This Is The SOULED AMERICAN Thread

I only wish. Great, wonderful, etc. band, and I'm forever in the debt of the 3rd edition of the Trouser Press guide to alerting me of their existence.

The Baptist Generals thread got me thinking of them again (they're probably closest to the fucked up sound of SA). Such an overlooked band, even during the 'yallternative,' insurgent country, Palace Bros glut of the late 90s

They were from Chicago, correct?

I've always wanted to hear this band.
I really like what I've heard of Scott Tuma's solo stuff.

Totally different. Really no way to describe them but I'll try. Imagine a loose, drunken country band playing all electric instruments, with a bass player that sounds like he wants to be in Gang of Four, and unhinged, beautiful - but never precious - vocals. An inexplicable feeling of whimsy dominates despite the fact that most of the songs are slow and sad. Like, they're hilarious and sad at the same time. And they cover Little Feat. Pretty much the perfect band.

sounds great.

I never thought this band was quite as amazing as their biggest boosters make em out to be (like that description sounds above great, but it only works quite that well on a couple of their best songs) but they are still quite good. I have both tUMULt reissues, but I've never ventured farther. Perhaps I am missing something.

The Rough Trade albums are better, I think, Alex. The later the album, the stranger and less tuneful they get, but FE / Flubber (collected on one CD last I checked) and Around the Horn / Sonny (ditto) are probably the best to start with. Notes Campfire makes Scott Tuma's solo stuff make more sense.

this sounds cool.

"sold american" by kinky friedman is a really touching song.

Yeah I always wondered if they got their name from that album, because there is also a book by that name

I wish Kinky had more songs like that (although that album is one of his most listenable)

I love Souled American - they played Normal IL when I was at and directly after graduation from Illinois State Uni., hung out at the bar I hung out and dj'd at and were all around good guys - I think for a while most of the band lived in the Bloomington/Normal area of Central IL. I recently saw another Bloomington IL band - Wiplot - that had a couple of buddies in it and their drummer couldn't make the Chicago show so Jamey Barnard filled in on drums - totally cool guy. Another big B/N band from this time period was 'The Something Brothers' - god they were so good - seek out their recordings - Joe Shanahan at Metro Chicago has a standing offer to hold a show for them if they ever get back together (they all seem to play in various IL bands now - notably Tommy O'Donnell in 'the Ike Reilly Assassination' and his solo stuff and stuff with 'the Spelunkers' is excellent too.
I always dug the fact that John Darnielle liked Souled American.

sorry to interrupt the eulogies but i'd rather listen to a herd of farting cows than to frozen again.

probably my favorite band of all time.

I bought all the albums on cassette back when there was a flood of Rough Trade releases in the dollar bin at Camelot. Didn't make much of an impression on me at 15, but I wonder what I'd think at 30-something. Too bad I don't have them anymore.

Flubber and Fi are total classics. Also, I mentioned on the "Recommend for me records from the early '70s that sound similar to NEW MORNING" thread that there's an album from 1972 by a guy called Bobby Charles, which sounds exactly like Souled American. It's freaky. Anyone into Flubber or Fi should totally check it out, if only for the excellent cover picture of him being close with a dog.
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd900/d902/d90209c8g2p.jpg

I'm gonna buy this album today based solely on that recommendation. Thanks!

Please let us know how those farting cows are working for you.

Souled Fucking American! I have such fond memories of seeing this band all over Chicago in the late 80's and part of the '90's. The two things I found most striking about them was the off-kilter style of the drummer, Jamey Barnard. Because of his playing the songs lurched rather than swung. And, secondly, we used to get such a kick out the bassist named, I think, Joe. His playing was fantastic, he made that bass fart and bubble. The way he wriggled and stomped across the stage (usually wearing the same pair of dirty Wrangler jeans) made for a great show There was a while there that I thought they were the greatest band ever.

While those early shows were transcendent at times, the last time I saw them, not exactly sure when that was, it was just the singer/guitarist and the bass player. It was, a painful dirge (but still entertaining.)I am not sure if they were trying to be tuneless or not. They both looked so dishevelled. It looked to me like drugs may have gotten the best of this band.

