Hailing from the Southernmost Reaches of Great Britain, these Four Players trade in Ballads of Melancholie & Tales of Murder.
Thank you to everyone who came out to The Albert for our gig on Tuesday. We had a good time and we hope you did too.
A special thank you to those of you who documented bits of the performance, including this footage of us playing the song The Truth Is Nothing for the very first time.
Remember, if you post any videos on YouTube or pictures on Flickr, be sure to tag them with saltercane
.
by February 16, 2008
If you’re in Brighton tonight, come on down to The Prince Albert on Trafalgar Street. There you can see three bands for three quid—not bad!
Salter Cane are headlining so we expect to be on stage sometime around 10pm. But come along before that to hear The Epstein and The Sea Will Decide.
We’ll be trying out some new material tonight. Wish us luck!
by February 12, 2008
David Byrne has written a great article for Wired magazine called David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars. He lists six different distribution models available to musicians today:
Right now Salter Cane are in that sixth category with a little bit of a distribution deal with CD Baby. As Byrne points out, there’s no one correct model:
No single model will work for everyone. There’s room for all of us. Some artists are the Coke and Pepsi of music, while others are the fine wine — or the funky home-brewed moonshine. And that’s fine.
The Wired article is well worth reading if you make music or if you’re just curious about the changing face of “the business.” For an ongoing look at the tools and opportunities available to musicians who don’t want to go down the traditional record deal route, be sure to check out Now Form A Band, a blog from the good folks at Last.fm. The manifesto outlines their mission:
We’re going to show you how to produce, promote and distribute your music, without spending a load of money, and without lots of other people getting involved.
by December 26, 2007
We were at Metway Studios in Brighton last week to mix three tracks recorded there earlier in the year. ‘Black Swollen River’, ‘Amelia’ and ‘Maudelaine’ are set to form the core of our next EP.
We took a very ‘live’ approach to the recording process, spending a long time with engineer Jake Rousham to get the sound in the room just right. We then recorded pretty much everything live in order to capture the feel we try to create in the rehearsal studio and on stage.
Jake did a fantastic job back then, so when it came time to mix after living with the recordings for a couple of months we heard something we liked as soon as he pulled the faders up. We’re all really pleased with the results, and can’t wait for you to be able to hear them.
Watch this space for news of the EP release.
by December 19, 2007
Yesterday evening, Jessica and I found ourselves at the Pressure Point in Brighton for a concert. No, not to play a concert. This time we were there to enjoy the music-making of the excellent Okkervil River.
Actually, Chris was the one who originally bought the tickets for this gig, organised by Brighton’s mighty Gilded Palace of Sin, but his workload got in the way so he passed the tickets on to us (thanks, Chris).
The support act was a young singer/songwriter from New York called Jaymay. As soon as she started singing, Jessica and I both looked at each other and asked, Where do I know this from?
The songs were really familiar. Had we heard her on the radio or TV? Had we played together at the same concert or festival? We racked our brains but we just couldn’t figure it out.
Once Jaymay had finished her set, Jessica had a chat with her and asked if she had played Brighton before. Yes, as it turns out, she played support to Cherry Ghost… which happened to be the last non-Salter Cane concert we had been to. The mystery was solved.
It’s a testament to the catchiness of Jaymay’s songs that they seemed so familiar on just the second listen. And, if proof were needed that all this gigging pays off, I purchased a copy of her album, Autumn Fallin’.
Okkervil River were, as expected, wonderful. It’s hard to believe that it’s four years since we saw them play in The Albert. There’s something Salter Cane-esque about some of their songs, especially the perfect mandolin-driven murder ballad, Westfall:
I’m surrounded, each doorway covered by at least twenty men.
And they’re going to take me and throw me in prison. I ain’t coming back again.
I ain’t coming back again.When I was younger, handsomer and stronger, I felt like I could do anything.
But all of these people making all these faces didn’t seem like my kith and kin.
Didn’t seem like my kith and kin.Colin Kincaid from the twelfth grade, I guess you could say he was my best friend.
He lived in a big tall house out on Westfall where we would hide when the rain rolled in.
Where we would hide when the rain rolled in.We went out one night and took a flashlight, out with these two girls Colin knew from Kenwood Christian.
One was named Laurie, that’s what the story said next week in the Guardian.
Said next week in the Guardian.And when I killed her it was so easy that I wanted to kill her again.
I got down on both of my knees and she ain’t coming back again.
She ain’t coming back again.Now, with all these cameras focused on my face, you’d think they could see it through my skin.
They’re looking for evil, thinking they can trace it but evil don’t look like anything.
Evil don’t look like anything.
Evil don’t look like anything.
Evil don’t look like anything.
by December 5, 2007
