the Sturgill Simpson c/d

for those of us without the patience for the rolling country thread

lol this was supposed to say The Sturgill Simpson thread

but I guess we can also discuss THE Sturgill Simpson

like him, wish he'd enunciate better

Yeah, after many of my friends raving about him, when I got around to hearing him he's kinda like honky tonk Eddie Vedder.

He writes better lyrics than vedder ever did.

His cover of "The Promise" is stunning.

Hard or soft 'G'?

Hard

Ta. Liking Metamodern Sounds on first listen

Yeah it's pretty great

Just got it the other day myself. Not disappointed.

"Yeah, after many of my friends raving about him, when I got around to hearing him he's kinda like honky tonk Eddie Vedder."

thanks for ruining the recod for me now!

I liked it a lot when I first heard it, and I guess I still do, but it kind of feels like he uses the exact same songwriting trick on every song.

That thing where the verse sticks on the I with a little V7 thrown in and then the chorus comes a-roarin in on the IV

he uses the exact same songwriting trick on every song

hallmark of classic songwriting

well, few country singers have the Gene Clark/Parsons talent.

i think the production is somewhat too clean and upfront.

still, it's better than most of the genre

Yeah I found it really refreshing when I first got into it, then I just bored of it quickly because it felt so samey. But it has a great sound and some great lyrics.

thanks for ruining the recod for me now!

Haha sorry, I'm not even entirely sure where my Vedder comparison came from! Sturgill's not yarly at all so much as mumbly. There's definitely stuff about him I like though.

i have found myself returning more to the last one even though i normally have a little bit of a year-end-list mania that keeps me focused on new releases instead. probably he seems less awesomely fatalistic on the newer one otherwise i'd spin it.

wait ... hard G? is that really right?

I doubt it

rhymes with gurgle? c'mon now

http://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/sturgill

http://youtu.be/_70HJMikcBo?t=2m46s

dude's got pipes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eWJmN8D820

Simpson's guitarist is really good. I love the solo on this one. I'd have to figure they are using the studio echo chamber on the solo, being that is a famous one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK4UFSNGRdE

FYI I live in Kentucky where this guy is a something of a local hero and I've never heard it pronounced any way other than to rhyme with 'Virgil.'

Album is great, hope he continues in the 'Reptilian overlords and DMT' mode, and hope he keeps whoever is playing lead guitar on this thing, damn.

Yeah his lead player is siiiiick as fuuuuuck

good interview with the guitarist: http://www.thefader.com/2014/09/18/another-country-interview-laur-joamets-sturgill-simpsons-estonian-guitarist

sturgill's a damn good guitarist too.

opening for Willie seems like a no-brainer

i've been off the country wavelengths for a while but just took a listen to this - as good as advertised!

his voice is very much in the classic merle mode and i can totally dig it

as anyone points out, correctly, he sounds a LOT like waylon

i'm not even a drug fiend but the lyrics to turtles all the way down are fantastic

estonian dude is becoming an american pretty quick when he says things like "amen to that"

next interview he'll be all "you're darn tootin!"

There must be a hundred guitar pickers in Nashville muttering 'coming over here, taking our jobs' like some UKIP neanderthal in a dead English seaside town...

saw these guys open for Willie Nelson last night and they were straight fire. Laur Joamets is indeed an amazing guitarist, he was very much the star of the show, although Sturgill is a pretty sick guitarist too.

Xpost There seem to be a lot of Aussies in Nashville.

i like him fine, but i'm reactionary wrt his rise in popularity - a) i'm not so fond of the voice (nor waylon's, of which he's too derivative), and b) he's caught too much of the dudebro-ish fetish for rock-enough-to-not-be-uncool "outlaw"/druggy country males that usually extends to dreck like Hank 3 and rarely crosses the gender barrier

i'm kind of a fan but he's not as good as probably a dozen other current country artists i can think of off the top of my head tbh

and the backlash begins

I think he's great. He's a great musician, his band is great, I like his singing and I like the songs he covers along with his originals. I like Waylon, and I like that he is not afraid to sound like Waylon. I don't get a dudebro vibe from him at all, if anything there's sort of a jam band thing going on at times.

