Life in Shambles Tour Update
Posted May 22, 2010
We’re just now completing the first leg of the Life In Shambles Tour 2010 and pleased to report things are going about as well as could be expected for a tour with a such a prestigious and optimistic title. We spent the whole month of May barnstorming the Southeast with our new friends American Aquarium from Raleigh, North Carolina and we managed to keep things just shy of absolute mayhem for pretty much the whole run.
We’ve parted ways (for now) with the American Aquarium boys but both of us continue to carry the torch independently. You can check their tour schedule on their MySpace, but ours can be found right here on SonsOfBill.com. We’ll be playing close to home this week in Richmond, VA and then spending much of June in Texas, after a brief run up to New York State to rock the Mountain Jam with some pretty heavy company (Gov’t Mule, Levon Helm, Drive-By Truckers, the list goes on).
We’ll hope you can catch us at one of the aforementioned get downs but if not, here’s a little sample from the road to tide you over. We’ve posted full shows from both of these venues before, but there’s just something in the air whenever we walk into the State Theatre in Falls Chuch, VA or The Windjammer in Isle of Palms, SC. We decided we’d make this a thematic posting and give you a song about driving to Charleston – recorded outside of DC – and a song about driving home on Route 29 (which runs from DC to Cville) – recorded just outside of Charleston. Even if you don’t follow that little bit of pretzel logic, you can still enjoy the tracks below. A special mention should be made of American Aquarium’s Whit Wright (the only human under the age of 43 we’ve ever seen competently rock the the pedal steel guitar) who sits in with us on “Charleston”. Get it Whit.
As a reminder the exclusive Life In Shambles EP and t-shirt have been selling like hotcakes, but we’ve still got a box or two of them left to unload on anyone who gets to any of these upcoming shows on the second leg of the tour. Enjoy the new tracks and we’ll see you out there.
Going Home (Live at The Windjammer)
Charleston (Live at the State Theatre)
Mountain Stage and the Truckers (plus Richmond tracks)
Posted February 20, 2010
We’ve been fairly busy recently, but in case you’ve missed us, don’t worry: there’s more to come in the next couple weeks. We’ll get right to it. Tomorrow night we’ll be heading over to Charleston, WV for a taping of the NPR show Mountain Stage. It’s a great show and a real honor for us, especially since we’ll be sharing the stage with a pile of talent including Lucero, Sam Bush, The Bottle Rockets and Bud Carroll & The Southern Souls. The show will be recorded live, but won’t air on your NPR stations until the week of April 23rd. Check the Mountain Stage broadcast schedule for updates (and to know what other awesome programs you can tune in for).
We also joined Drive-By Truckers for the first time last week and we’ll be playing with them again next weekend in Charlotte, NC. If you live in the area, make your way down to the Neighborhood Theatre on Thursday February 25th for a full serving of rock in your face. If you miss that one (and you don’t already have tickets to see George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars at the Neighborhood on Saturday night) we’ll be moving to Asheville, NC on Friday Feb 26th and down to Birmingham on Saturday Feb 27th to join the Randy Rogers Band for our first ever show in Alabama. There are plenty other dates on the calendar for early March too so if none of those shows bring us close enough to you, be sure to check the Tour Dates. We’re coming.
Speaking of places we’ve been recently, we spent the last few weeks hitting some favorite spots in our home state, including a full house at the Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach and a rowdy crowd down by the James River at the Canal Club in old Richmond, Va. We’ve been working on our mobile recording rig and managed to catch a few tracks from the Richmond show to share with you. Some vintage SoB – the second and third track off our debut album A Far Cry From Freedom – sounded especially good to us, so we hope you enjoy them too. And don’t forget, the Sons of Bill YouTube Channel is still chock full of new videos to tide you over till the next time you get to join us in person. Check ‘em all out and be sure to rate and review them to your little heart’s content. Keep an eye out for us, ’cause we’ve got a busy Spring ahead and it’s just around the corner.
Far Cry
My Hometown
Merry Christmas from Sons of Bill
Posted December 23, 2009
Though certain members of Sons of Bill are ACLU supporters, we still believe it’s appropriate to wish everyone a Merry Christmas when the season comes around. In that spirit, we’ve dropped a little something in Santa’s bag for all of you to enjoy around your mashed potatoes and platters of ham biscuits (country ham, we hope). Almost six months ago, to the day, our sophomore album One Town Away was released and we celebrated the event with a massive hometown show at The Paramount Theater. We invited up a bunch of old friends to join us onstage and, over the past half a year, we’ve had a number of people ask us if we managed to get any of those guests on tape while they were up there. The answer is a resounding “yes!”, however those tapes have never been made publicly available. ‘Tis the season.
