It's not an easy thing to write a song, at least not a good one (let alone enough of them to make an album float). It's harder still to locate lyrical inspiration that hasn't been trampled under the "baby, come backs," of decades of pop music, as good as some of those still turn out. Enter the non-sequitorial muse, long the go-to of prog rock acts of all sorts, resulting in more than one album that simply couldn't sustain the goals of such weighty conceptual premises. Lately, though, such inspiration has been the domain of the likes of The Decemberists and, earlier this year, The Dimes, whose The Silent Generation was made up of songs that grew from the stories of an ancient newspaper found within the walls of one of the band members' houses.
Portland's Bark Hide & Horn chose National Geographic for their purposes, specifically the period (1957-1967) that included the reign of Melville Bell Grosvenor (grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, for what it's worth) as the editor of the venerable magazine. National Road, the band's debut full-length, is the result and the common thread that weaves tales of disgruntled wives, space-traveling chimpanzees and the like, fertile ground it would seem for an album that stretches to fourteen songs in all. Bark Hide & Horn celebrate the release tonight at Holocene.
MP3: Bark Hide & Horn, from National Road- "Trumpeter Swan"
Also tonight, an extended in-studio session (in two parts) with The Real Tuesday Weld, the brainchild of Stephen Coates. Originally a one-man act Coates claims to have been inspired by a pair of dreams featuring British crooner Al Bowlly and the actress Tuesday Weld, he expands the line-up for live performances allowing the band to flesh out his creations and occasionally fuse new life into the songs, as they did for our session.
We talked to Coates about his persona's mysterious origins, the blurred lines of his fact and fiction, and the story behind his alter-ego, The Clerkenwell Kid.
Stream: The Real Tuesday Weld's opbmusic in-studio session
We would, of course, love to hear from you if you're so inclined. Requests, comments, reactions to tonight's in-studio or anything else you hear? The thread is open....