i'm kind of a fan but he's not as good as probably a dozen other current country artists i can think of off the top of my head tbh

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Wednesday, December 31, 2014 6:19 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

want this list

i think it's right to be wary of the "i hate all current country music, but i like this" line that so often accompanies praise of sturgill simpson, but that has very little or nothing to do with sturgill simpson.

i'm a little amazed that a country fan can dislike waylon's voice (see benbbag above), but i have enough non-acquired tastes to give it a pass, i suppose. (btw christgau didn't like waylon's voice much either.) but i think waylon's voice is a thing of beauty, and as much as i love strugill simpson, he can't (yet) approach it in subtlety and flexibility.

I'm a country fan always suspicious of Waylon. Not hard. A fair amount of outlaw bathos.

Btw this guy closer to early eighties "Big City" Hag.

I'll totally cop to not being a country fan and being hardly familiar with Waylon and having never heard of Sturgill Simpson prior to last night. Still was a good show though...

i guess i go so deep with waylon -- i think i have every LP of his, at least up until the late 80s -- that i forget about the whole outlaw thing, which is really not a huge part of his oeuvre all told, even if it defined his public persona for a lot of people.

watch this and see if you don't love it -- his singing, the drumming, his minimalist guitar solo, everything:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1-_cZoUOEE

it's a freaker!

Nothing about his Willie Nelson style concept record (which also happens to feature ol' Willie himself)? It's great, pretty much same lineup as the Cuttin' Grass sessions afaict.

it is really good!

so do i have this right? Stu:
- made a couple real good records on his own
- got signed to a big label
- got pissed off at that label
- spent a bunch of the label's money flying to Japan a few times to make an anime film to go alongside his "fuck my label" album
- said "fuck my label" and got out of his deal (can't remember if he got dropped or the deal was up)
- went home and made three good bluegrass records with basically the best pickers in the world

that's pretty badass

That's essentially what I understand.

The bluegrass albums are ridiculously good and were way underrated last year, especially Vol. 2. The new one is his most reverent effort to date, drawing on old trail and cowboy music, bluegrass, and traditional country and western. His singing's never been better, too. Can't fail with a song about a good boy dog but "Juanita" is probably my favorite.

new album good?

Very good, I'd say.

But I also think he's best when he either leans into self-indulgence or when he goes full-on trad country, rather than when he tries to hedge bets between the two. This is much more the former than the latter, so there are some salty genre purists.

The Ballad of Dood and Juanita is awesome. Sounds like I should be spending time with the bluegrass series too.

Very good, I'd say.

But I also think he's best when he either leans into self-indulgence or when he goes full-on trad country, rather than when he tries to hedge bets between the two. This is much more the former than the latter, so there are some salty genre purists.

― jon_oh, Friday, July 12, 2024 5:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

the first half of this is really great

I should get back with him, that "shitty Eliminator" record he made me lose touch

i listen to the cuttin grass releases a ton.

yeah i dug those

i like this new one, he’s def back in his oldschool waylon bag more -i like him in that mode

Yes the bluegrass records are incredible

listened to this yesterday and would be curious to hear what influences you all are picking up, as its overarching sound felt more indebted to 70s smooth rock -- the kind that melded country, blues, and easy listening -- than to anything I've heard in the last 4 decades of country music. gone are the fiddles of "Dood" and "Cuttin Grass," the horns of "Sailor's Guide"...here, he's happy to indulge in an electric guitar solo or a prog-esque pairing of electric piano and operatic strings. much of the album he seems to be deliberately singing in a higher register, less interested in harkening back to Waylon or Johnny than to something closer to Jimmy Buffett, maybe?

yeah its def 70s rock/country/easy listening, a bit flying burrito bros. i think you could connect ~ramblin man era waylon to this. buffet connection works too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Q0jqDGf2I

I’m digging back in the catalog today, finding myself newly re-appreciating the records I was meh about after watching his set at OutsideLands last night: him & his band rocked the fuck out they were so, so good.

