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| You can have Freakwater news & tour dates sent to your Inbox by joining the Freakwater Yahoogroup or subscribing to the mailing list. Also, visit 'em at myspace. New Tour Dates! Freakwater will open six shows for the duo She & Him late this month. She & Him is the indie/country/pop project of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel. Here's an NPR story about the group. Wednesday, July 23, The Opera House, Toronto, Ontario Freakwater Returns With Their LP, Thinking of You. . .
When Dylan sings "she knows there's no success like failure, and that failure's no success at all", he may as well be singing about Freakwater. Fiercely independent and totally disregarding of musical trends, Janet Bean and Catherine Irwin have made some of the finest country records ever put down, yet they're virtually invisible to the country music audience. They've cultivated a passionate fan base, but it's so diffused that making any real money touring seems impossible. Perhaps their fortunes will improve upon the release their new record, Thinking of You. . ., but perhaps not. Problem is, Freakwater's music is faithful to the spirit, but not the letter, of country music's laws. As a result, they live a bastardly life, always on the outside of any side there is. "People with a punk background may think we're purists, but country fans think we're freaks," Irwin said in 1995. And that perception hasn't really changed.
Freakwater could be considered the primeval "alt-country" band - their 1989 debut album predates by a year Uncle Tupelo's No Depression, the album cited as the cornerstone of the alt-country movement. Accompanied by the bass of Dave Gay, who has played with them from the beginning, Freakwater has been cited as the most traditionally-grounded band of that genre. Tradition's just a starting point for Freakwater, though: They move into uncharted territory with each record, using a honky tonk, bluegrass, or countrypolitan template to create songs which are unique to the point of being, um, freakish. Freakwater is propelled by what has been called "acerbic harmonies", a wrenching but wonderful sound which goes straight back to Sara and Maybelle Carter's original prescription: Keep it plaintive, rough, and real. (The pleasure of listening to Catherine & Janet sing is sort of like the pleasure that can be taken from from weeping.) Lyrically, however, Freakwater departs from the morality & themes of traditional country music. They write from a place more black than blues, and have referred more than once to their music as "evil". Though they may have excommunicated themselves from country's songbooks, Freakwater's work still has plenty of appeal to anybody who's suffered or has an large axe to grind; that is, most everybody. Under stress as the new century came aound, Freakwater ground to a halt; later, Catherine and Janet released solo records in 2002 and 2003 which couldn't have sounded more different. But the artistic separation of these two, friends since teens, couldn't last. "The only aspect of music that I truly enjoy is singing vocal harmonies," Catherine said in 2002. "The sound of two voices singing at the same time is a beautiful thing - everything else is a chore." Thinking of You. . ., the product of their reunion, is their first LP in six years. "I love singing with Catherine, and I miss it," Janet said in 2003. "I sort of view it like tennis: you can play it into your 80's, you just play it a little slower. I don't want it to go away." If precedent is any indication, Freakwater will continue their long, lonely journey as the careers of other artists rise, peak, and fall. - by newoldtymer, freakwater.net . . .and the critics dig it, too: "It’s always nice when friends return after a time away and that’s exactly how Thinking Of You feels." -JunkMedia "The harmonies of Irwin and Bean have never sounded better." -Allmusic "Country music doesn't get any less alt" -Splendid "Tears are jerked with less shame and to greater effect than ever before." -HoustonPress "Steeped in rural tradition." -Billboard "Thinking Of You is Catherine Irwin and Janet Bean's seventh album as Freakwater, and it could be their most fully realized." - The Onion's AV Club "Songs styled from a rural past, but gripped with urban dread. It’s the primal punk spirit of the Carter Family or the Stanley Brothers cutting into the present." -Uncut "Fifteen years on, Freakwater continues to make profoundly lovely, humanistic records." -No Depression "Freakwater's stylistic vein is a vehicle for genuine sentiment, and not just an archaic re-enactment" -Eye.net "Freakwater still occupies a most necessary place in today’s country landscape. (Their) best yet? Yep." -Bumpershot
illustration by tomas <a href="http://www.freakwater.net"><img src="http://www.freakwater.net/images/fwicon2.jpg"></a>
2008 News
Freakwater played Barking Legs Theater on Friday, March 21st, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and also at a private party the following evening. Go here to see an image series from Friday's show. Below is a video from Barking Legs. Here and here are some more. Also, some choice mp3's from that night: Cloak of Frogs, "potholder grids", and Gone to Stay.
