Advance Review
Roy Schneider ‘Erleichda’ Shiny Gnu SG101
This is an album full of pleasant surprises. In fact it is much weightier than merely pleasant as Roy settles on tales of the self, the imagined, the possible and the heartfelt over an array of musical imperatives that perfectly fit the songs.
The author tells us the music was ‘conceived or developed while watching miles of beautiful southern scenery roll by from the passenger seat of the tour van’. And it is this life on the road that provides him with an impressionistic album full of stories told in a style not unlike Harry Chapin.
Roy Schneider’s music is like a sparkling bright early summer’s day, not too hot and full of a good time vibe with an indefinable optimistic breeze in the air. Like the best Americana music should be, he combines a compelling mix of narratives and instrumental beauty over 12 penned songs and a closing love song, ‘Brokedown Palace’ by the Grateful Dead.
Whether it’s a combination of his acoustic and Keven Aland’s fiddle playing on ‘South in the Summertime' or the hot club vibe of the very catchy ‘On Hill Time’;
(‘Like a 1930s animation, where everything in the world just springs to life
You fill my imagination on hill time'), Roy’s songs bob, weave and meander as all good stories do as if part of a bigger design.
‘On Hill Time’ simply bristles and there’s never a note or phrase wasted, with Roy’s insistent guitar matched by the wonderful Charlie McCoy on warm toned harp and Keven Aland’s sinewy fiddle. ‘Strange Wind’ is another perfect blend of rootsy melodic rock as the sound is fattened by Kim Mayfield’s drifting organ alongside more potent fiddle. The rich harmonies are coloured by a subtle use of echo in possibly the most lushly produced song on the album. With its uplifting melody, delicate percussion and punctuated cymbal splashes, ‘Strange Wind’ is very radio friendly and a fair barometer of the current musical values.
But there’s so much more, including the country feel and intricate patchwork of banjo, mandolin, fiddle and harp of ‘Let It Shine’. It’s the kind of song that could easily have been the work of JJ Cale. Roy adds more splendid guitar picking and flute on the beautifully judged melodic instrumental ‘Dancing with a Horse’, on an excellent example of paying due attention to an album’s sequencing, its core dynamic and flow.
Among many quietly delivered perceptive observations, Roy sums things up nicely in their simplest terms on the fiddle led, subtle brush strokes and rhythmic acoustic of
‘Life Keeps Moving’;
(‘I remember when I was a little boy, life was just for joy’
The world was a cul de sac and a big crabapple tree’).
It is this sense of wonder and happiness with his lot that lies at the core of his work. He expresses a similar sentiment on ‘Living The Dream’;
‘I’m learning how to find the silver lining, even on the blackest cloud
Livin’ in the light and leavin’ all the dark behind me - barefoot and proud’, while on
‘Carriage’ he ruminates on the passing of time;
I guess I’ve reached a place where I just stop more often and consider my mortality
This ain’t a song about getting old, it’s just reflections of my soul on reality’.
There’s a textured blend of country rock, folk, gypsy jazz and shades of the blues on this CD as well as melodic rock. And it’s all anchored by Roy’s keen sense of a strong melody, the value of harmony singing and his inherent ability to craft a song.
‘Erleichda’ is a real delight filled with a joy de vivre matched by musical excellence. When Roy Schneider casts his perceptive poetic gaze on life its well worth paying attention. For as he himself sings things aren’t necessarily as complex as we sometimes think.
‘Keep it simple, everything don’t have to be a drain
No need to blow it all up into something that it ain’t’.
This is an album well worth purchasing.
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Reckless Saints / Blog
Tour's off to a Good Start
Well, we had a long drive yesterday and have another long one tomorrow, but last night and today with our good friends in Atlanta were a blast. Great homemade food, great company, an evening of singing with as many as 3 ukuleles at a given time, a lazy morning of serious coffee intake and an afternoon running around town. Got me a new mini-tambourine jingly thingydoo to attach to my kick drum. Love me some new toys.
