CONTROLS: PLAY, PAUSE, STOP, SKIP FORWARD, SKIP BACKWARDS
TRACKLIST:
Anyhow - Demo
Stalker
Take Me Home (Absolutely Positively) - Demo
Annabel
Dirty Little Song
Rosalie
Returning To You - Demo
Sticks and Stones
ALL SONGS WRITTEN BY JAKE FLOWERS
Hello everyone, I'm Jake Flowers. Before it occurs to you to wonder... it is my real name - it just happens to be quite a good one. I've lived for pretty much all of my life in the relative wilderness of the South Shropshire countryside (I left these ancient rolling hills for a while, allowing myself a brief affair with academia). I've been writing songs for as long as I can remember and I wrote little stories before that. I've got a crap memory.
I'd been releasing home recordings on my own little Shackled Ram Records label for a while before making the recordings you can hear on this page. Some of the songs here were made early this Summer with the help of producer Gavin Monaghan (Scott Matthews, Kings of Leon, Editors) and my good friends and allies in this often difficult musical landscape: The Carol-Anne Showband. Others are songs I've written and recorded in my shed since. I've played all over the place including sets at The Green Man Festival, A Fistful of Twisted Folk, a tour (with The Wallbirds) around the Highlands and Islands of Scotland earlier this year and our first little UK tour as Jake Flowers and The Carol-Anne Showband early in October 2007 (see review from Manchester below). I also performed one of my songs ('Pick A Dead Celebrity') with 30 members of The English Symphony Orchestra at this year's West Midlands Summer Symphony - an incredible and not entirely unemotional experience.
I think the fact that these songs have started to get some radio play (Kerrang!, BBC WM, BBC Shropshire, BBC York, BBC Hereford and Worcester, OK Radio Bremen...) has begun to influence my writing to some degree... the songs I've written over the Summer (some of them demos here) seem to be somewhat more accessible, with the odd barbed hook and often a more conventional pop structure... I've discovered I really enjoy writing in this way too! As someone must once have said: "the tighter the straightjacket the more ingenious the escape..."
I'll hopefully be making studio recordings of the demos soon, and again I'll be asking for the help of the wonderful Carol-Anne Showband (www.myspace.com/thecarolanneshowband).
Keep an eye on this page to find out where you can come and see me play, often with The Carol-Anne Showband and sometimes with only you for company.
Take care and I'll see you around,
Jake Flowers x
A few REVIEWS and OPINIONS:
"The brilliant Jake Flowers and Stalker... I think you'll agree, the time is right!"
Loz, Kerrang! Radio
"Love this. Love this."
BBC Radio Shropshire
NIGHT & DAY, MANCHESTER 7TH OCTOBER LIVE REVIEW:"A wonderful cross between Old Crow Medicine Show and an unplugged set by The Rolling Stones, Jake Flowers and The Carol-Anne Showband (described by a man near me as looking like The Wurzels) were downright brilliant country-rock with spaghetti western flourishes, a bluesy growl and the smoothest of J.J.Cale guitars. ‘Take Me Home’ appeared to kick off with the same chords as ‘Get Back’ but soon evolved into Jack White rootsiness with the pace of a George Formby music hall performance.
The whole band had an impeccable sense of timing, and with a drummer who took vocal responsibilities alongside their frontman, this was no amateur pub band. Flowers never lost the element of funk that injected a shakedown spirit into “I’m absolutely positive I want you to take me home!†so I was astounded to find them unsigned while Scouting For Girls have not had their hands removed by vigilantes. Yet another great find by the Country Club team, and not at all bad for a bunch of guys dressed like the Wurzels. Mmmm-mmmm…"
Megan Vaughan (www.manchestermusic.co.uk)
"I was aware of Jake Flowers before I heard his recent material with The Carol-Anne Showband, but this little demo CD is bloody brilliant and it’s about time I posted about them... fans of acoustic music which rises and falls between gentle melancholia and rattle-along rhythm will bloody love this... Jake’s voice can be quite fragile sounding at times, making the gentler songs all the more affecting. Annabel is a rather dark tale, Stalker’s upbeat rhythms disguise a mildly worrying tale of obsessive love, and Rosalie is a gorgeous love song that slowly builds and builds.
Three songs, just under eight minutes - a little bundle of joy. There’s one more at their MySpace page as well which is just as good as anything on the demo, so hopefully there will be much more where this came from in the months to come."
Song, by Toad (www.songbytoad.com)
"I first came across Jake Flowers and the Carol-Anne Showband on Song, By Toad the other week. Just my sort of thing, I thought as I listened to the tracks. I was about to email Matthew to ask where he got these from, when an email pinged into my inbox [offering] me one of their promos, which I was happy to receive... On this new amalgamation of forces, Jake writes the tunes, and the Carol-Anne boys ably back him up. So well spotted Mr Flowers – you’ve obviously understood the kind of thing that I like."
The Daily Growl (http://thedailygrowl.blogspot.com)
"Absolutely fantastic"
Lost In Your Inbox
"I tell you what – this doesn't half worm its way into my mind. Talk about atmosphere? This is stunningly effective. Everything seems about right, in terms of music and vocal quality. The production is pretty much spot on and the total effect is one of expertise in sound. I could happily sit and listen to this either in my lounge or in a club, however I would certainly prefer the latter, because it would offer me an opportunity to meet and greet the makers of this pot of gold."
Review of 'Annabel' by Living Atheist (who also say it reminds them of Bob Dylan, Johhny Cash & Roy Orbison - praise indeed!) www.myspace.com/livingatheist
For booking enquiries, more information, or just to say hi, email [email protected] - it'd be lovely to hear from you! x