Fri 4/13 @ 8PM
Akron native Tim Easton moved to Columbus to attend The Ohio State University in the mid ’80s, where he hooked up with garage-country band the Haynes Boys in the mid-late ’90s when the alternative country thing was in full swing. That band released a single album and broke up by the end of the decade.
Easton, who now lives in Nashville, drifted for a while, did some traveling and stored up experiences for new material. Since then he’s released eight studio albums of his country-tinged folk pop, with a ninth dropping this week.
The new disc, Paco & the Melodic Polaroids, is named after his Gibson J-45 guitar “Paco,” which he bought in Columbus in 1987; it provides the musical accompaniment on the stripped-down acoustic album, which was recorded direct to lacquer in old-school style at the Earnest Tube, a Bristol, Virginia-based facility co-founded by Cleveland mastering engineer Clint Holley III.
The direct-to-lacquer process captures a single-take performance, cutting a signal directly to the lacquer acetate disc, with no improvements or corrections possible.
“It’s a very raw and pure process that requires real talent on the part of the musician,” says Holley in the album’s press release. “Because it doesn’t involve auto-tune, overdubbing, pitch correction, comping or other audio manipulation, the emphasis is completely on the songs and the performance.”
The songs Easton’s come up with for this project are drenched in the influence of artists who used the process back in the 30s: artists such as the Carter Family, Elmore James (the subject of a song of the same name) and country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers whose “Jimmie’s Texas Blues” is the only cover tune on the album. The blues influence runs throughout the album in tunes like “Broken Hearted Man” or “Another Good Man Down,” a lament on the impact of cocaine. Some adhere to the traditional blues structure while others just catch its stark, hard-luck vibe in Easton’s supple but rough-edged vocals with their nasal twang. “Baby Come Home” has the plaintiveness of indie folk.
He even displays a glint of humor and some timely commentary on “Jesus Protect Me” when he asks to be protected from “your followers, not all of them, just the ones who turn love into fear and hatred” and “the ones who would violate the Constitution and make laws of their opinions.”
The album has another northeast Ohio connection as well; the vinyl disc was pressed in Cleveland at Gotta Groove Recording.
Easton will celebrate the release at Survival Kit Gallery at 78th Street Studios, kicking off a year of extensive national and international touring for Easton. Cleveland musician Lawrence Daniel Caswell opens the show.
The show is free, although donations will be gratefully received. Doors open at 7pm for the 8pm show.