April 2001 Parasol Newsletter

Issue #41

Just enough room to acknowledge Parasol's current interns, who selflessly put in their free time packing envelopes, photocopying press kits, sending faxes, and surfing the web, all for the cause of independent music. Thank you Dan, Bobbi, Jeremy, and Sally.

SPOTLIGHT

Parasol's Sweet Sixteen, Volume 3
CD (PAR-PROMO-003) $5.00

The Big Bright Lights - Take Manhattan
CD (MUD-CD-030) $10.00

Finally! This melodic guitar-rock album recorded in 1997 by Jeff Garber (ex-Castor, current member of National Skyline and On) and Derek Niedringhaus (ex-Castor, ex-Sarge, current member of Centaur) can be heard by the world outside. The Big Bright Lights sound like the blessed union of National Skyline's atmospheric vocal apogee, the glorious multi-textured guitar-tempest that is/was Swervedriver, and the unadulterated rock-sense of brainy rock bands like The Foo Fighters, A Perfect Circle, and Shiner. The Big Bright Lights have been referred to as the "missing link" between Castor's soaking wet guitar sound and emotive vocals, and National Skyline's mind-expanding Pro-Tools intricacies. The songs that comprise Take Manhattan were conceived and recorded after Castor's demise and prior to Garber hooking up with Hum/Honcho Overload member Jeff Dimpsey to take the National Skyline name (previously a quasi-improvisational live quartet) to the "next level". Having steered National Skyline through both space and time, and across the country last Summer in a touring van prone to engine fires, Jeff Garber spent the last half of 2000 recording and endlessly tweaking The Skyline's new album (File 13 Records). We're pleased that we can now bring you this "nearly lost" recording.

Tractor Kings - Sunday Night
CD (MUD-CD-046) $10.00

Meet these Champaign-Urbana troubadours on our Mud Records imprint. Songwriter Jacob Fleischli's overcast Dylan-esque vocals ride the swells of gracefully strummed acoustic guitars, a nearly religious lap steel, provoking psychedelic electric guitar flourishes, a spectral casio, folky mandolin and eerie fiddle, haunting harmonies and drummer Rebecca Rury's rolling tom-toms, sizzling cymbals and tambourines. Drawling, poetic pop songs that waltz amidst luscious early-4AD atmospherics and a goosebump-inducing New Zealand-ish droning. Like the cover art suggests, there's a bit of "rural cathedral" (a genre we may have just invented) in the sounds you find on Sunday Night. A homespun sonic melancholy, a headphones record echoing the works of Beachwood Sparks and The Feelies, Bob Dylan and Ryan Adams, Richard Davies and The Moles, The Volebeats and Outrageous Cherry, along with the Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt/Wilco trinity. These are the dark, mystical tales of addiction, of loves lost and won, of death and the path towards it.

Coming Soon...

Waltz For Debbie-Gone and Out (Hidden Agenda) CD due in April
Jack & the Beanstalk-Cowboys in Sweden (Parasol) CD due in April
Absinthe Blind-The Everyday Separation (Mud) CD due in May
Autoliner-TBA (Parasol) CD due in May
Club 8-TBA (Hidden Agenda) CD due in May
Adam Schmitt-Demolition (Parasol) CD due in June
The Chitlin' Fooks-The Chitlin' Fooks (Hidden Agenda) CD due in June
Witch Hazel Sound-TBA (Hidden Agenda) CD due TBA
The Green Pajamas-The Carolers' Song (Hidden Agenda) CD EP due in October

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

…Entertainment Weekly recently praised Jenifer Jackson by chirping, "If you like…the hushed female singers of COWBOY JUNKIES and MAZZY STAR, swoop down on JENIFER JACKSON'S graceful Birds." Jenifer is based in New York City but grew up in the Boston area. One of her hometown papers, The Boston Globe, recently supported its native daughter writing, "…Jackson's Birds is one of the most accomplished and evocative pieces of music we've heard recently-delicate but tough, just the sort of album that fails to get noticed these days. So, all you connoisseurs of smart, melodic folk pop out there, you fans of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith, knock yourselves out…" The Boston Phoenix agrees opining, "…Birds…maintains a mood of gorgeous melancholy throughout." Jenifer will be appearing live on Vin Scelsa's WFUV/New York radio program Idiot's Delight on April 21 and is performing before film fest screenings of the award winning independent film Daydream Believer.

SOME PARASOL RELATED ARTIST ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS

Fonda's David Newton

1. Mixing session you wish you could have attended-
"Fonda 'Spy Kids'??? Seriously, the Happy Mondays Barbados final album sessions (with Chris Franz & Tina Weymouth) for out & out hedonism, or maybe at Ardent in Memphis watching Alex Chilton stumble in at 3am to lay down "Kanga Roo" in one take!!"

2. Songs you think you probably shouldn't like but just can't help yourself-
"Shaggy's 'It Wasn't Me' (great current tune) and Madonna's 'La Isla Bonita' (her worst? I love it!!)."

3. Favorite record that you can't find on CD (or CD you can't find on vinyl)-
"The Sound's Jeopardy, Downy Mildew's Mincing Steps, The Weather Prophets' Mayflower and Wasted Youth's Wild & Wandering."

4. First Concert-
"Be Bop Deluxe & The Steve Gibbons Band: Wolverhampton Civic Hall Dec 1976."

5. Favorite Bass Player-
"Dave Allen from Gang of Four"

LA-based Fonda self-released an EP and full-length CD before hooking up with Hidden Agenda for their new album The Strange and the Familiar. A current Parasol Mail Order top seller, TSATF showcases the band's blissful collision of female vocals, sunny West Coast pop and shoegazery rock. Prior to Fonda, David Newton was a member of the British band Mighty Lemon Drops. Fonda recently wrote and recorded an end title song for the new Robert Rodriguez movie Spy Kids.

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