Willy Mason on EOTR Tour
End of the Road Festival Presents...... WILLY MASON ON TOUR, with support from The Staves and Daniel Lefkowitz
6th September 2011 Cardiff - The Gate - Tickets here
7th September 2011 Nottingham - Glee - Tickets here
8th September 2011 Brighton - Komedia - Tickets here
9th September 2011 London - Union Chapel - Tickets here
WILLY MASON
WILLY MASON is still kicking and picking after everyone thought he was licked. He's that songwriter that sang the song about wanting to be better than oxygen and cooler than TV and then became a popular singer and sang the song about having to save himself and then did just that and went home to his momma. All this of course didn't change the fact that writing a song is his favorite thing to do and singing a song is the best way he knows how to get through to people. Maybe its cause his parents are the same way but we won’t get into that now. Might as well see what he has to say for himself on tour.
THE STAVES
The Staves are three English sisters whose soaring harmonies hark back to the sweet sounds of Crosby, Stills and Nash. They mould their love of Americana and folk into finely crafted tales of love and loss with gently finger-picked guitar and ukulele, and, at the forefront - their three unique voices.
DANIEL LEFKOWITZ
Daniel Lefkowitz is a riveting folk songwriter. His music wanders the ages, weaving between the worlds of old time songbirds, the mythic architects of blues, and the rebel rousing ink slingers. In 2006 he set out from his hometown in Virginia and joined efforts with Ben Knox Miller and Jeff Prystowsky in their fledgling band The Low Anthem in Providence, Rhode Island. During this time, Daniel penned Low Anthem track and live favorite “This God Damn House”. Before long, Lefkowitz set out on his own, all the while maintaining a friendship with his previous bandmates. He travelled from the Atlantic to the Pacific four times and then settled for a spell in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas in 2008.
“Now the kitchen is empty and the dishwater's cold / The newspaper on the table is three days old. / I’ve read every book on the living room shelf / I’m losing my mind in this god damn house.” (This God Damn House)
Upon arriving in the Ozarks, Lefkowitz set about building a life previously unknown to him. He lived in the woods, on a steep sloping hill, in a simple off the grid shelter. His intrigue with something akin to an American folk tradition ran rampant and he filled his days with wood shavings, coal smoke, and fiddle rosin. In the day to day business of collecting clean drinking water, cutting firewood, and delighting in the evening warble of the whippoorwill another musical path was unearthed. With the sensibility of a poem or an abstract sketch, Daniel's songs delved into the intrigues of death and dreams unborn, the confusion of identity and intent, and the overwhelming ebb and flow of love.
“And under me the naked ghost writhes in a fitful waking dream/ And there you did but turn the seething seas to a thimble of yellow brine." ( Sweet Old Sorrow)
A year spent under the canopy of dogwoods found Daniel knee high in a collection of new songs. With recording plans on the horizon, Lefkowitz traversed the country twice more before reuniting with Ben Knox Miller and Jeff Prystowsky of The Low Anthem in Providence, Rhode Island. The friends found a crumbling brick warehouse and set to work collaboratively arranging the instrumentation that has come to accentuate Wilder Shores of Love as a unique musical offering. The process of recording focused on capturing the natural room sounds and bringing out the spirit of each instrument in an organic space. A few of the implements of organized sound: a jug, a saw, a century old pump organ (once at home in a church), foot stomping, and one indelible gritty voice. With an unabashed and habitual unfamiliarity with the currents of new music, Lefkowitz's rendering of minimalist folk songs arrives at the here and now with an intrinsically authentic and modern presence.
August 2010 saw the release of the first set of songs from this recording process in the shape of a self-titled limited edition EP on End of The Road Records, which saw radio play from the likes of Jarvis Cocker on BBC 6music amongst others. To coincide with the release, Daniel ended his three year absence from the stage and headed to the UK to play a handful of dates including shows with Annie and The Beekeepers and Broken Records. He performed at End of the Road Festival, playing two solo shows, as well as a special one off show with the members of The Low Anthem.