Saturday's show was underwritten by a small group of fans who wanted to to bring their favorite band out of hibernation. It was a Freak fest to be sure - both nights were intense, fun, and convivial events!
On Thursday, January 10th, an ensemble of musicians, including Janet Bean as well as Jon Langford and Sally Timms from the Mekons, performed at the House of Blues Parish Room in New Orleans. This performance was for the benefit of Sweet Home New Orleans, an umbrella organization for 14 non-profit agencies serving New Orleans' music community. SHNO provides relocation, housing, and social services to musicians in need. Here's a photo from the event, see others here.
Janet Bean is collaborating with Jim Elkington and Nick Macri (of The Zincs), Fred Lonberg-Holm, and Charles Rumback as The Horse's Ha. The group recorded at the end of January for a future CD release. The Horse's Ha will play in Chicago at Schuba's on June 21st and June 28th at Corbett V. Dempse, 1120 N Ashland, upstairs from the Dusty Groove. Stream six Horse's Ha songs at their myspace page. Here's a sketch of the band by Dimitry:
Catherine Irwin, meanwhile, is part of an ensemble called Brett Eugene Ralph's Kentucky Chrome Revue, who played most recently at Air Devil's Inn in Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday, January 5th. Read an interview with Brett, who says some nice things about Catherine, here.
2007 News Thrill Jockey released Plum on December 4th, a 7" vinyl box set of Thrill Jockey artists covering the songs of other Thrill Jockey artists. The cool thing is that Freakwater is covered more than any other Thrill Jockey artist - 3 times: Califone covers "Jewel", Bobby Conn "Washed in the Blood", and Thalia Zedek "Flat Hand". Freakwater perform a Zincs song in that collection. Eleventh Dream Day is on it, too.
Buy the box set here.
Freakwater headlined an all-day event at the Hideout in Chicago called A Day in the Country on June 24th:
See more photos from the event here. T'was a dream set list: Waitress Song, Hero/Heroine, Binding Twine, My Old Drunk Friend, Washed in the Blood, Gone to Stay, Forgettable Song, Dog Gone Wrong, Cloak of Frogs, Heaven, Raised Skin, Louisville Lip, and Crazy Man. Supporting Catherine and Janet were Ryan Hembrey on bass and Brian Wilkie on pedal steel. Several people reported that it was the best Freakwater show they'd seen. Reportedly, after they played "Louisville Lip", Catherine said, "Thanks a lot," and made to leave, but Janet said, "We've got one more song." "'Oh yeah," Catherine replied, "That was so good I thought we were finished." Janet Bean assisted in selecting songs for the Folksongs of Illinois CD series, released by the Illinois Humanities Council, and contributed a track for Volume 1. She performed along with Bucky Halker, John Rice, and others at the CD release party at Martyrs' in Chicago on June 1st. Here's a blog entry about the show, along with some photos. Read an article about the series' creation here.
Noise Pollution Records has released Bold Beginnings: An Incomplete Collection of Louisville Punk 1978-1983. Catherine and Janet's punk past (The Dickbrains and Skull of Glee, respectively) is captured here, along with pioneers No Fun, The Endtables, Babylon Dance Band, Blinders, Malignant Growth, Monsters, Strict-9, and Your Food. Read a Freakwater-centric essay about Louisville punk rock at this site's reading room. View an archive of pertinent Louisville artifacts here. Buy the CD here. WFPK's Marion Dries produced an excellent 3-part series in connection with the record which includes interviews with many of the scene's key figures.