The set lists and vids from this tour…hoo boy. They’ve been playing three hours, tons of covers, stuff from across his catalog. Going next week.

I saw him last week. Played 2 hours and 53 minutes w/ no break, and Stu talked a little but, but not much. I think it was the longest continuous set of live music I've ever seen.

They sounded great, of course. I got a bit bored at points, but I'm very much not a jam guy or a guitar solo geek. It was more impressive than mind-blowing, for me at least. (I enjoyed the two-hour Tyler Childers show I saw in August more.)

his singing is so good on the new album

I loved Metamodern Sounds but had been cool on what I'd heard since. Now my Twitter feed has been like 70% Sturgill propaganda for the past few days, so I need to dig into this new album and maybe revisit the older stuff. He's in town on my birthday so that might be a nice way to celebrate.

lol and I just checked and of course it's sold out. secondary market I guess if he really starts tickling my fancy.

Show was maybe one of the 10 best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds. No opener, no encore, just three straight hours of absolute rippin rock n roll with freewheeling jams and barely even a moment break between tunes. I was blown away by the musicianship on that stage — they are an incredibly gifted group, and Sturgill is a far better guitarist than I gave him credit. (Just watched that YouTube above and it’s kind of hilarious how he’s unable to dumb anything down.) The whole show felt like something out of a bygone era, like what it must have felt like to see Zeppelin live, maybe. Most revelatory were the Sound & Fury songs — that album is easily my least favorite of his, but nearly all of the night’s most memorable moments came from it.

I kinda regret not going, but I've been pretty wiped out, and the idea of even three hours of awesome sounded too much to take. But I've heard nothing but great things about this tour, not least because Laur Joamets is back. Between him and Simpson it must have been like shred city up there.

I wish I would have been able to go, I've watched that Outside Lands set on YouTube like four times now, he's absolutely killing it right now.

wonder if he's bringing the same group with him to Europe?

intrigues

intrigued*

That's a good question. Those dates are all listed under the umbrella of the "Why Not?" tour, so I'd think it'd be the same but I'm not sure how popular he is there and if it allows for the costs of the full band.

this isn’t really anything but his current bass player played w Margo Price on her last tour, we saw him w her in SF — we only noticed him bc he seemed like he was stoned out of his mind (ie more stoned than the band at least), just grinning away at everything but holding it down bass-wise lol

Austin City Limits festival set tonight was killer

think ive listened to his tiny desk at least once a month since it came out a decade ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5cMqD0WqYE
perfect guitar playing

i have tix to see him next Wed here in Sacramento

no opener! soooooo excited

sick

he's here in a couple weeks, tix are $144! wtf

they def were not that much in Sac - yikes

Dude played for three straight hours on Wed night in Sacramento, no breaks, no talking except for a brief how yall doing <3 … he is truly my platonic ideal of live music right now, the whole show was fucking heaven start to finish

and the band just fucking WHIPS ASS, just tight as hell.

nice!!!

Xp yep

new album March 13
lets fuckin go

https://www.mutinyaftermidnight.com/

and a manifesto!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUqvAXzAIBl/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

I regret missing the last tour, hope this means he's hitting the road for more epic sets.

@johnnyblueskies
...
WHAT'S BEHIND THE "MUTINY AFTER MIDNIGHT"?

The majority of this band has been on the road together on and off and on again for over thirteen years. We have all grown sometimes
and sometimes apart. But we've never felt more "together" than right now. I couldn't be happier.
This is the band I've dreamed about being in since middle school. Last year we did two complete laps around the U.S. and a tour of Western
surope. Between gigs this past september, we went into a brand new gorgeous studio in ashville rennessee. mspired heavily from endless hours on the bus watching old clips of the great fusion-funk band 'Stuff, and revisiting off-the-beaten-track concept records like Marvin Gaye's "In Our Lifetine", where, in what looks like the end of the world, the artist's response is, 'Let's dance and make love."...we decided to make an album centered firaly on groove.
We started every day from scratch with a basic groove, I wrote the songs and lyrics in the moment on-the-spot, and everyone
established their individual parts servicing the songs and not the individual ego.

