Tuesday, May 16, 2017

BEHIND BEST OF THE YEAR PRAISE, JAKE LA BOTZ’S NEW ALBUM ‘SUNNYSIDE’ SAW BOOST FROM PRODUCER JIMMY SUTTON (JD MCPHERSON, POKEY LAFARAGE)

 
MERCURY LOUNGE, KUNG FU NECKTIE, HIDEOUT CONFIRMED AS PART OF ALBUM RELEASE TOUR
 
SESSION CONFIRMED WITH NPR’S WORLD CAFE
 
“One of the year’s best Americana albums.”
– Sarah Zupko, Pop Matters, May 4, 2017
 
“One of our favorite albums of the year.”
– Robert McCormick, Inked Magazine, May 9, 2017
 
NPR asked JD McPherson about the making of his album ‘Signs & Signifiers’ and JD told them, “When we were making this record, Jimmy, the producer, he walked around with a metronome and he'd mess with the metronome and dance around until he found the most danceable beats per minute and that's what we record at.” He’s applied similar magic behind the dials at his own Hi-Style Studio in Chicago to Jake La Botz’s ‘Sunnyside,’ out last week on Hi-Style Records and the result earning raves as a potential best album of 2017.
 
“How I Wish She Was Mine” embeddable single
 
Jimmy, who also co-produced Pokey LaFarge’s breakthrough ‘Something In The Water,’ confesses that scaling up to those golden early rock & roll grooves on ‘Sunnyside’ took some work, "The biggest challenge for me was figuring how to translate Jake: I always knew him as a stripped down solo act. Discovering how to capture the solitude and emotional depth of Jake's solo artist sound while enriching it with musical accompaniment was a challenge."
 
Jake recalls, "I learned a lot about developing my songs by working with Jimmy. I've always been a kind of loner type – in everything, not just creating – but giving over to collaboration with the arrangements I found a lot of discoveries happening for me. I began to really appreciate Jimmy's sensibilities and looked forward to his input. I even started to write songs with his arrangements in mind as well as the sound of the Hi-Style studio."
 
Sutton, along with Alex Hall, had built the Hi-Style Studio to capture sound with all ribbon, tube, and dynamic microphones passed through tube mixers and preamps onto ¼-inch tape.
 
Demoed years, earlier, the title track’s demo formed the basis of the vulnerability on its final rendition. Jimmy reveals, “I wasn't crazy about the guitar sound. But we added some piano and listened to it and I started to love it. When we came back to the demo a couple of years later we realized we had something great to build around. We added drums, bass, backing vocals and it became, what I think, is one of the best songs on the album."
 
NPR World Café has confirmed a performance/chat.
 
Jake La Botz Tour Dates:
 
May 31 – Music City Roots - Franklin, TN                       
June 3 - Kiki's House of Righteous Music - Madison, WI                          
June 4 - Record Release Show at The Hideout - Chicago, IL                       
June 5 - Raccoon Motel - Davenport, IA                             
June 6 - The Southgate House Revival-The Lounge - Newport, KY           
June 8 - Record Archive - Rochester, NY                            
June 10 - Atwood's Tavern - Cambridge, MA                                 
June 14 - Kung Fu Necktie - Philadelphia, PA                     
June 19 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY

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