Wooden Wand: Blood Oath of the New Blues (Fire/Southbound)

 |   |  <1 min read

Wooden Wand: Southern Colorado Song
Wooden Wand: Blood Oath of the New Blues (Fire/Southbound)

In the real world “a songwriter's songwriter” usually translates into “respected, but no commercial potential”.

Wooden Wand – aka James Jackson Toth – has been been described as having “that picaresque quality Dylan had in his heyday” by Swans' Michael Gira, and some have cited Neil Young, Springsteen and Cohen in reviews.

Hard to make those references on this album, but he's certainly in a lineage of emotionally probing alt.country writers – Townes Van Zandt in places -- although many might not get there after the opener No Bed for Beatle Wand/Days This Long which runs close to 12 minutes of downbeat rumination.

It's actually very good, but someone who wasn't “a songwriter's songwriter” might have put at the end and kicked off with the more manageable country melancholy and pop-length of Supermoon.

There are few “up” moments here but the weary languor makes for a coherent mood piece, sort of Sunday monring come down music.

Wand/Toth – who has label hopped, perhaps because no one quite knows what do with him – is a distinctive writer with a compelling delivery and a sure, understated melodic touch.

The brooding, poetic track (and title) Outsider Blues sums this up.

Worth investigating.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

RECOMMENDED RECORD: Gramsci: The Hinterlands (MAC/digital outlets)

RECOMMENDED RECORD: Gramsci: The Hinterlands (MAC/digital outlets)

From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this one which comes with the lyrics on the inner sleeve.Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record... > Read more

Irving: Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers (Rhythmethod)

Irving: Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers (Rhythmethod)

Because my record collection has such wayward but much loved albums by bands as diverse as the Unforgiven (spaghetti western rock), the Shoes (power pop), Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (early... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, a film by JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE, 2009 (Madman DVD)

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, a film by JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE, 2009 (Madman DVD)

In the first volume of his projected trilogy about the history of his homeland -- Australians: Origins to Eureka, published 2009 -- the writer Thomas Keneally writes of the first Irish convicts... > Read more

GUEST WRITER MADELINE BOCARO sees Yoko Ono go jazz in New York City

GUEST WRITER MADELINE BOCARO sees Yoko Ono go jazz in New York City

It is truly The Summer of Yoko in New York City. Yoko Ono One Woman Show at The Museum of Modern Art is in full bloom and she presented two delightful evenings of films and lectures in July,... > Read more