anyone with a camera and cool idea can get songs out of about any artist, producing some cool, unique little shows. Take Austin’s own Retread Sessions, for example.

One of our favorites is the Black Cab Sessions, a Brit-based project that throws artists in the back of a cab and gets them to play while trolling around London. That’s it. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated. Just a camera, a confiscated car, and an artist. But the results are pretty fantastic, especially given the talent that they’ve been able to coerce into the backseat.

If you haven’t yet seen the wonders of the KUT 90.5 and Super Alright’s Retread Sessions, let Bill Callahan introduce you. Placing artists in unique, often gorgeous, settings, the Retread Sessions give their songs a stunning new context with masterful camerawork and performances as original as their environment. Below is the video of Bill Callahan performing “Vessel in Vain” atop Mt. Bonnell, and you can also see him give “Nothing Rises to Meet Me” a stark acoustic turn at the Retread Session website.

Callahan’s is the sixth performance in the series, and past offerings have included Jose Gonzalez, Do Make Say Think, YACHT, and locals Shearwater giving us “Palo Santo” and Black Before Red with “Matagorda” and “Spilt Milk Shake.” See them all in widescreen versions here.

Retread Session: Bill Callahan - “Vessel in Vain”

Bill Callahan’s first album sans Smog is a predictably polarizing affair. For an artist who helped defined lo-fi throughout the nineties, and whose 2005 release A River Ain’t Too Much to Love was one of the best folk albums of the year, Whaleheart is jarringly produced by Neil Michael Hagerty. Driven by big beats, jangly electric guitars, and swelling violin courtesy of Elizabeth Warren, the album justifies Callahan’s dropping of his former brand name, and the new direction, however unsettling at first, promises a new path that may open up some of his best work, even if alienating some fans.

Last fall, Bill Callahan dropped his long-time Smog moniker and embarked on a new stage in his nearly two-decade career. The resulting album, Woke on a Whaleheart, to be released next week on Drag City, is a shift from both his early noise-inspired production and 2005’s exceptional folk-tinged A River Ain’t Too Much To Love. Whereas his work as Smog was characteristically intense, darkly humored, and often psychologically dense, Whaleheart is laced with a playful and even hopeful attitude, light in its outlook and pop in its arrangements. Callahan, who we interviewed last fall just before he announced the name change and began performing regularly with Joanna Newsom, took the time to answer another round of emails from us about the new album and his career at this point. Callahan performs this Saturday at the Mohawk for the Austin CD release of Whaleheart.