Friday, October 10, 2008

It Always Feels Like...Someone's Watching Me


Ok...so it's not that Rockwell. But hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, The Rockwells are made up of two sets of of brothers: Fred and Jonathan Kelly, and Tommy and Trace Bateman. They met in high school and started The Rockwells as a long-distance recording project by Jonathan and Fred in 1999, while Fred was working in Memphis and Jonathan had moved to Knoxville for school. Tommy and Trace joined the band in 2000 when Fred moved to Knoxville. After recording four full-length albums and one EP by themselves (on very primitive equipment), the band recorded an EP at Studio 613 with Don Coffee Jr. of Superdrag. This EP was called Tear It Down, since the studio was leveled to make way for I-40 shortly after we finished recording. Talk about omen's.

Their latest album, Place & Time was recorded entirely by The Rockwells in both Knoxville and Memphis, Tennessee. More than half a dozen locations were used, including various houses, a cabin, and local rock club The Pilot Light. The record was mixed by Howard Redekopp, who has mixed such Merge artists as The New Pornographers and AC Newmann (also of the New Pornographers.) He was in Canada at the time, and the band couldn’t afford to go up there, so the mixing process was done almost exclusively via email. Guests on the album include Jeremy Bain (May Gray, Slick) on lead guitar and Christina Horn (Hudson K) on piano on “Knot of Tension,” as well as guest vocalist Emily Robinson (Tenderhooks) on “Hole in the Wall.” Seth Hopper (Christabel and the Johns, Tommy Bateman and the Thunder Thieves) played all the violin on the record, as well as trumpet on “Hole in the Wall.” You mom may have made a guest appearance on the record as well...you'll just have to check the album's credits.

Place & Time is being released December 2, 2008 on Migrant Records.

Download: Microkorg
Download: The Quarterback