Older Freakwater News Buy the Thinking of You LP from Thrill Jockey or Amazon now. There's lots of good reading surrounding the album and tour: Go to this site's forum to read album reviews, interviews, and concert previews cut-and-pasted from around the Internet. Download Jolie Holland's cover of Catherine Irwin's "My Old Unlucky Home Far Away" by right-clicking here. This mp3 was ripped off from archive.org. Bloodshot Records and Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music have teamed up to release the CD Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook: Volume One, an "overview of songs that have thrived in the centuries-old oral traditions of American folk cultures." Bloodshot has made Janet Bean's contribution, "Deep River Blues", one of two free downloads from it. Read more about the record and get the download here. Janet Bean created these web pages to teach children about the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, a broad set of initiatives seeking to relieve extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. Freakwater played the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco on October 9th, 2006. Here is the fw.net forum HSB thread, which has a very fine series of sh0w photos courtesy of James L., including these below. Join the mailing list to be informed of future shows.
Here is a Hardly Strictly photo of the excellent multi-instrumentalist Jon Spiegel, who has supported Freakwater off and on for years:
Eleventh Dream Day, the rock band Freakwater's Janet Bean plays drums in, released a new CD, Zeroes and Ones, on April 25th. Preview a track from the new record at thrilljockey.com. EDD performed live at KEXP on September 9, 2006. Here is a MySpace Eleventh Dream Day fan page. Thrill Jockey Records has a whole cache of their vids up on YouTube, including "Hero/Heroine", "Lullabye", and, finally! - "My Old Drunk Friend", which had not been available for streaming on the internet for maybe a couple of years. The Danish band Homesick Hank released on June 6th, 2006 an LP, Leave It Behind, which was recorded at Rove Studio in Louisville, Kentucky by Paul Oldham. Catherine Irwin sings on two tracks, and Will Oldham is on the record as well. Check out the BoomChix' rockin' cover of Freakwater's "Crazy Man"! Chris B., multi-media producer for the Chicago Tribune, was kind enough to send this link to video clips of Freakwater and other Chicago notables performing for the benefit of Gary Schepers. Freakwater is profiled (and interviewed) on this internet stream of an April 30, 2006 broadcast of "To the Best of Our Knowledge" from Wisconsin Public Radio. It's nice! You'll need RealPlayer. Start the stream at 30:45. Listen to Freakwater's Jan 18, 2006 performance of Ring of Fire at Vera in Groningen (thanks Harold Z.)! NOTE: A nice person wrote to say this mp3 was clipped halfway through. That was not intended. It's fixed now and available if you want to grab it. Thrill Jockey Records has launched a new
site. In their vault, you can stream the videos for "Lullaby"
and "Hero/Heroine"! Freakwater is featured performing their new
song "Jewel" in the film Burn to Shine Vol. II.
Link: "Burn to Shine is a film series produced by
Fugazi's Brendan Canty and directed by film maker Christoph Green.
We travel from town to town and film bands performing in houses
that are about to be demolished or burned to the ground. They
document the doomed house, the bands, and the demolition, put
it together in a 45 minute movie, put it out on DVD and move on
to the next town. Each DVD/town has a different curator that is
entrenched in the respective music scene and who can pick out
what he or she considers their favorite bands. This allows us
to put the bands in a geocentric context. (The DVD) features Wilco,
Shellac, Tortoise, Freakwater, Tight Phantoms, Pit er Pat, The
Ponys, The Lonesome Organist, and the Red Eyed Legends."
Buy the DVD here. Here's the myspace.com Freakwater page. You can view the news that appeared on this page prior to October, 2003 by downloading this Adobe Acrobat file, and the news from then to July, 2005 on this one. Keep your eyes peeled for Jack K., a big ol'
Freakwater fan in Cleveland! ;) Here's Shukowinz homemade vid for Freakwater's song, "Smoking Daddy"!
Curious about the Second Street Bridge?
Freakwater's "My Old Drunk Friend":
This vid for "Louisville Lip" was assembled by Herb79. (Disclaimer: freakwater.net is sanctioned, but not maintained, by the band).
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