Astro Black Records, Cropped Out and The Other Side of Life are proud to present:
SIMON JOYNER (Omaha, Nebraska; on Sing, Eunuchs!)
BRO. STEPHEN (Louisville, KY; on Crossroads of America Records)
TENDER MERCY (Louisville, KY; on Dunkenstein Records)
Sunday, November 11th
at QUILL'S
930 Baxter Avenue
8 PM, $6, ALL AGES!
Love and death: these are the only themes. So it’s been in SIMON JOYNER’s twenty years of making records — from 1992’s Umbilical Chords cassette to his new double LP, Ghosts. Over the course of a thirteen-album career in which he’s produced a multitude of sounds and musical influences on a multitude of independent labels, he’s only made two other proper double-albums (1997’s Yesterday, Tomorrow and In Between and 2001’s Hotel Lives). Both are classics of his discography, and Ghosts follows in their footsteps, creating and inhabiting a world in which JOYNER’s thematic preoccupations can be explored carefully and fully. Recorded on reel-to-reel in JOYNER’s warehouse on a sixteen-track tape machine over many months, Ghosts sounds unlike any JOYNER record. The influence of dark, ’60s and ’70s private-press psych and folk records, as well as the noisy, transcendent music of New Zealand heroes like This Kind of Punishment, Alastair Galbraith and The Dead C are highlighted on this experimental, full-band song-cycle that pays subtle as well as brazen homage to several influential double-albums (perhaps most obviously with its Exile on Main Street-inspired gatefold artwork). JOYNER’s music gathers acolytes rather than casual fans, contributing to his “songwriter’s songwriter” status and inspiring comparisons to other artists like Bill Fay, Townes Van Zandt, David Blue, and Leonard Cohen.
BRO. STEPHEN is a project of Scott Kirkpatrick who is also the force behind indie-rock band Chemic. Originally conceived as a songwriting exercise, BRO. STEPHEN has come to mean much more. Pulling from a childhood of being a preacher’s son, a deep collection of poor decisions, and a constant struggle with narcolepsy, the songs of BRO. STEPHEN are a casual dart game: the sound of ennui. Despite it’s relatively recent inception, BRO. STEPHEN headed out on the road in 2009 on a national tour playing songs off of his upcoming debut record and armed with hand-made copies of The Front Room EP which was a collection of demos Kirkpatrick had recorded on a cassette tape machine. Along the way BRO. STEPHEN has supported acts like The Fiery Furnaces, Sun Kil Moon, Anni Rossi, DM Stith, The Daredevil Christopher Wright, and Vandaveer, and released its debut album Baptist Girls, a record that was largely recorded on an old farm in Northern Indiana.
TENDER MERCY is the brainchild of singer/songwriter Mark Kramer and can best be described as contemporary minimalism with strong acoustic leanings. Debuting with a track on the infamous Dunkenstein Record’s Doctors Of Dunk Vol. 2, TENDER MERCY began playing around Louisville, opening for the likes of Jamie Barnes, Tamara Dearing, The Deloreans, Ben Traughber, The Parade Schedule, and Nerves Jr. TENDER MERCY released a 6 song EP entitled The Road To Good Intention Is Paved With Hell in the spring of 2012.
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