Nettwerk America Presents
The Ballad Of Lawless Soirez
Debut Album By Gill Landry

Take a pinch of the shuttered French Quarter, a dash of shack distilled brew, mix it with the alleyways of Les Halles, throw in equal measures of wrong side of the tracks bars and whisky driven night sweats. Fire it up with songs of loss, of dashed dreams, of devils in dresses and a twist of bitters. Shake it. Bottle it. And sell it out of an old battered cardboard suitcase. These are the ingredients of Gil Landry’s debut album. The songs veer from the rural to ruined streets, from the bottle to the graveyard, from a murder of ravens to hymns. These songs read like a book. A collection of stories, of narratives charting the restless wanderings of a itinerant musician. These are not songs about Main Street. These are way back. They are an alternative soundtrack to the American nightmare. Southern gothic meets Noir.

Years ago, Gill Landry began performing as a busker on the streets of New Orleans, a town that knows a thing or two about decadence. He took the name Frank Lemon and created the Kitchen Syncopators, inspired by the old country blues, jazz and songster music of the 20’s and 30’s he was hearing around New Orleans. More recently, he’s played banjo and steel guitar for the Old Crow Medicine Show, but the music he’s created for The Ballad Of Lawless Soirez has a steamy, almost sinister vibe all its own, a resonance at once timeless and timely, the lonely sound of solitary footsteps scuffing down a deserted midnight street. Landry’s gruff, weary vocals, sharp lyrics, indigo melodies and understated fretwork give every one of these sharply etched vignettes its own unique character.

“This is a collection of songs written on the fly,” Landry explains. “They take place in squalid bars on Decatur Street, train yards in Paris, flooded graveyards in Erath, Louisiana, cars going 80 down Highway 90, from the gutter to a lover’s bedroom. They’re about love and love lost in a world gone wrong, people caught in a ceaseless circle of time: broke, hungry, worn out and wasted, with no easy outs, only narrow escapes and blind luck to fall back on.”

The Ballad Of Lawless Soirez was recorded in Portland, Oregon with producer Nick Jaina, who brought in musicians from the local folk, indie, rock and classical music scene to add color and depth to Landry’s hallucinatory travelogues. The overall feel may be downbeat, but shards of dark sunshine strike the surface to set off exhilarating musical sparks. “Poor Boy” is a swampy folk blues, with twanging, feedback drenched electric guitars dancing arm-in-arm with a baleful whispering organ and primitive, mountain violin. Landry’s vocal has an understated power that makes the tune sound even more desolate. “Dixie” is a drinking song named for a famous New Orleans brew, a mournful dirge driven by minimal guitar, mandolin and violin. It doesn’t romanticize the feeling of the morning after. “I wrote this the day after Mardi Gras as a homage to the years I played music on Royal Street with my friends. Night time we’d find ourselves drinking Dixie outside some dive, standing in the puke, piss, horseshit and confetti that is the less glamorous side of the French Quarter, depending which side your looking at it from.” “The Ballad Of Lawless Soirez” bounces along to the blare of Mariachi horns and the preternatural sound of the musical saw. It’s a surreal excursion into the mind of an exhausted road warrior as tawdry and hopeful as a Saturday night in a border town. “Mexico” delivers an impressionistic, disjointed lyric with an asymmetrical rhythm, wailing clarinet and funereal guitar. “Coal Black Heaven” comes from Hell’s cocktail lounge, a ditty that celebrates the coming apocalypse with a thrilling jumble of confused images, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. A ghostly Fender Rhodes floats over a wash of twangy guitars and a mysterious viola while Landry prays for a salvation he doubts will come.

Nick Jaina

The first paragraph of a musician's bio usually contains something very defensive. For instance, if a bio says that a musician is "real" and "emotional", that's a good indication that he or she is actually fake and pre-packaged. Does a coyote brag about how well it can chase down a mongoose? No, it just does it.

The second paragraph usually tries to make some comparison between well-known musicians so as to give an idea of what the musician in question sounds like. These descriptions have gotten more ornate and obscene recently. They used to be "It's like Etta James meets Tony Bennet" and then it was "It's like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix's love child" and now it's just "Imagine the Strokes having sex with Beck while Neko Case shoots heroin with Sufjan Stevens in Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's rehearsal space." Okay, but are there guitars mostly, or piano, or what? Are the lyrics good?

The third paragraph usually mentions brushes with fame. "...has shared the stage with the likes of..." Why does sharing a stage with someone make you an equal to them? What does sharing a stage mean? Can you play the night after someone and consider that to be sharing the stage? Do you have to actually be on the same bill? Do you have to actually be on the stage with them at the same time? Do you have to sing in harmony with them, and do you have to cup your hand around your ear like professional singers do?

Does anyone ever get to the fourth paragraph of a musician's bio? What secrets lay therein? Here they are: Nick Jaina is a well-respected member of society in Portland, Oregon. When he drinks wine, he drinks white wine (although he recently discovered sulfite-free red wine.) He's a straight-shooter. He is a member of the rock band Binary Dolls, where he plays the Fender Rhodes and sings rock-type songs. On his own, he plays guitar and piano and sings yet more songs. He is lucky enough to have the cream of Portland's musical community play in his "solo" band, which has now grown to a revolving cast of perhaps ten or so people. Members of the bands Horse Feathers, Heroes & Villains, Point Juncture, WA and others are all in the revolving cast. Every live show is a different band and an entirely different experience.

Nick Jaina is also a producer, having helped on Heroes & Villains 2006 release on Pampelmoose Records, "Turn Your Swords". He also produced Gill Landry's Nettwerk Records debut, "The Ballad of Lawless Soirez", to be released in January 2007. He is currently producing albums by Portland bands Run On Sentence and The Maybe Happening, in addition to a Christmas EP with Laura Gibson and a new solo album of his own. Nick's most recent album is called The 7 Stations and is availalble from Bang Back Records. Nick's two previous solo albums, "The Bluff of All Time"(2005) and "Snakes & Umbrellas"(2000) are currently hard to find.

Ol’ Snakey’s BlueJass Ramblers has recently been founded by respected members of the burgeoning Davis acoustic scene. Finding inspiration in music that spans decades and genres, Ol’ Snakey has created a unique sound that combines rural country-folk, klezmer, barrel-house jazz and gypsy.

Gill Landry

Recognize any of these guys? Ramble on fellas, ramble.