Anders Parker
self-titled
Baryon Records
October 31, 2006

Anders Parker has released five albums under the Varnaline name, two with Space Needle, two critically acclaimed solo releases (Tell it to the Dust & The Wounded Astronaut) and one soon-to-be-released collaboration with Jay Farrar-under the moniker Gob Iron. His new self-titled album will be released on Baryon Records on October 31, 2006. In his own words:

As a reaction to the long recording and self-producing process of my last two records, Tell It To The Dust and The Wounded Astronaut, I wanted this one to be fast, quick, live and immediate. I also wanted to throw a lot of it up in the air and see what happened… meaning: I didn't want to make all of the musical decisions myself.

Originally I conceived this record as a solo record -- me singing and playing acoustic guitar or piano with no overdubs. But as I was writing these songs I realized that I didn't want to record them alone. So, I needed a band and a place to record….

Los Angeles

My first plan to assemble a band on the East Coast and record in New York City fell through, prompting a last minute change of coasts. I called up my friend Adam Lasus, who co-produced the second Varnaline and Space Needle records (as well as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Clem Snide and Helium, among many others) and who had just relocated his Brooklyn-based Fireproof Studio to a converted pool house in Los Angeles, California. Knowing The Band recorded their second, self-titled record at Sammy Davis Jr's pool house in LA…well, already I had good vibes about heading west.

The band came together surprisingly well: Ken Coomer (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo) flew out from Nashville to play drums. Eric Heywood (Son Volt, Jayhawks, Richard Buckner) played pedal steel. He recommended bass player Jennifer Condos (Joe Henry, Stevie Nicks, Warren Zevon) whom I had never met but felt like I had known for years after a couple of days. And Adam Lasus got Kirk Swan (Dumptruck founder, Steve Wynn band) to play electric guitar.

Recording

All of the songs on the record were played, sung and recorded live in three days. No one had heard the songs prior to the sessions. I would play the songs for the band, usually outside at the table in front of the studio, and then we would go in and track the tune. Most songs were captured on the 1st or 2nd take. Once the basics were finished a few overdubs were in order. Sally Timms happened to be in town on tour with her Mekons band-mate John Langford so I managed to get her to come by and sing on the opening track, "Circle Same." Kristin Mooney brought a bottle of red wine and sang on a few tunes, "Dear Sara," "Missing" and "Belated." Phil Hurley (Gigolo Aunts) played a neat little solo on "Airport Road" and sang on a few things too. And in a little flurry of East Coast recording, Kendall Meade (Mascott) sang on "Winter Coat" and Mark Spencer (Blood Oranges, Freedy Johnston, Lisa Loeb) played piano and moog.

Self-Titled

I've made a few records now under many different conditions: some all by myself on a 4-track, a few with sizeable budgets and a band in big studios and a couple that spanned those two worlds. What I hoped to capture on this new album was simply this: the sound of a band playing these songs live in a room. In some ways it is still an acoustic record, but no longer a solo one. Even with everyone's amazing contributions, it remains simple, clear and uncluttered. In that spirit, I decided on the eponymous title.

Here are a few thoughts on the songs:

Circle Same

Written in Vermont a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina. I wasn't sure exactly what it meant and was about to start tinkering with the lyrics but then the storm came and I figured it was best to leave it as written. Not because it's about a hurricane, but because it seemed to make more sense after the storm hit. Perhaps about the cycles of life, the unchanging-ness of change. One of the few instructions that I gave the band was that everyone should play their own loop on this song. Make your circle and go.

Missing

Also written in Vermont, this time in the dead of winter. For a fellow traveler.

Oh, Monkeywrench

Last song written. Penned in a piano rehearsal room at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Finally joined the iPod/laptop generation and got to thinking about how great these toys are but how obtrusive and sometimes distracting they can be too. Then expanded the thought into idea of how we are ruining the world around us and surrendering to technology. I'm not a Luddite, but I'm down with Edward Abbey.

Dear Sara

Can't really remember where I wrote this. I think I started it on the road sometime last year. Concerning conversations with a friend about mortality, darkness, choices, change, death and dogs.

Airport Road

There's one everywhere, but there's a specific one near a place where I go sometimes that means I'm getting close to where I want to be. And there's something about the light and sounds of an airport and the smell of airplane fuel that I've always liked.

Under Wide Unbroken Skies

For travelers and lost friends.

False Positive

Written in Durham, NC, after seeing yet another frustrating White House press briefing. The lies and twisting of the truth. It's amazing what people will say and believe. There was a baseball player that was once described by the owner of his team as a "fat pussy toad". Couldn't help but think of that every time I saw Scott McClellan.

Belated

Also written in NC. I was sick as a dog and had a really high fever but somehow managed to sit at the piano and write this song. True story, for what it's worth. A birthday present for a birthday missed.

Proof

Always looking for proof of something. Sometimes you gotta have faith, other times proof.