Speaking of new toys, our brand-new eight-year-old Honda van is running great and really, seriously comfortable. I feel quite spoiled in this sparkly ride. Well, at least we're pretty sure it's still sparkly underneath the thick layer of gooshed bug guts we painted it with on highway 75 yesterday. Ugh.
Onward. Upward. Northward on the morrow. But for now - Bedward.
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September 2013: A Month of Musical Adventure
Well, I know I'M excited... We have some great shows and some long-overdue visits on the schedule comin' right up, and I'm really looking forward to SWRFA in Austin, TX... That's SouthWest Regional Folk Alliance, where I'm honored to have been selected to perform an official showcase for a great audience of music professionals from all branches of the business. Of course Kim will join me for this and several other 'guerrilla' performances scheduled that weekend as we move about the hotel, sharing and soaking up information, hearing incredible songs and mingling wit de good peoples. Tickets to the showcase concerts are available for something like 10 bucks! These showcases are always tasty and more than worth the price of admission. The mighty Google can lead you to those tix.
In other news, so glad to be doing a house concert in Barrington, IL, in the general neighborhood of where I lived for 5 years in the 90s, this coming Sunday. This show had to be rescheduled earlier this year due to a sudden complication, and it will be interesting to see what might come of that complication later this month.
Meanwhile, we're very excited about having a "new" tour chariot, a very nicely-preserved 2005 Honda Odyssey (no, they're not just for soccer moms anymore!) that is supposed to be just as good on gas as our poor old CR-V (218,650 miles and counting) and give Max (our 12 year old roadie) a heck of a lot more room to stretch out his now-as-long-as-mine legs and arms. It used to be OK to give the boy a single seat in the back of the 4-banger (all stage and personal gear packed behind, next to, etc) but lately we've felt guilty looking at him back there, knees and elbows sticking out everywhere, looking like we've crammed a German Shepherd into a cat crate. It's a blast to drive, so Kim will mostly enjoy that while I'm indulging myself with the extra room to play ukulele from the shotgun seat and stare out the window. I have my very own driver's license too, but am generally content to ride shotgun and mess with the music (live or otherwise).
So today's the last day before hitting the highway. What in heckfire am I doing on the computer?
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'Walls that Talk' CD Debuts at #3 on National Folk DJ Charts!
...and I don't mind saying I'm pretty pleased with that number. The DJs who spin acoustic music (also referred to as code word "folk") out there are very kind to play my songs and I am so grateful. This lead to an invitation to play the Suzi Wollenberg Memorial Showcase at the NERFA (NorthEastern Regional Folk Alliance) conference in New York last weekend, which in turn led to some other fun opportunities, not the least of which was playing mandolin with the one and only Freebo.
As of this writing, Kim and I are back in rural North Carolina, settled in to this fantastic Civil War era wood home with good friends, warm fire and wall-to-wall dogs. Life is good.
Matter of fact, it's about time to throw another log on... Huge thanks to the listeners, concert hosts and all the DJs who've been playing my new CD. You are all the reason Kim and I (and all the other troubadours out there) are able to do what we love, through thick and thin. Thank you.
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Off to Memphis...
Been anticipating this one for a long time, and here we are on the eve of heading to Memphis for the annual FAI (Folk Alliance International) conference.
I look forward to seeing lots of old friends and making lots of new ones, doing a bunch of hobnobbing, showcasing and accompanying some of my artist friends on their sets...
Just found out I'll be part of a band on my friend Robyn Landis' mainstage showcase, I'll be the guitar noodler playing alongside Robyn with Tom Prasado-Rau on fiddle and an upright bass player (don't know the name yet). We've got a looooong drive to Memphis, so there will be plenty of rehearsal time in the passenger seat with my (lovingly) beat-up old Baby Taylor travel guitar.
As it turns out, I'm also loaning Robyn one of my guitars - poor girl came home the day before an International music conference to discover a giant crack in the top of her beloved Koa Taylor guitar. Owwtch! It's a beautiful instrument, and I wish her the best of luck in dealing with Taylor on that.
