Here’s a nice Dutch-language review of our new CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, courtesy of Moors Magazine:

Tangleweed is een heerlijke frisse stringband waar we al eerder enthousiast over waren. Ook hun album Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals is weer een puur genot om naar te luisteren. Lekker fel spel, prima zang, met vooral ook erg mooie meerstemmige zang, een beetje alsof je met een punkhouding bluegrass gaat spelen. Noem het streetgrass, of nugrass, of wat ze tegenwoordig allemaal bedenken, maar het is feitelijk gewoon ouderwetse akoestische muziek die met een rock ‘n’ roll-instelling gebracht wordt.

Tangleweed speelt traditionals als Sandy River Belle, moord- en doodslagliedjes als Little Sadie, rebelse Ierse liedjes, maar ook een cover van een nummer van The Rolling Stones, dat hier als een oeroude traditional klinkt. Hun commentaar bij dit nummer, Dead Flowers, tekent ook het gevoel voor humor van de band: “This is a lovely tune first recorded by an obscure quintet from the British Isles. The lyric “I’ll be in my basement room with my needle and my spoon” alludes to two of Mick Jagger’s great passions: embroidery and commemorative spoon collecting.”

De muziek straalt dezelfde lol uit als het commentaar bij de verschillende nummers doet vermoeden. Aanstekelijke muziek dus. Een absolute aanrader.

Though Tangleweed didn’t claim the top prize for the best Folk, Country, or Americana Group, we got a nice mention from the Reader this week:

Reader’s Choice: Spires That in the Sunset Rise

Maybe this pick is a reach when so many local traditional acts do their genres such honor (Devil in a Woodpile, Tangleweed, the Hoyle Brothers, and the many faces of Kelly Hogan, for starters). But this all-female freak-folk band is something different under the sun. They play goose-bump-inducing music that sounds like the ancient oral tradition of a culture of their own invention, and they play it with a sort of primordial shamanistic elegance and economy of purpose. Still, I was having a little angst over this decision, until “Black Earth” from their latest, Curse the Traced Bird, shuffled up on my iPod. I froze stock-still in haunted wonder, as if I were hearing it for the first time—and did I mention I was crossing State Street in traffic at the time? The band that can override your survival instinct wins.

Thanks to Monica Kendrick for the kind words. You can read the whole thingy online at ChicagoReader.com.

Bob Everhart wrote a great review of our most recent CD for Tradition Magazine, the official magazine of the National Country Music Association. You can read the review below, or read it as a scan here.

TANGLEWEED: Where You Been So Long
Tradition Magazine, Sept/ Oct 2007
Bob Everhart

Bang, just when I was feeling really blue with Jackie, here pops up some fiddle music that just absolutely ‘lifts’ you up whether you want to or not. These guys from Chicago are just my style. They are all excellent pickers, and have the ‘nail’ right on. Paul Wargaski sent it down to me. I would surely like to see what they could do at our festival in LeMars in 2008. This CD will be in the running for ‘National Musicians of the Year’ from the Rural Roots Music Commission in 2008, so we’ll see what happens. Everything they do is ‘up’ and I mean they are right on the razors edge, beat wise, and musician-wise. Billy Oh on fiddle and vocals; Kenneth PW Rainey on mandolin, most lead vocals; Paul Wargaski on bass and vocals; Timothy Ryan Fisher on banjo and vocals; and Scott Judd on guitar and vocals. Together they form one of the finest acoustic bands I’ve heard in a long, long time. These are some incredible music makers here, I especially enjoyed Rainey on the mandolin on ‘Ginseng Blues.’ You’ll dig the yodeling here, it’s for real. This is an all encompassing CD, it covers all the bases, from great traditional to experimental traditional. What I like about good acoustic bands is a solid beat, and that usually comes from the bass. This is a good sounding bass, and mixed just right, try ‘High On The Mountain’ for this particular element of good acoustic music. Tony Bennett liked to sing Hank Williams songs because they were good. He liked good music. Tangleweed likes good 20’s jazz too, try ‘I’ve Found A New Baby.’ Do you like Irish jigs? It’s here too. G# minor takes us out of the traditional bluegrass tuning, but it’s still good. Down and out ‘for real’ hillbilly music is also available here. My favorite is ‘Angeline the Baker/ Soldier’s Joy.’ The introduction is totally creative and neat. The melody line is superb and right on. The ending is exactly what ‘Soldier’s Joy’ is really all about. I also like the Slim Whitman approach to ‘Last Call Waltz.’ Who knows, maybe Tangleweed will save the universe from space aliens some day. I sure hope so!

