INFORMATION
BIO
"Talking-songs" is Adam Gnade's (guh-nah-dee) attempt to write music that sounds "how America feels." Based around prose writing (not poetry or spoken word) he brings in elements of noise, country, mountain music, and work songs. His albums and stories (his first novel is out this Valentine's Day Dutchmoney Books) intersect, sharing characters, creating a "universe of lives and backstories." In the past two years since he began doing this full-time, he's toured the US and UK twice (alongside friends Youthmovies, Jonquil, Eugene McGuinness, Blanket, and House of Brothers) and released records on Drowned in Sound Recordings, Loud + Clear, BelowPDX, DeathBombArc, Native Kin, Bad Drone, and Try Harder Records. Live, sometimes it's Adam with a banjo or five-string acoustic guitar standing in the middle of the crowd; sometimes full band (including regular collaborator Thaddeus Christian.) This fall saw the release of Honey Slides, a collaboration with Youthmovies on the Try Harder label and the limited-edition double-CD, Palaces/Whidbey Island. A vinyl version of Palaces/Whidbey Island will be released in early 2008 by Bad Drone Media.
Palaces' songs are creaky, deconstructed, abandoned-sounding Americana; catatonic silence meets boozy violent celebration and rattling, ghostly field hollers. Finger-plucked banjo sounds out alongside mutilated piano, craggy vocals, space-clearing bells, swampy (modified 5-string) guitar, and tape/noise/hiss collages, all played by Adam. Written on tour in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and on Amelia Island, and recorded in Portland, Oregon, Palaces runs through its five tracks in shambled, rickety warmth.
The Whidbey Island side was recorded in a house on the cliffside of Washington State’s Whidbey Island with David and Thaddeus Christian. As damaged and noisy as the Palaces side is, Whidbey Island is clean and roomy with mellow fingerpicked acoustic guitar, Puget sound field recordings, doomy acoustic bass, and cascading mandolin. Lyrics follow a chilly, pastoral narrative about frost, pioneers, backseat visions, war, and folk remedies. West coast burnout vibe meets Southern Gothic death-folk. Whidbey Island is part one of Adam's 'island trilogy,' which will continue with the limited-edition EP Become an Island in late 2008." " Email duke@adamgnade.com to order.
Adam Gnade and Youthmovies' Honey Slides EP was written on tour in England last year, improv'd during drunken collaborative sets, and recorded on a chilly, grey day at Oxfordshire's Warehouse Studios while a bottle of murky port was passed around the room. A full-on culture clash, the music is like an American marching band playing a British rave. Thumping micro-house morphs into a psychedelic brass band while landscapes of android ghost beats emerge from luminous pools of ambient noise. The vocals shout and proclaim in surreal tones like the spooky hollers of a Southern Baptist preacher inside a swampland chapel. Ideas and images cycle back, flashing brief visions of haunted wilderness, rising seas, decadent youth, faith healers, urban decay, and midnight carnivals in torch-lit clearings. A new animal born to two mothers, an engaging, weird, dancy, absorbing, freaked-out electronic pop tapestry.