So Kim and I are off in the morning, and I will be reporting back via newsletter when we return.
Thanks for reading and stopping by my site!
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Restlessly Resting
So we were on the road for two solid months over the summer, which wouldn't have seemed like a lot if we hadn't had a home and family and dogs that we love back in Florida, all wondering if e'er we were to return. A few weeks at home and we were off to England for 3 more weeks... Then several jaunts up to the Midwest and back, and I was ready to stay home a while.
Here was the big plan: I was going to stay home in Fort Myers during the tourist season, get "plugged back in" to the local bars for a few months and just earn some dough. But of course, I can't stop doing things like house concerts, folk festivals and other listening rooms when they come up 'cause that would be crazy. As a result, we've been home enjoying our family, friends, dogs, our house and some down time, but it's been hard to plug in when I can't commit to being in-town week after week.
So... During this time I've designed new merchandise (still working on T-shirts), I've been able to get some writing done and even started recording some new stuff for the 2011 CD... But now all I can think about is getting back on that highway with my darlin' and a camper full of instruments.
The good thing is, by the time we do get back on that road, we'll have rested enough that it will be fun and refreshing and completely exciting again. The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is having a stylin' tour vehicle wherein we can sleep and cook healthy food, avoiding the cheap motels and fast food joints, spending down time in campgrounds and national parks. Doing what we do for a living offers the lovely additional benefit of really getting to know the country we live in, and it's just so much nicer to get to know its parks and woods rather than its concrete.
Know what I mean?
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One Man's Afternoon in LaFollette, Tennessee
So yesterday I'm thinking "OK, I really need to send out a newsletter", but I didn't have a lot of time. Being a writer, I prefer to take proper time with anything I put down in words and make sure it's all pretty and perfect as possible, hopefully at least interesting with an occasional attempt at wit. Trust me, you don't want me to fill in your name tag at the company Christmas party.
So, sure enough, because I was hurrying, I managed to skip right over mentioning my very fun and almost-impromptu visit to the coolest country station going today, WTNQ 104.9 FM in LaFollette, Tennessee (attention Larry T at WKXI Punta Gorda: Previous statement of course excludes the state of Florida).
Interestingly, station owner Jeff Alpert, in addition to being a cool and down-to-earth guy, happens to own a house and another radio station a stone's throw from me here in Florida. He hooked us up with on-air personality Chuck Jacobs, who may just possess more personality than is legally allowed in most states.
So, for this nearly-last-minute schedule addition, my wife (/manager/accompanist/bus driver/etc) Kim, stepson Max and I cruised a sunny and scenic 30 minutes off our originally-planned course through the mountains to LaFollette, having played the Blue Plate Special at WDVX 102.9 in Knoxville that morning. Our bellies freshly full of delicious pizza, we pulled into LaFollette feeling pretty well satisfied in every way. Not only had we just shared a live radio gig with John Oates, our pals from the band "Tik Tok" and our fun and lively host Red Hickey, but we'd had a lovely lunch, a beautiful drive and now we were going live on the air for the second time in one day, "whenever you get here". I suppose the only way it could have been better would have been if we could've landed a sweet gig somewhere dead-center between the two towns that night, but alas, it was not to be. We went on-air without a show to promote. Ah well.
We stepped into WTNQ national headquarters and met Jeff, who was soon ushering us down the hall to meet Chuck.
You know how some guys you just like instantly? Chuck is one of those guys, a big ol' smiling, music-loving, raspy-voiced bear of a guy doing what he loves, spinning tunes and yarn for 4 hours a day. Not wasting any time, the mics were live as quickly as I could throw the Martin into tune. We were there for well over an hour, talking about all the recent tours (coast-to-coast US tour, 3 weeks in the UK, several South/Midwest jaunts) and alternating between playing live acoustic songs and spinning cuts from my new CD "Erleichda". He couldn't have been kinder or more complimentary of my music, and neither he nor Jeff could have made us feel any more welcome at WTNQ.
