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Event
Glenn Jones + Wounded Knee
Glenn Jones is a unique voice working in the decades-long tradition of American Primitivism. What sets him apart from the many devotees to this style is the combination of expressive playing and technical skill, most significantly his inventive use of alternate tunings and partial capos. As anyone knows who has seen him perform, Glenn is a remarkable storyteller, and his songs reflect that talent. The songs on Glenn's latest, My Garden State, are evocative and redolent, and serve as a testament to Glenn's talent for conveying a wide array of emotions, many times in one song, without saying a word.
Jones is known best as a Boston musician, having led the city's art-rock updaters Cul de Sac through the 1990s and having alluded to his adopted hometown with the names and anecdotes of several cuts on previous records. But Jones grew up in northern New Jersey. During the last several years, he's often returned to his childhood home for extended periods to take care of his mother, who has Alzheimer's disease. The bulk of My Garden State was written during these eldercare furloughs, prompting Jones to take the thematically logical step of recording the tunes in New Jersey, too, 60 miles or so south at the farmhouse of friend and collaborator Laura Baird.
Written in the New Jersey home where Glenn's family moved in 1966, while he was caring for his mother who suffers from Alzheimer's, the songs and sounds on the album are reflective, but never dour or sad. My Garden State was recorded by Laura Baird in Allentown, NJ. Laura joins Glenn on the first proper song, "Across the Tappan Zee" on banjo, interweaving her plaintive melodies with Glenn's gentle picking. Laura's sister Meg, who was a founding member of Espers and plays with Laura as The Baird Sisters, also joins in on the final minutes of "Going Back to East Montgomery," an eight minute long composition that showcases Glenn's ability to craft a long form piece that is at once expansive and immediate.
The two tracks that form the centerpiece of the album, "The Vernal Pool" and "Alcoeur Gardens" were composed spontaneously in the studio, a technique Glenn developed on tour with Damo Suzuki with his former band Cul de Sac. Where "The Vernal Pool" is exuberant, "Alcouer Gardens" is sparse and quiet, with field recordings of rain and thunder providing a bed for Glenn's guitar, emphasizing the space between the notes as much as the notes themselves. The songs on My Garden State could have been written by no one except Glenn Jones, brimming joy, sorrow, and the complex in-between that makes life worth living.
"Jones puts it all right there in the pieces, speaking volume about the challenges and triumphs of growing up and older without singing a word of the blues. My Garden State is your Garden State, too, a collection of magnetic ruminations that applies to anyone who's ever struggled to go back home or leave it in the first place." Pitchfork
"...this is a musician in whom we can invest a great amount of trust." Pop Matters
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LocationThe Glad Cafe (View)
1006a Pollokshaws Road
GLASGOW G41 2HG
United Kingdom
Categories
| Minimum Age: 18 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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