Bruce Hughes is a hominid made out of star dust that coalesced some 5 billion years ago around a small and rather average star.
His earth family raised him up in Austin Texas. He began playing guitar and bass in primary school, and it kept him from getting his ass kicked (except by love). He played in numerous bands with allegiance to none, until Poi dog Pondering strolled through town and picked him up on their way around the world.
After three records on Columbia and five years of steady touring, Bruce wound up back in Austin, ready for a rest and something different. He started working with Howard Harrison on what would become Teratoma, started playing with the guys that would become the Ugly Americans, and went on the road with Cracker for six months. After that tour was over, he rejoined the Uglys full time back in Austin, putting out four records with them, then four records with the Scabs, and began playing in Bob Schneiders’ Lonelyland as well. Bruce still plays with Bob in the Scabs, has produced and played and sang on a shitload of records, and also plays with the Resentments on his nights off.
Some claim he’s a practicing breatharian, others swear he’s started an All Nude Army, still others vow his superpowers have yet to be discovered. He’s just released a new album of momentary songs, all under 3 minutes in length, recorded in parking lots and hotels all over the world.
it’s called shorty
About shorty...
myself and some of my friends, Bob Schneider, Billy Harvey, Steve Poltz, Jason Mraz, Matt the Electrician, Bushwalla, Eric Hutchinson (and anyone else Bob could corral into it) started killing time on the road by writing songs under a strict time limit (usually 48 hrs.) with the only inspiration being a title, picked at random by one of us. After several comments about how long some of my songs were, I decided to try to write songlets 3 minutes in length or less. 2 minutes suddenly became my goal. Some songs naturally want to spread their legs a little, but I kept my head down and got to work. I ended up with several dozen of them, and decided to put my favorites out in album form. I kept taking bits away, starting the songs immediately, getting rid of bothersome solo breaks and trying to dovetail as much as possible in between the silences. Most of the songs started with a guitar and a laptop running some sort of recording software, I didn’t care which. I’d steal drum breaks from favorite songs, create sounds with software or the occasional lonely beat up piano in the dressing room, and sing em where ever there was a place to sing: hotel stairwells, hotel rooms, dressing rooms, hockey arenas, the back of the bus or van. These songs were written on highways & in parking lots across the US, in Europe and Canada, even back home in Austin. I took my laptop over to the Aerie, a studio in the country outside of Austin run by Mark Addison, peeled off the stuff I liked and recorded new stuff (like real drums and pump organs and standup bass and electric guitars) that I couldn’t make sound like I heard em in my head on the originals.
We holed up during the ice storm of Jan 2007 and worked for 4 days straight getting started, and then continued to work off and on for the next couple of months whenever I wasn’t on tour. I kept writing, so we kept recording, and finally had 2 dozen finished that I liked. The songs were all very different, probably because of where they were conceived, and the only unifying factor was that they had to be no longer than 3 minutes. Some of my favorites didn’t want to be shorties, so they’ll come out on the next one. Til then, enjoy yourself.
About Bluebird...
I started working on this record about in 2005, recording basic tracks and mangling them in late night frenzy at Huge In The Ghetto, an underground East Austin facility used to stash industrial waste. Over the course of the summer, I bivouaced in New Orleans recording vocals and further destroying the tracks at Nappy’s Dugout, hiding out with wasted exotic dancers and the goons who loved their company. Not quite finished, I came home in August to get ready for the final mixing. Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and we all watched helplessly as Federal ineptitude let the oldest city in America drown. Had to wait until the time was ripe and the power was back on. I returned to New Orleans in January, 2006, and finished mixing with Mike Napolitano, a very bad man. Michael Sieben drew and painted the cover art, he’s un hombre muy malo tambien...
Burn a double action candle for the city of New Orleans, y’all...here it is, 2008, and the city is still a disappearing act.