Ed Burch wrote a nice review of the Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook CDs (volumes two and three) for the Pamphlet. See below the break, or visit the Pamphlet website to read the review.

Scott, Paul, and I had a great time playing at the CD release show Saturday night. We were grateful to get Paul’s wife Lauren to help us out on fiddle, and Libby Reed to assist us with harmony vocals. We did ‘South Australia’, and also ‘The Wild Rover’, my daughter’s favorite song.
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Here are links to two recent reviews of the Old Town School’s SONGBOOK cd’s Vol. 2 and 3:

L.A. Daily News:

LostAtSea.net:

The L.A. Daily News review was also picked up by these papers, total circulation appx. 600,000.

Whittier Daily News (Whittier CA)
San Gabriel Valley Trib (Covina CA)
Pasadena Star-News (Pasadena CA)
Press-Telegram (Long Beach CA)
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario Can)
Sun (San Bernadino CA)

Full text of each review follows:
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We got a very positive review for Where You Been So Long over at Indie-Music.com. Reviewer Charles Martin said some kind things about the record, complimenting the diversity of styles represented, and our energetic playing. He calls Where You Been So Long? an ‘Ideal Americana Album’:

Every music form has a formula, and great albums are born from a band’s ability to both conform to and defy the formula. Tangleweed has put together an ideal Americana album, with tracks that play directly to the roots crowd, and with others that veer off into psychobilly and even a bit of gypsy folk. They play their musical eccentricities shrewdly, never meandering too far from the campfire that they become inaccessible, but never lingering in one spot so long they become tedious.

With the tragic breakup of Texas-based The Meat Purveyors, Tangleweed could step into the void to inject some high octane energy to the roots scene. “With a Bottle in My Hand/Farewell Blues” races with a blistering pace while spouting endearing lines such as “I don’t need a bottle to tell me what to do, just like I don’t need a lightning bolt to cut my steak in two.”

They aren’t all piss and vinegar though; there are relaxed gems throughout such as the bar ballad “Leaving of Liverpool” and the creeping sing-a-long “Drunkard’s Blues.” Tangleweed seems to approach Americana with academic fascination, much like the Decemberist’s Colin Meloy’s love of European folk and sea shanties. The result is an endearing and vigorous study of the culture that originally spawned the music.

Many thanks to the folks over at indie-music.com for their kind words.

Previous posts:

• Moors Magazine thinks we’re delicious
• Where You Been So Long reviewed in Bluegrass Unlimited
• Nice review of Where You Been So Long in Illinois Entertainer
• Nice review of Where You Been So Long on Backporch News
• Nice review of Where You Been So Long? by Joe Ross
• Nice review of Where You Been So Long from Americana UK
• Dutch review translated: we’re ‘armpit-fresh’!

We got a very kind review from the Dutch-language Moors Magazine (moorsmagazine.com). Being the hopeless monoglot I am, I ran the review through the babelfish translation engine. Apparently, we are delicious. You can read the full review on the Moors Magazine site.

The good folks at Bluegrass Unlimited had some nice things to say about our most recent record:

TANGLEWEED—WHERE YOU BEEN SO LONG? [May 2007 Issue]
Squatney Records 45001

Tangleweed is a five-person band from Chicago, Illinois, that performs a unique style of bluegrass that blends elements of rock, jazz, and country. One local media personality described the band as having “a bright new bluegrass sound.” This latest compact disc collection certainly lives up to those accolades with 14 selections that have been extracted from a myriad of sources ranging from Ola Belle Reed (“High On A Mountain”) to the Clancy Brothers (“Leaving Of Liverpool”) and the jazz classic “I’ve Found A New Baby.” The group is at their best on “Ginseng Blues,” a medley of “With A Bottle In My Hand” and “Farewell Blues” and their instrumental rendition of “Black-Eyed Susie.” With “Where You Been So Long?,” Tangleweed has created a musical magnum opus that is loaded with variety, excitement, and imagination. When it comes to contemporary bluegrass, Tangleweed certainly knows how to deliver in style.