| "$87 And A Guilty Conscience that Gets Worse the Longer I Go" |
| "Thirteen Cities" Irish Release FEBRUARY 9th |
RICHMOND
FONTAINE'S Willy Vlautin With Paul Brainard www.richmondfontaine.com ~ www.myspace.com/richmondfontaine ACOUSTIC / NORTHLINE TOUR - Irish Dates: April 25 -- Dublin - Whelans (Upstairs) April 26 -- Belfast - McHughs April 27 -- Limerick - Dolans (Upstairs) April 28 -- Cork - Cyprus Ave April 29 -- Galway - The Crane |
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Since arriving
on Irish shores for the first time in 2004 as part of the Kilkenny
Roots Festival, Richmond
Fontaine have been leading the Alt-country Americana
scene and just were awareded the best album and act by Americana
UK for 2007 last month. They have put out a total of seven albums
since forming in 1994 out of Portland Oregon. Richmond Fontaine
have built themselves up from an SST cowpunk inspired band to a
diverse and, at times, amazing live act leading them to be labelled
the “Kings of Americana”. They have
been compared to the likes of the Replacements,
Blasters, Wilco and Ryan
Adams. There last release “Thirteen Cities”
sees the band evovling into one of the most interesting and intense
leaders of literate rock from which the likes of Bob Dylan
and Tom Waits have paved the way. “...cheerless
black, the colour of a world in mourning, for which Post To Wire
is an exquisite soundtrack. Uncut’s discovery of the year….Fans
of a certain kind of orphaned Americana are likely to fall on Post
To Wire like apostles on The Grail. By which I mean anyone who’s
been touched where it hurts by American Music Club, The Replacements,
Uncle Tupelo, Ryan Adams, Dave Alvin or Gram Parsons will soon be
entirely enthralled with this dark and mesmerizing masterpiece Brilliant.”
***** Uncut - Album of the Month "Vlautin's
one of the most compelling songwriters working today, compared equally
to great American novelists like Raymond Carver or John Steinbeck
and musicians such as Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits"
4.5/5 THE SUN |
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RICHMOND FONTAINE - Upcoming Irish dates :::
Oct 5 - Cork – Cyprus Ave Oct 6 - Dublin – The Village For Information / Interview requests / Promotional Copies contact Stevo Berube - Berube Communications on info@berubecommunications.com or phone 0872442695 Richmond Fontaine are set to release their first limited edition ep/mini album on Friday Oct 5th in the UK and Ireland which features two CD-Rom tracks with the making of “A Ghost I Became” and a promo video of “El Tiradito”. It will be limited to 2000 in a digi pack. The title track “$87 and A Guilty Conscience that Gets Worse the Longer I go” is another tale of a hapless drifter seeing violence and sadness at every turn, written by lead singer and songwriter Willy Vlautin, it also features Howe Gelb on paino. “$87 and a …” is taken from the bands desert soaked masterpiece “Thirteen Cities”. “Thirteen Cities” cemented the bands place across Europe as the leading literate rock group with 4 and 5 star reviews everywhere. “Heartbreakingly
great” 7/10 NME Many of the other tracks came from the same sessions as “Thirteen Cities” including the beautiful instrumental/remixed verson of “The Kid from Belmont Street” which sees even more of Jacob Valenzuela’s lovely trumpet work alongside Paul Brainard’s pedal steel. “The Gits” is a masterly constructed tune and tale of a true unsolved murder of the lead singer of the band from Seattle whom members of the band were fans of. The cd finishes with an instrumental re working of “$87 and a…” There will also be a limited 7” featuring four tracks of this which will be packaged together with the limited run of 1000 180gram vinyl of "Thirteen Cities”. The new year see’s Willy Vlautin continue his busy schedule with the release of his second novel for Faber & Faber intitled “Northline” and has joined the lecture/reading circuit across the globe with his last book “The Motel Life” being published in seven languages.