A big thing I greatly admire about Chuck is that he is doing a daily 4-hour show on a commercial country radio station, yet does not chain himself to the same Twelve Latest Corporate Hits over and over. Far from it, actually. Chuck plays songwriters with soul... Steve Earle, John Hiatt, John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, people who write what they feel rather than following the "formula". I was flattered to have my CD in rotation in such tall company.
To Chuck and Jeff - Thank you for a real good time, for spinning my CDs, and we will certainly see you next time through. You provide the space, we'll provide the tequila and mild explosives (or at least a few more songs).
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Review of "Erleichda" - Pete Feenstra, getreadytorock.com (edited for length)
Advance Review Roy Schneider ‘Erleichda’ Shiny Gnu SG101
This is an album full of pleasant surprises. In fact it is much weightier than merely pleasant as Roy settles on tales of the self, the imagined, the possible and the heartfelt over an array of musical imperatives that perfectly fit the songs.
The author tells us the music was ‘conceived or developed while watching miles of beautiful southern scenery roll by from the passenger seat of the tour van’. And it is this life on the road that provides him with an impressionistic album full of stories told in a style not unlike Harry Chapin.
Roy Schneider’s music is like a sparkling bright early summer’s day, not too hot and full of a good time vibe with an indefinable optimistic breeze in the air. Like the best Americana music should be, he combines a compelling mix of narratives and instrumental beauty over 12 penned songs and a closing love song, ‘Brokedown Palace’ by the Grateful Dead.
Whether it’s a combination of his acoustic and Keven Aland’s fiddle playing on ‘South in the Summertime' or the hot club vibe of the very catchy ‘On Hill Time’; (‘Like a 1930s animation, where everything in the world just springs to life You fill my imagination on hill time'), Roy’s songs bob, weave and meander as all good stories do as if part of a bigger design.
‘On Hill Time’ simply bristles and there’s never a note or phrase wasted, with Roy’s insistent guitar matched by the wonderful Charlie McCoy on warm toned harp and Keven Aland’s sinewy fiddle. ‘Strange Wind’ is another perfect blend of rootsy melodic rock as the sound is fattened by Kim Mayfield’s drifting organ alongside more potent fiddle. The rich harmonies are coloured by a subtle use of echo in possibly the most lushly produced song on the album. With its uplifting melody, delicate percussion and punctuated cymbal splashes, ‘Strange Wind’ is very radio friendly and a fair barometer of the current musical values.
But there’s so much more, including the country feel and intricate patchwork of banjo, mandolin, fiddle and harp of ‘Let It Shine’. It’s the kind of song that could easily have been the work of JJ Cale. Roy adds more splendid guitar picking and flute on the beautifully judged melodic instrumental ‘Dancing with a Horse’, on an excellent example of paying due attention to an album’s sequencing, its core dynamic and flow.
Among many quietly delivered perceptive observations, Roy sums things up nicely in their simplest terms on the fiddle led, subtle brush strokes and rhythmic acoustic of ‘Life Keeps Moving’; (‘I remember when I was a little boy, life was just for joy’ The world was a cul de sac and a big crabapple tree’).
It is this sense of wonder and happiness with his lot that lies at the core of his work. He expresses a similar sentiment on ‘Living The Dream’;
‘I’m learning how to find the silver lining, even on the blackest cloud Livin’ in the light and leavin’ all the dark behind me - barefoot and proud’, while on ‘Carriage’ he ruminates on the passing of time; I guess I’ve reached a place where I just stop more often and consider my mortality This ain’t a song about getting old, it’s just reflections of my soul on reality’.
There’s a textured blend of country rock, folk, gypsy jazz and shades of the blues on this CD as well as melodic rock. And it’s all anchored by Roy’s keen sense of a strong melody, the value of harmony singing and his inherent ability to craft a song.