You can break down the songs on this album into two categories-the dark state of the world and the bright state of love. Light lives in darkness just as darkness lives in light. I have come to find over time that it's far easier to just embrace contradictions rather than attempting to resolve them.

Hence Jonnny Blue skies & the Dark Clouds

The enjoyment we experienced in making this album of songs will be quite evident for the listener. But It's a lot more than joy. You can call it a mutiny,..an open rebellion.
In any case, despite the motivations behind it the mutiny in the studio turned into a party. To categorize Mutiny is tricky, but many will no doubt come with their glass ceilings to try. we believe the term American Music pretty much says it All. And for all the big ideas behind the 'Mutiny,' there's a simple goal we as a band set out to achieve: to make a dance record.

So this protest, this mutiny is really more about the primary dance. The dance of all creation. To be clear it is a protest against
oppression and suppression, and the onlu tried & tested true antidote to that is pure unfiltered unapologetic relentless disco hedonism.

My voice is just one element in this band and at all times this band is far too good to ever be overshadowed by a vocalist. So I Just want to say how grateful I am to be a part of this band of brilliant musicians-drummer and backing vocalist Miles Miller, lead guitarist Laur
Joamets, bassist kevin Biack and Keyboardist/saxist Robbie Crowell. Each is a star in his own right. And together we reflect each other’s shine.
I've spent the greater part of the last few years trying to escape what we shall refer to as "the static". Mostly through intense travels.
One thing I will say based on observations about the French is their unmatched ability to threaten injustice with a good time. If they
feel infringed upon by overreach in even the slightest form, French people w simply go on a country wide labor strike, shut down the subways and the economy and completely fill the streets with music and people from all walks of life dancing together, sometimes butt ass naked on top of bus stops. It's refreshing and beyond inspiring to witness this type of manifested unity in humanity. You could say this is where the idea was born.

Touring behind Mutiny is something we greatly look forward to. Something we will cherish. Just as I have come to see and harness my own neurodivergence and the weaponized autism of our collective members as a superpower in the studio -the same is true live. were goin. out to play arenas and theaters with a vengeance. No opening act. We're going to take every minute the venue gives us. We're gonna rock this Mutiny as hard as humanly possible. It is our privilege and our honor because our fans deserve it.

Beyond the static. the only thinks that truly matter are the sounds we make and the ears that absorb them. Everything wont be for everyone, but everything tends to eventually find everyone it was meant for. You win some, you lose some, but in the end you're left with the real ones.
And the real ones are for life.

After over a decade of navigating and charting the depressions of this Industrys cold and salty trenches, I have found my true Nonth. I now wake up every day with the sole intention of doing my best at … simply being a pirate. And by now everybody knows our crew runs the tightest and deadliest ship on the water. This band has less than zero interest in accolade's, trophy's, or being the definitive this or that of our generation. We're in search of something far more meaningful and rewarding… and we’re collecting heads for the journey.

So with that all said, to any and all who see our flag flying off your stern, know this...

There will be no quarter nor mercy offered nor given.

-JBS

(transcribed from press release/letter posted on X, Instagram etc) — typos are mine

Great news, looking at cover art and his manifesto hoping he’s going the full glitterball route.

If it’s anything like Shooter Jennings tribute to Giorgio Moroder I’ll be very happy.

Always a good opportunity to post this old nugget for anyone that's never seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrsrOB0zNQ

Like, it's insane to me that, say, a Morgan Wallen fan could watch that and think, nah, I'm good with Morgan Wallen.

YES that SNL performance goes so hard, it’s a real all-timer for me

and its a great appetizer for what the band is like live: like if you thought ~that~ ruled wait til you get 2 hours uninterrupted of that

I saw him (and most of that band?) behind "Metamodern Sounds." He was great, but yeah, two hours of the above would rule.