Mark Spencer and Brad Sarno on new Son Volt CD

[b0b]

Facial expressions do not affect my appreciation of the quality of a person's music. The music is the art. The way the artist looks is largely irrelevant. Who cares?

Jimmy Day played the most heartfelt, sensitive music I've ever heard, and he often looked like a wooden Indian when he played. All of his expression came from his instrument.

[Chris LeDrew]

see what i mean? he looks a little 'troubled'..or uncomfortable. course, i can understand, having to play with a steel player like that....and all that curly hair on stage is a little weird.

Hillman's slightly sneering expression is what made him stand out to me in all that early Byrds footage. I think he was a punk pioneer in that way. That slight defiance can give a band an edge. I think he did that with the Byrds. The Beatles smiled. The Byrds smirked at best. These little differences were actually huge to fans.

Hillman as you know is a bluegrasser as well, so he comes by the stoneface honestly.

[Bob Ricker]

A lot of these kinds of bands came at around the end of the grunge big thing, about 15 years ago. Ryan Adams was in a band called Whiskeytown with Jay Farrar. (Check out a Whiskeytown CD). Ryan Adams then went out on his own and Jay Farrar formed Son Volt. The Jayhawks came out of the Minnesota area around the same time. Wilco originally had a multi-intrumentalist who played pedal steel (Bob Egan) who is now with Blue Rodeo in Canada. I don't think they have much if any of an alt-country sound any longer.

Farrar was not in Whiskeytown. He was in Uncle Tupelo with Tweedy.

Bill is right Farrar wasn't in the band, but I was. I recorded all the steel parts on the Whiskeytown "Faithless Street" CD. I also played live on dates after they added pedal steel for the initial recording, for a while. I also played on some of the initial recordings of a group called the Backsliders that were of the alt-country genre.

My favorite country rock influence has to be Mason Proffit, they were true leaders in alt county long before the title was thought of. Poco was also very original during that time.

[Matt Beck]

Mark Spencer is a pal. He has a very interesting way of playing steel. It's a 7 string tuned to G with an added 6 (low to hi: G,D,G,B,D,E,G). He prefers to play with a guitar pick and the rest of his fingers. (hybrid) Hell of a nice guy who I've had the pleasure of touring with a while ago.

[Mark Eaton]

That seems like a pretty cool tuning for a 7-string, having the 6th on string #2, rather than having the 6th on string #4 or #6 as is typical with a six-string G-tuned lap steel or dobro in a an alternate setup. For those of us who play a lot of dobro we could roll right into it instead of doing the learning curve/muscle memory program of "wait a minute - I can get the V chord here" or "gee - this should be a place to get a ii minor" all while trying to keep up with the other members of a group in using a C or E based tuning. Now I just need a 7-string lap steel, except I'm in a period of "GAS Moratorium."

As I wrote earlier on the thread Mark Spencer has a real tasty approach to lap steel, but have yet to see him on the pedals.

Son Volt is going to be fairly close to me on the 29th in Petaluma. I'm going to see if I can make this one - they typically would be playing in San Francisco (they are there the evening prior), and this is more like a 25 mile drive instead of the usual 65 or so across the Golden Gate Bridge.

[David Anderson]

Mark and Brad are both on the album and sound great! Brad Sarno has tone for years! Not just a guy with a soldering iron. I am lucky to live in the same town with guys like Brad, Jay, and Gary Hunt ( fiddle/guitar -Sonvolt). Even though, Mark lives in NY, he is here pretty regularly. I've worked on his guitars in the past, and he is an amazing ,player! So much talent!