Tracks 1.$87dollars
and A Guilty Conscience that Gets Worse the Longer I Go”
The band will be appearing at the following venues followed by a European tour
Oct
5
- Cork – Cyprus Ave €15 adv Tel 021 427 6158 |
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>>> For Interview requests contact Berube Communications on info@berubecommunications.com or phone 01 476-3603 / 0872442695 <<<
Thirteen Cities is Richmond Fontaine’s seventh and most recent studio recording for Décor Records. This album sees the band leave their native Portland, Oregon, for the dry desert climate of Tucson, Arizona to produce and record at the Wavelab Studios. Calexico, Giant Sand (who both feature on the album), Neko Case, Steve Wynn, and The Sadies have all recorded there; their inspirations and the soul of the South West of America are found throughout the album. Thirteen Cities follows on from the sparse, stripped down, “The Fitzgerald” (2005) and the alt country classic “Post To Wire” (2004) both of which have been declared modern-day masterpieces. Thirteen Cities is an album about drifting through the west and in all its songs its characters weave aimlessly in and out of these cities: Laredo, Yuma, Spokane, Stockton etc. The hapless drifters go from town to town, trying to find a place to escape to, but they rarely do and their past usually catches up with them, leaving them in these ordinary cities. The album will feature a map so you can follow their journeys. The album was produced once again by JD Foster (Calexico, Richard Buckner, Laura Cantrell), who was at the helm for the last two albums. Working with Foster and the Wavelab studios the band were finally able to get everything in place to realize their vision of a perfect album. Multi-instrumentalist Paul Brainard again steps in for pedal steel and piano and the core line up of Willy Vlautin (guitars, vocals), Sean Oldham (drums, vocals), Dave Harding (Bass) and Dan Eccles (guitars) remains.
Vlautin’s literate lyrical style landed him a publishing deal last year with Faber & Faber which saw the publication of his first novel “The Motel Life” - already on its second print run. 2007 sees “The Motel Life” being published in Australia, France, Holland, Germany and Spain. Formed in 1994 in Portland Oregon, Richmond Fontaine have built themselves up from an SST cowpunk inspired band to a diverse and, at times, amazing live act leading them to be labelled the “Kings of Americana”. Thirteen Cities sees the band evovling into one of the most interesting and intense leaders of literate rock from which the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits have paved the way.
Richmond
Fontaine - Post To Wire (2004):
“A dynamic study of the American underbelly, it puts Vlautin’s songwriting on a par with that of his heroes, Jay Farrar and Paul Westerberg." ***** The Independent
“...The characters become your neighbours and the tunes as familiar as friends, making Post to Wire a fabulous addition to the all-too-slim canon of passionate, literary rock'n'roll.” ****The Guardian
“Heroic pedal-steel Springsteen pop from the Pacific Northwest - this season’s must have Americana purchase.” Mojo
“Those of you alienated by the roisterous flash of Ryan Adams should hitch your horses to Richmond Fontaine’s post right now.” Time Out
“These songs are succinct, poetic dispatches from America’s desolate Mid West, full of potent cinematic imagery and equally cinematic characters. Splendid’. **** METRO
“Without
a doubt, the best album of the decade so far”
COMES WITH A SMILE
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Richmond Fontaine - The Fitzgerald (2005): “Musically, the album takes the by-now classic Richmond Fontaine musical template and pretty much eviscerates it, stripping the sound down to its raw essentials. Another songwriting triumph…mindblowing, absolute perfection” ***** UNCUT – Album of the Month “Desperately sad, wonderfully evocative…downbeat masterpiece” ***** THE SUN “Frontman-writer Willy Vlautin has a thing right now about hostelries: first his soon-published novel, The Motel Life, and now this albm, written during a month spent in an old casino-hotel. A cheerful place: they lyrics ar about death, insanity, alchoholism, abuse, and the melodies are slow, mournful or mournfully slow. The songs are beautifully sung and played” **** MOJO “Importantly Richmond Fontaine’s America is not a mythic or exagerrated one. They capture the bleak mundanity of small-town life, and turn it into unforgiving art” **** THE MAIL ON SUNDAY “A brave departure for those who can find its dusty and desolate charms” THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY “Compelling collection of dark character sketches” MAVERICK “The most beautiful sad album of the year” Q Magazine 4/5 “A worthy companion, to Springsteen’s recent songbook.” THE OBSERVER “A stone cold masterpiece” COMES WITH A SMILE ................................................................................................
Richmond Fontaine Full UK / Irish dates below:
February 2007 10th
Sat - Bedford - Esquires |
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