About Me
Good reviews are our stock in trade!!!!but the gigs are better....{{{{{{{{{FROM TIME OUT NEW YORK 5 stars out of 6}}}}}}}}}}}} Singer-guitarist Dave Shuford possesses a deep, woodsy baritone and the confident intonation of a master storyteller. In a world populated by meh-rate bar bands, Shuford and his crack quartet are our best saloon band : listen to After Hours, Shuford’s second album as D. Charles Speer but his first with the Helix, and you’ll have trouble not thinking of dusty roads, big skies and rye whiskey served in bottles marked xx.What makes the group’s getting-by-in-hard-times boogie rock so commanding is that many of the players also perform with veteran experimental combos: Shuford and bassist Jason Meagher—who’s responsible for the production, polished but not slick—are from No Neck Blues Band and Coach Fingers, while guitarist Marc Orleans is in Sunburned Hand of the Man. So when these freewheeling bandits hit full gallop—Hans Chew’s rollicking piano is key—you’ll notice psychedelic fires backlighting the songs. And you won’t think this is anybody’s side project.That power notwithstanding, Shuford’s authoritative singing is the main attraction. On “Guns in the Hills†he describes just one of many situations coming off the rails: “Storm is rising, sky goes black now… And you feel it in the air?/?The fabric’s startin’ to tear.†Here and throughout After Hours, Shuford’s untroubled tone proves he’s intimate with some kind of truth, but savors the winding path that leads to it. —Mike Wolf{{{{{{{{{{{{FROM YOUR FLESH MAG (REVIEW BY JAMES JACKSON TOTH)}}}}Record of the month is D Charles Speer and The Helix’s handsomely packaged After Hours LP on the newly minted Black Dirt label. Speer and his Helix offer up the kind of psychedelic Bakersfield stew you always hope you’ll be lucky enough to procure from one of our nation’s truck stops, though ol’ Red Sovine never sang lyrics like “Don’t ever say ‘man I’ll never’ / Lest I mark your back with my braided leather.†The Helix, for their part, is a backing band worthy of envy, their dustbowl gallop is the perfect accompaniment to Speer’s surrealist trucker boogie. The band is consistently tasteful, even with lap steel, piano, and organ all vying for attention in the mix. They never do too much or too little, but color each song with a superb stoniness, creating the listening equivalent of those fuzzy Grand Funk album covers that made you feel high even if you hadn’t smoked. Constant local gigging in New York City has rendered the band tighter than a bull’s ass during fly season, and .. Hours, they exhibit all the spunk and confidence of a Muscle Shoals family reunion. Not bad for a bunch of city boys. Still, Speers is clearly the star here. In his strong but easy voice, he sounds like a young Jerry Jeff Walker, singing about heads decaying in deer bellies and feasts of puna butter (whatever the hell that is). Speer’s baritone belies a stoic sort of ‘seen it all’ weariness not found on many records produced north of the bible belt or more recently than the Nixon administration. “Guns in the Hills†conjures Nashville Skyline-era Dylan, while “Sit Right There†is perhaps the loveliest serenade ever played on a bouzouki. The lyrics are fantastic throughout, populated by colorfully named characters like Uncle Ernie, Cheese Frog and Warden San Martino. A macrophage of madness, indeed. {{{{{{{{{{FROM THE VENERABLE SILTBLOG}}}}}}}}}}} The 360 Sounds Of.....D. Charles Speer's "Some Forgotten Country' LPI don't think I've listened to nothin from the No Neck Blues camp since...whew, hard to say. There's acorns what's growed into oaks in the period of time I'm talkin about. I got so's I didn't yin nor yang w/their.....aura. It weren't nothin personal, just seemed that we owned alot've the same records but they wanted to be'em & I didn't. It's like some of them Civil War buffs. They like to get dressed up, go out & have them reenactments. I'm happy just readin the books. That's the way the boat floats is all. There's been plenty of NNCK spinoffs or "side projects" over the yrs too, some I know, most I (probably) don't. For instance this lp from D. Charles Speer. On any other occasion I might ramble on about how he'd be a descendant of Albert Speer (you know, the great architect) or perhaps the black sheep of them singin christians, The Speer Family. But tucked inside was a letter from a fella named Dave Shuford what's a member of the No Neck's & this here is his (& I quote) "songwriting project". If you's wanna roll your eyes, it's okay. At face value it'd be easy to dismiss it as another hat tossed in the ring of the urban folkie trend & let's face it, it just ain't the same since they outlawed smokin in the coffee houses. But in his own way Shuford (as D. Charles Speer) has trancended what you might usually assume from most contempo stool sitters (Fahey worship, Celtic harmony, Buckley ache, etc.) & offers up a polished effort that's both left of & dead on center. You can tell the guy's been a dutiful student of the genre & there seems to be no one he ain't heard what hasn't seeped into his encyclopedic cranium. Ably separatin the wheat from the chafe, 'Some Forgotten Country' has been nothin short of a Goddamn pleasure to listen to on every spin. For me what seems prominent is a vocal resemblance to David Blue crossed w/the emotive & hypnotic intensity of Michael Chapman's guitar style. You might hear Cohen or Kristofferson, maybe even certain pluckers 'n players what recorded for Takoma, Riverboat or Vanguard. If that's what makes it work you, then so be it. But the main thing is IT WORKS. If you've been jonesin for a shot of Village Rye chased w/a pint of Cornish Ale, D. Charles Speer is a barkeep you need to get to know.I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