Below you’ll find two tracks from that night. The first is an old traditional featuring our good friends Laura Wortman and Kagey Parish of The Honey Dewdrops doing a four-way duet with Sam and Abe. Although we were recently told it’s not technically a traditional and it has not yet passed into the “public domain”, it’s been played by enough folk singers to safely be called “traditional”, at least by us.) If you like the sound of this one, check out the Honey Dewdrops debut album If The Sun Will Shine. You won’t be disappointed.
The second track will hopefully be considered a traditional someday, but we’re not holding our breath. The tune was penned by the great American songsmith Mr James Hetfield and we are joined on dueling lead guitar by none other than Mr Nick Cordle. Nick has played in a number of great bands around Charlottesville and elsewhere, but he is currently employed melting face with a cute little group called Arsis. If your idea of holiday fun is having your brain blown out of your ear canals and splattered all over the Christmas tree, then check out their albums. They’ve got a new one out in February!
There’s also a secret bonus track from the same show, but you need to be on the email list to get it. You can sign up here and we’ll email that one to you. It’s just as awesome and being on the email list means you get to hear about all things Sons of Bill without eavesdropping on the cool kids conversation during lunch hour.
It also means you’ll hear about our Tour Dates, which include four shows NEXT WEEK in Texas opening for Robert Earl Keen! After that we’ll be heading up to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to play with a bunch of our favorite bands at Music Fest, and then hitting concert halls in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri and other exotic locations on our way back home. Keep an eye on that and we’ll keep you posted as we head west.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
Sons of BIll
Long Black Veil (feat. The Honey Dewdrops)
Fade to Black (feat. Nick Cordle)
State Theatre Show Available, Jefferson Opens Soon
Posted November 11, 2009
A lot’s been happening in the SoB camp recently, so we’ll jump right in. As promised, we recorded our show at The State Theatre a few weeks ago and damn are we glad we did. The joint was rocking and now you can experience it from the privacy of your own homes. I’d say that if you were there you might hear yourself on the tape, but the front row was so loud that unless you remember getting covered in James’ sweat that night, you probably won’t be able to pick your voice out of the cheers. Either way, we hope you’ll enjoy the tapes. There’s a small sampling below for your listening pleasure and all you have to do is click here to sign up for the email list and you’ll be sent a password to that allows you to download and listen to the full show. Don’t worry, if you’re already on the email list it’ll still send you the password.
In other news, the long-awaited reopening of The Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville has finally been scheduled, and look who gets to open her up! Sons of Bill will be co-headlining the opening evening with our good friends Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, coming up from Muscle Shoals, Alabama just for the occassion. Get your tickets soon ’cause last time we played C’ville we rocked the Paramount Theater across the street to a sellout crowd and it has about 300 more seats to fill than the Jefferson. Should be a night to remember.
Last but certainly not least in the News Column is something that’s probably a much bigger deal to those of us onstage than to those of you in the crowd, but we figured we’d let you in on it anyway. We are all excited to welcome our original drummer Mr. Todd Wellons back to the fold. After almost three great years with our old friend Brian Caputo filling the seat behind the kit, Todd will be rejoining the band starting Tuesday November 17th at The National in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. For those of you who don’t remember what Todd Wellons sounds like carrying a groove, pick up your dusty copy of A Far Cry From Freedom (or buy a new one here) and check the boy out. Then join us in our excitement.
Before you get there though, enjoy these samples of Brian slamming the skins in (almost) his hometown from a few weeks ago. Remember to put in your email to check out the rest of the show, and run your eyes over our Tour Dates to see when you can come check us out in the flesh.
Six Days on the Road
The Rain
Austin City Limits Recap
Posted October 7, 2009
It’s been a great couple weeks for Sons of Bill, making our acquaintance of the music loving population of Louisiana and Eastern Texas. We spent some time with some old friends down by the bayou and made some new friends, doing six shows with Jonathan Tyler and The Northern Lights. If you think you like rock and roll, you better check those guys out.
However, the highlight of the tour was our Sunday afternoon set at the Austin City Limits Festival in beautifully muddy Austin, TX. We had a great crowd join us at the BMI Stage, about 5 hours before Pearl Jam took the stage several hundred yards away to close out the festival. They rocked. And they brought Perry Farrell up for the encore to sing “Mountain Song”. Awesome! We were unable to convince Perry to join us onstage, but we rocked none-the-less. Evidence is available below in form of rowdy and righteous versions of the opening track from our new album and the title track from our debut album. Speaking of righteous, there are also some sweet pictures of Sam wiping his face with a towel and Seth getting his Bruce Springsteen on, available on an Austin news website; and a gallery of Sons of Bill photos on the ACL Fest website. Paste magazine also took notice, putting a one-liner about us on their festival recap page, and providing you with a helpful link to get back to the update that you’re currently reading. Enjoy that!
We’ve got three shows with Jason Isbell left to close out the tour and then we’ll be in DC and New York in a week and a half. We’ll hope to see you soon and enjoy the ACL mementos.
Far Cry (Live from ACL Fest)Joey's Arm (Live from ACL Fest)
