Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this Gold(en) Record, from Mr. Bill Callahan! I shake you warmly by the hand! Tremendous things are in store for you, many wonderful surprises await you!
For his first record in....uh, well, just over a year (woot!), Bill Callahan gives us a Gold Record. They might not all be gold, and fortunately, they're not all six years apart either. You could probably ALSO call it"Gold Records": the songs all have a stand-alone feel, the way singles do, for you to have a deep encounter with 'em all of a sudden, a whole relationship, from the start of the song to the finish. And what do you got when you have a record full of singles - and let's face it, hit singles, at that? That's a Gold Record there, hoss.
For Bill, preparing to tour for Shepherd In a Sheepskin Vest meant considering being away from home for long stretches of time - months, seasons, maybe as much as a year, who knew? Feeling his oats, Bill pulled out a few sketches from the notebooks and finished them up some. Before he knew it, he was recording them, and in the shuffle, new songs started popping up too.
It happened fast. Basics were recorded live, with Matt Kinsey playing guitars, guitars, guitars and Jaime Zurverza holding it down (then letting it go) on bass. Drums and horns were brought in for a couple songs. Spirits was high! Six out of the ten tunes were done first take; overdubs, when needed, came equally quickly. Listening, one hears the intuitive cohesion coming together richly, back of Bill's titanic voice spread across the stereo spectrum: the gentle-yet-spirited conversation of Bill and Matt's guitars, the subtle percussing of bass and drums and oddments of trumpet, woodwind and synth, striking notes decorous and discordant, sounding for all the world like the naturally occurring sound meant to accompany and express lives lived everywhere.
Ten whole weeks until Bill Callahan's Gold Record drops? Why, that sounds like an eternity! Thankfully, the Gold Record rush begins much sooner than that - if you think of every weekend as a rainbow along which to travel, then your Mondays will inevitably land you squarely atop a novel pot of gold, yeah? Yeah! And in our lucky world, that means you can expect each pot to be filled to the brim by one giant Gold Record single, every Monday from now 'til September! Follow along as the rich narrative unfolds: no foolin', even in a year such as this, there's Gold (Record) for everyone!