‘Erleichda’ is a real delight filled with a joy de vivre matched by musical excellence. When Roy Schneider casts his perceptive poetic gaze on life its well worth paying attention. For as he himself sings things aren’t necessarily as complex as we sometimes think. ‘Keep it simple, everything don’t have to be a drain No need to blow it all up into something that it ain’t’.
This is an album well worth purchasing.
Reply
On the Road with "Erleichda"
Well, here Kim and I sit in what we hope will be the only motel room we'll require all summer. See, I spent many days building a camper conversion in my Astro van so we can not only have a more fulfilling summer experience in campgrounds (rather than Motel 6s, surrounded by cracked concrete and bad attitudes) but save some dough to boot. We decided to get this little budget room tonight because I still have to fix up the window coverings and a few other things before it's fully ready for sleepage. We did, however, cook up some dinner at the rest area tonight. Easing into the summer camping experience, ya might say.
I'm pleased to report that the new CD, "Erleichda" is selling very well and getting very kind responses. I've also had friends and acquaintances telling me they're hearing the tracks played on radio stations from Miami to San Francisco, and I couldn't be happier about that. It's in the top 50 on the "Roots Country" charts currently, and naturally I hope it's the beginning of a steady climb. Numbers don't really mean anything, but they sure look nice when they're in your favor.
So we're going to arrive in Boulder tomorrow at my stepsister's house... We haven't seen each other since we were twelve! My father is planning on coming to our show on father's day, and I haven't seen him in about ten years. SO excited to be going back to Colorado! We're going to have to cruise up into the rockies on one of our days off and camp.
We had a lovely time with our good friends Mike and Ann in the St. Louis area this past weekend, drove through beautiful scenery all day and now this.
I guess it's safe to say "So far, so good".
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New MP3 Uploads, New CD Status & Tour Dates
Just a quick update to say that the new album, "Erleichda", is in fact being made right now.
This is both good and bad. Well OK, it's just good. But I really wish we had copies of it in-hand tomorrow morning when we leave for a 2-week tour. The CDs should arrive on my Florida doorstep right about the time I'm playing my sister's house concert just south of Boston. Sighhh...
So, on the road again we go! Please click the "shows" tab on my reverbnation page or the "Schedule" button on royschneider.com for the latest.
I uploaded 3 new songs in addition to the live "So Crazy" on reverbnation a couple of days ago, but they don't seem to be appearing on my dotcom. If you're reading this from there, please go to www.reverbnation.com/royschneider and click on the player for the latest songs (until I can figure out what's hapnin).
Pre-orders for "Erleichda" have begun rolling in. If you would like to pre-order ($15, includes shipping & handling) please shoot me an email and we'll set it up.
Thanks so much for your support.
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New Dates, Album #3 Nearly to Mastering
Howdy!
As I scramble to get out the door this morning for the Sarasota Folk Fest, it occurred to me I ought to pop in for a quick update.
Well, I'm going to be at the Sarasota Folk Fest this weekend! Today at 4 PM on the mainstage with Kim Mayfield on piano, then again tomorrow at 2PM in-the-round with some other fine songwriters. Hope those of you in Florida can make it!
The CD is in the hands of Greg Timko in Ft Myers Beach, expertly mixing and mastering the new album... Which may or may not include a very well-known Nashvillian who has recorded with the likes of Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Simon & Garfunkel and a host of others. We'll see what happens there... And you will certainly hear about it if I'm able to get him on the disc!
Between David Johnson's incredible bass work, Keven Aland's majestic fiddling and Kim Mayfield's beautiful piano, this album is really something to be excited about. Lots of feel-good, up-tempo songs on this one; I bet it'll be a good "Driving CDs", the one you pop on as you hit the highway for a road trip. That could be because a good percentage of these songs were written while traveling, either in the van itself or in various campgrounds over the 2009 summer tour.
Well, my wife is bound to choke me if I don't run and hook up the trailer and get on I-75... New mailed update coming soon!
Roy
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