TOUR
UK TOUR 2007
With Youthmovies and Jonquil
Sep 23 Truck Fest, Oxfordshire
Sep 25 REVOLUTION Harrogate
Sep 26 SOCIAL Nottingham
Sep 27 THE VENUE Preston
Sep 28 JOHN TAYLOR’S HOUSE Coventry
Sep 29 THE BOILEROOM Guildford
With Georgie Pringle
Sep 29 NOTTING HILL ARTS CENTER London
With Youthmovies and Jonquil
Oct 2 HULL ADELPHI Hull
Oct 4 CABARET VOLTAIRE Edinburgh
Oct 5 BARFLY Glasgow
Oct 6 CANTEEN ARTS CENTRE BarroW
Oct 7 BRICKYARD Carlisle CANCELED
With Youthmovies and House of Brothers
Oct 9 QUEEN CHARLOTTE Norwich
Oct 10 THE GRADUATE Cambridge
Oct 11 NEW SLANG Kingston
With Youthmovies and Eugene McGuinness
Oct 12 THE FORUM Tunbridge Wells
Oct 15 WHITE HORSE High Wycombe
Oct 16 LUMINAIRE London
Oct 17 FIREBUG Leicester
Oct 18 NIGHT AND DAY Manchester
Oct 19 BRAINWASH FESTIVAL Leeds
Oct 20 KOROVA Liverpool
With Youthmovies and Blanket
Oct 22 WEST END CENTRE Aldershot
Oct 23 LOUISIANA Bristol
Oct 24 HUB Plymouth
Oct 25 RAILWAY Winchester
Oct 26 Hope Brighton
Oct 27 ZODIAC/CARLING ACADEMY Oxford
2008
With Castanets and Whip
Jan 16 SOMEDAY LOUNGE Portland
RECENT PAST DATES
Portland 9/21/06 Doug Fir w/The Kingdom, Castanets
Portland 9/17/06 Rotture w/Ah Holly Fam'ly
Portland 10/22/06 Ash Street Saloon w/Ohioan
Portland 10/30 w/ Ecstatic Sunshine, Make Believe
Hertford, UK 11/10 Marquee w/Youthmovies, Blood Red Shoes, Cats and Cats and Cats
Liverpool, UK 11/11 Evol w/Youthmovies
Manchester, UK 11/12 Night & Day w/Youthmovies
Nottingham, UK 11/13 Stealth w/Youthmovies
London, UK 11/14 93 Feet East w/Youthmovies
Hull, UK 11/15 Adephi w/Youthmovies
Leeds, UK 11/16 Brudenell Social Club w/Youthmovies, Blood Red Shoes
London, UK 11/18 Notting Hill Arts Club w/ The Monroe Transfer, Viking Moses, Drowned in Sound DJs
Oxford, UK 11/18 Zodiac w/Youthmovies, Blood Red Shoes
Portland 11/22 Rotture w/Ohioan, Argumentix, LKN
Portland 12/1 Lewis & Clark College w/Point Juncture WA, Bright Red Paper
Portland 1/6/07 Holocene w/Baumen, Ficken and Sparks, Hello Damascus
Portland 3/3/07 Towne Lounge w/Pseudosix, Hello Damascus, Jeff Harms
Portland 3/14/07 Tube w/Bark Hide and Horn, Ohioan, DJ Sputnik
Pittsburgh, Penn 4/11/07 Romeo House
Buffalo, NY 4/12/07 Warehouse show w/Jax Deluca, Nick Gordon
4/13/07 NYC Lit Lounge w/Samarium, Wolf and Wayside, Master/Slave
4/15/07 Brooklyn, NY Lucky Cat Lounge w/Brownbird Rudy Relic, Roletta Flynn
4/17/07 Providence, RI w/Jacob Berenedes
4/29/07 Greenville, NC Spazzatorium w/Elston Gunn, Hot John Stockton
5/3/07 Shreveport, LA Jackrabbit Lounge w/Cartright, Songbird and Spruce
5/5/07 Abilene, TX w/Listen Listen, Walrus Brothers
5/6/07 San Angelo, TX w/Kismet, O Scarlet
5/11/07 San Diego, CA Tower Bar w/Silverbird, Skull Control DJs
5/12/07 San Diego, CA Black Box w/Barfer, Modern Rifles, Shea Statton
5/15/07 San Jose, CA Johnny V's
5/17/07 Arcata, CA Das Gast Haus w/The Finches, The Bushes, At Night, Spellchck and Keystrokes, Tiger Saw
5/18/07 Salem, OR Cafe Noir w/Abracadaver
5/19/07 Portland, OR Vendetta w/Nire, Bark Hide and Horn
6/8/07 Portland, OR Towne Lounge w/Young Galaxy, Starfucker