I've never even seen a picture of them

Saw them in London around 1990 or so, playing at this horrible club called Subterania in Ladbroke Grove. There were about 15 people watching them plus the goth support band and their friends all yammering away at the bar, which actually made for quite a good scenario to appreciate the mournful loser-ness of the music (don't think the band would have seen it the same way). Some MM journo was bigging them up at the time, maybe Bob Stanley? Anyway, they were great. Saw them again a few weeks later supporting Camper Van Beethoven, they went down a lot worse than the other support band, The Ordinaires, even though they were way less wanky.

Fe, Flubber, Sonny and Around The Horn are the albums to hear, the later recs are good but relied too much on atmospherics to the detriment of their bizarre melodic sense. If the box set on tUMULt is still available pick it up, it's a gorgeous package.

^^OTM re: the earlier lps. i'd start w/ Around The Horn.

I got that Bobby Charles album when it first came out. One of those studio house party albums of the time, with friends like members of The Band relaxing their "sprung" quality just a bit--re what xgau said, esp. re Big Pink, he had the impression all their stuff was lashed together just so; one slip and all the pieces would go flying--but here (on somebody else's album), they just get a nice wobble on--settling down in the hazy early 70s Alabama trailer with the rest of us boys and girls (good after dinner music).

that Bobby Charles album sounds like if Jerry Jeff Walker made a soul record! In other words, awesomer than the awesomest thing that ever awesomed

Finally getting around to hearing Notes Campfire. My buddy went on tour in Europe and found one in Berlin, naturally.
Anyway...I really fucking love this.

Never heard any of the post-Rough Trade stuff. I love those first four to bits though.

It is on some cosmic next level tip. I have to hear more of the early stuff.
I'll be we've got at least one of em at the community station. I <3 public radio.

Notes Campfire is the greatest album ever recorded by anyone

I prefer Frozen to Notes Campfire but I feel you Hoos

this band has now been better than all other bands for over twenty years

When people talk about a band the way the folks in this thread do it puts all my sensors and critical faculties into a state of suspended animation. I'm listening to Frozen right now and it's quite beautiful but I don't know what to say beyond that and I can't tell how much I really like it.

that Bobby Charles album sounds like if Jerry Jeff Walker made a soul record! In other words, awesomer than the awesomest thing that ever awesomed

― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Monday, 18 February 2008 18:49 (1 year ago)

^^^^^^^^^^^This sounds like my kinda record

This is almost the dictionary definition of a "difficult" band. But clearly they know what they're doing.

All I know is that Fe is such a great record to drink beer and yell along to.

Yeah, they're real shitkickers. If you like Skynyrd or Charlie Daniels, you'll just love these guys.

No seriously, that first album is great sing-a-long stuff.

Via Nick Hennies of the Weird Weeds, what Jamie/Jamey Bernard, earliest drummer of the band, has been up to (at least in part):

http://www.benzieplayboyz.com/bandbios.html

Um wow - Souled American playing Diane Izzo benefit on Oct 2 in Chicago at the Hideout -

http://www.hideoutchicago.com/event/58797/?utm_source=MEL&utm_medium=1033

Can't wait! Maybe this will make up for the the misprinted Bonnie Prince Billy poster I have that has 'Scott Tuna' opening for him - grrr - gonna frame it for yucks ...

Was really hoping this was revived to announce new reissues / new album, but yeah, weird news!

Reissue of Scott Tuma's first two solo albums next month:

https://scissortail.bandcamp.com/album/hard-again-the-river-1-2-3-4

Hey - this is great news - I've only got 'not for nobody' on LP (really good stuff), and I've always wanted to get these.

I picked up "Around the Horn" at a video game store that has some used lps, too. Holy shit I love it so much.
I've only got that and "Notes Campfire" on cassette. Really want to hear the record that falls between them now.
And all the others.

Excited about the Tuma reissues, too!

