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Frank Hoier is poised at the front of a new wave of Americana roots influenced music. Backed by rock 'n roll prodigy siblings The Weber Brothers, his debut album Lovers & Dollars was self released on Platapus Records June, 7, 2008. Three years ago, Frank Hoier took a bag of clothes, his guitar, and harmonicas to New York City. He quickly became a sought after fixture, making the cover of downtown scene zine Urban Folk Magazine his third month. He plays regularly at the Sidewalk Café and Roots 'n Ruckus @ Jalopy Theatre. His Guthrie-esque anthem, "Jesus Don't Give Tax Breaks To The Rich" has been hailed as the most perfect protest song written yet this millennium, and made the top 50 on Neil Young's anti war song website Living With War Today. He is planning an East Coast tour with indie/rockabilly group, The Weber Brothers in winter 2008.
"This year, it seems as if everybody's heart is in folk music. That everyone who owns an instrument believes he can immediately capture in song the beauty and sorrow of our country's yesteryear. Some of us know better. We know that Frank Hoier is on to something, where not many others are.
Frank is twenty-seven years old, but retains the yellow hair and innocent grin of a child. He is handsome, but not handsome enough to draw a crowd. He does, however, most always succeed in charming his crowd, which generally comprises the loyal Brooklyn-based friends with whom he plays, along with a slew of happy young men and women who've heard of Frank by word of mouth.
You might see him singing duets with Debe Dalton, a skilled banjo player past twice Frank's age, or perhaps with Feral Foster, a seventy-year old Delta bluesman trapped in the body of a twenty-two year old. Whether Frank is accompanied or playing alone, he draws foot stomps and cheers. Except on a few songs, during which his audience is too stunned and touched to make a peep.
He has practiced the ragtime blues guitar picking of Blind Willie McTell, the enthusiasm of Little Richard, and Dylan's skillful lyric delivery. He sings about pretty girls and howling hounds, his worries and his sweetheart. He composes an occasional topical song, but is too clever to offend anyone politically. He jokes about the country's problems, though most can tell that he is only sarcastic because laughing is easier than crying.
His repertoire is half derivative and half his own, but performed with the vigor and conviction of a man guarding his baby from a Kodiak bear. Frank's songs are his babies and one can feel that they are alive. When he plays guitar, you can hear the wood from which the sound resonates. He sings in a clear voice with a slight rasp. It's hard to tell if it's the rasp of an old man, tired of life, or whether it's merely the sound of a voice splitting as it grows.
Sometimes Frank's insides are expressed best in the traditional American songs he never even wrote. He dreams of Southern moonshiners, of twisted farms, of Texas penitentiaries, Juke-joint cocaine cravings, and children watching the old trains come and go. Frank knows that life, too, comes and goes, and his sense of urgency is the palpable force behind his music."
Notes by Elizabeth Butters, 2008
* Best Album, Indie: Frank Hoier, Love Is War
The release of folk singer-songwriter Frank Hoier’s debut album came and went this year with little attention or fanfare, which is too bad, because it’s a hell of a record. Hoier has that rare Dylan-esque gift of writing a song that sounds like it’s been around forever – that mystic, instantly-classic feel. Recorded with next-to-no overdubs at Major Matt Mason USA’s studio, Love Is War finds Hoier trying on a never-ending series of masks – the weary soldier of the title track, the jilted lover of “New York City Girls,†the lonely jailbird of “Heartless Words,†the drunken bootlegger of “Moonshiner†(the sole song on the album that Hoier didn’t write; oddly, it’s one of the few tracks on the album that he still performs live), the young child of “Little Lamplight,†the old man of “Deathbed (of a Rich Man)†– all delivered with the surprising fullness of his acoustic guitar and harmonica and the warmth of his sometimes melancholy, sometimes ironic, but always pretty voice. And it’s the voice that stays with you in the end. I know in my mind that Frank Hoier is a twenty-something kid from LA who talks like a twenty-something kid from the Midwestern heartland, but when he sings of fearing the chain gang, I believe him, just as I believe him when he sings that the New York City girls won’t call you back. And that’s not even mentioning the album’s third song, which is the most perfect protest song written yet this millennium: “Jesus (Don’t Give Tax Breaks).†You owe it to yourself – and your country – to check it out."
-Eric Wolfson, Pop Headwound, Year in Review, Vol. 3 2007
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