Pajarito

Concerning a bull that brought the bullfight to the people.

Winter Coat

About the barren winter landscape of the northern wilds. With apologies to Neil Young, Paul Westerberg and Joni Mitchell, all of whom I borrowed lyrical snippets from for this one.

Pink Clouds

Tried to capture a conversation I had many years ago right at the last light of the day concerning the fleeting moments of life.

Tell it to the Dust Bio

Anders Parker is a modest man who lives in Brooklyn, NY and works as a musician. People who are into American songwriters know him as the frontman of Varnaline. That band enjoyed the support of so many enthusiastic reviews and high-profile fans (most recently Steve Earle, who released the last Varnaline record on his own boutique label E-Squared/Artemis) that it became a widely held consensus thaSt they were underrated. Which was impossible, though not the fault of the listening public, who actually really do have a bit of an ear, sort of.

Parker grew up on an old farm in New York's Hudson Valley, amid apple orchards, strip malls, and liberal arts colleges, listening to The Beatles, Bob Dylan and ABBA. Later, his interest flowed to R.E.M., The Replacements, Husker Du, The Smiths, etc… "Anyone who can write a song," as he once put it, had a fan in Anders Parker.

During his twenties, he moved to Portland, OR, bought a four-track and entered the lofty ranks of real-deal troubadours. 1996's Man of Sin (an Anders Parker solo album released under the name Varnaline) introduced Parker's knack for new chord structures that feel lived in, and lyrics that delicately illustrate our world's myriad variations on the sadly beautiful and beautifully sad.

The next year Varnaline became a band, as Anders' brother John Parker got on board as bassist. Drummer Jud Ehrbar, an old friend of both Parkers, joined on the condition that Anders help out with Ehrbar's other band, Space Needle. 1997 saw the release of Varnaline's self-titled sophomore effort, the acclaimed second Space Needle album The Moray Eels Eat the Space Needle and the acoustic Varnaline EP A Shot and a Beer. The new trio came off surprisingly low-slung and heavy. They made Parker's sturdy songs so rugged you could leave them in your pocket for a few days, run them through the laundry and in the morning they'd work just the same. Varnaline was compared to Crazy Horse and the Minutemen. They toured with Metallica that summer.

And they earned a following in the alt-country scene. This was probably due more to Varnaline's old-fashioned musical values (e.g., songs that work) than their sideburns. By 1998's Sweet Life, the band was proving impossible to categorize, except by saying, as many did, Damn this Anders Parker guy can write a song. Sweet Life captured Varnaline's brilliance the way glimmering ice can capture a tree. Production became as much a part of Parker's vision as his words and melodies. The characters he sang through started conveying poignancy beyond their own comprehension.

Around the turn of the century, the label that released the first three Varnaline albums folded, and the band's rhythm section executed a graceful bow to the pull of career and family. Anders, now relocated in North Carolina, signed to E-Squared/Artemis Records, but, unlike his labelmate Kurupt, continued to work with his former crewmates. Nonetheless, 2001's Songs In a Northern Key was pretty much an Anders Parker solo record released as a Varnaline record. Sprawling and varied, somber and gorgeous, it earned a crop of praise for all that and, of course, its songwriting.

No Depression gave it a rave, calling it "cinematic in its imagery and intimate in its feel." Magnet honored it with a spot on its year-end list of the 20 best albums of 2001. London's Daily Mail called it "a minor masterpiece."

In making his new album, Tell it to the Dust, Parker mastered the semi-solo approach of Songs In a Northern Key. Or maybe the first official Anders Parker album is better than the others because he had so much time. Take a guy who writes countless great songs every year and give him three years…you don't need an abacus to calculate what's coming.

The project was initiated with monies received upon voluntary release from Artemis (a year was long enough to wait for the chance to record a follow-up) as well as contributions from his management company, Undertow and donated studio time from friends and believers. Parker reunited with key collaborator Ehrbar in an old Brooklyn firehouse. The two laid down 22 songs in four days.

The initial recording was by producer/engineer Adam "Red" Lasus (whose credits include work with Helium and Clem Snide, in addition to Space Needle and Varnaline). Then, Anders took it on the road, recording in sundry settings with friends one at a time, including Jay Farrar (Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt), Bo Taylor (Motocaster, Dish, Bandway), Kendall Meade (Mascott), Greg Elkins (Vanilla Trainwreck), Joan Wasser (Dambuilders, Those Bastard Souls) and John Parker (Varnaline). John Agnello, (whose credits include Varnaline's "Sweet Life" as well as work with Dinosaur Jr. and Mark Lanegan) mixed the songs and then stepped up to offer the final piece of the puzzle by agreeing to release the album on his record label, Baryon Records.

It worked. Tell it to the Dust will move and please all who listen to it. Its release is a major story. Consider it the performing songwriter's equivalent of getting shot nine times in a botched drug deal and living to brag about it. For people who like songs, big news.

--Adam Heimlich