Should have revived this thread a long time ago now but Scott Tuma's been putting up a LOT of his back catalog on Bandcamp in recent months. Well worth taking the deep dive into (and I should have revived this before yesterday's Bandcamp Friday, I realize!)

https://scotttuma.bandcamp.com/music

Thanks for link, Ned. Scott Tuma has such a unique sound - gets right to the heart of the uncanny in folk music. I interviewed him years ago and he had a fairly bemused reaction to the obvious reverence I was throwing at him.

Also it seems there was a there-and-gone 4-song release from the band itself the other day?

https://www.discogs.com/release/27006438-Souled-American-Dolly

Great news!

after years of trying to find some live sets (the only one I know of that circulated is the Santa Cruz set on the Camper Van Beethoven tour) I got one, from 1999. I can't be objective about this band, it's literally my favorite music anywhere, but wow what a set. if you know me outside of hit me up, I don't want to post the link in public but I'd love to share it with people who love the band.

*outside of here

I'd love a copy of this. What's the year? I wonder if Brian Smith was playing guitar/trumpet at time of recording. Feel free to hit me on ILX email prompt, if you're willing to share!

1999, they're in duo phase at this point. sending now

Thanks so much!

I would also love a copy if that's possible - via ILX mail if works?

done!

Bloody marvellous, thank you!

the whole set is so wonderful to me

Just coming back to say have listened a bunch to this and it's really great. I'd say I've come at this band backwards, inasmuch as I've listened to Scott Tuma way more than any Souled American records. Tuma worries away at several different melodic lines that reappear in his solo stuff, almost like motifs; it's crazy to hear them buried in the stuff he was doing with the band.

yes!! his individual voice in the band is so distinctive and when he went solo it was so cool to go "ah, you're the guy that did THAT."

they're playing 2 shows in Chicago; Tom Adelman/Camden Joy has been helping them get things together for the last year or two. I bought my tickets already, I was gonna go to the Indiana dungeon synth fest that weekend but this band is so important to me and I've never seen them live. the FB says there are only a few tix left, of course acts say that all the time but this isn't a normal act and some of us have been waiting many many years for this moment.

This band’s albums have been absent from streaming services for a long time. This thread revive made me check again and they are there now

Had we missed there's a full website now?

https://www.souledamerican.net/

Tom Adelman aka Camden Joy is the guy who has patiently brought them back into the light -- he and I have been in touch about Souled American since the mid-nineties. It is a pretty exciting time to be a Souled American fan.

Wonderful to see it all happen!

Nice weird show last night. Saw JCLC but didn't want to bother him on the way to the bathroom.

Last night's performance was transcendental. Truly great playing and a time machine for me to seeing them in Bloomington/Normal all those years ago at Gallery/Scotty's Pub. I recorded Saturday's performance and am happy to share, once I get it cleaned up a bit (there were lots of false starts to songs, but perhaps that made them all the more magical - like a wizard divining the right spell). Thanks for the chat and selfie, JCLC. I highly encourage going to see these guys if they're anywhere near ya!

Wow, this is a fun thread to read, lots of enthusiasm and very little of what could sink ILM threads back in those days.

Anyway, completely new to the band thanks to the new Omnivore compilation. Wonderful stuff, the bass player is absolutely bonkers, really didn't expect that aspect.

I have very vague recollections of seeing the name pop up once or twice, but I was not yet 21 by the time they stopped going and never would have had a chance to see 'em. That said, I'm shocked to not have heard about them more often, considering I also spent college in central Illinois and, to a point made upthread, paid attention to a lot of the alt-country around '97-'99, but shocked they never had the profile back then of, say, Whiskeytown or whoever. Better late than never, I suppose.

Bandcamp site offering this now - anxiously awaiting copy! : https://souledamerican.bandcamp.com/merch/unforgetting-flubber-by-camden-joy

Aw yeah

https://souledamerican.bandcamp.com/album/sanctions

I've heard it. It is incredible.

Couldn't pre-order fast enough! They're playing Evanston's Space club on Sun Apr 26 2026.

Oh man a full national tour!

https://www.souledamerican.net/home/#Tour

sweet, they are coming here!