Rollo & Grady presents:
J Roddy Walston and The Business
Maxim Ludwig and the Santa Fe Seven, Trevor Menear
Thu, June 30, 2011
Doors: 8:30 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
The Satellite
Los Angeles, CA
$12.00
Tickets
This event is 21 and over
http://www.ticketfly.com/event/41723/
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J Roddy Walston and The Business
J Roddy Walston is not soft like someone born into privilege, but he does bear the hesitant scars of a man who fought his way out of a pedigree.
yoked from day one to a musical lineage that included “both kinds of music – country and gospel.”
he was told with regularity that it was close to sin to play either for any reason but God and Family.
and that when the city comes courting with contracts and such he was expected to follow tradition…and walk away.
“a weight is kindly put upon you with a heritage, and a choice comes to you in time, at that point you can just become an extension or you can get born and grow legs of you own.”
it is a stranger south that j roddy walston lived in, a place where radio gave equal ear to classic rock, hell-fire evangelists, and the elephant six.
powered and inspired by this mixture of art, spirit, and temptation he left home, in as much an attempt to bring his kin due credit as to rebel against the very things they had stood for.
he followed a girl north enough, and landed in baltimore with a low budget sense of manifest destiny and a handful of high dollar songs.
an undecided magnet started to draw to him a group of players. first came the challenge and compliment of billy gordon a musical mirror-image of j roddy and then steve colmus a sportly southpaw with a heavy snare hand. in them raw power met story and neither would compromise.
they felt a city squeeze. they formed an intangible thumb, and they them turned into a fist.
knowing good and well that you can predict a purebred, j roddy walston and the business opted to create a monster of the unknown, they threw what seed and egg they had into an american grab bag and hit the road. bending highways and rearranging maps to their fancy, making a different america for itself.
vision casting a strange view of the states to all who would listen, their agenda seems to be some sort of anti-secession, a growing over, rather than a breaking away.
a ceaseless expansion of the world where the rust belt and bible belt have been grown together to form a rock and roll quilt that knows no end.
i have seen their world. they perform in a place where the hedonists and believers are cut from the same cloth.
well-educated blue collars from busted boom towns forced to school when the factory option was taken away.
blue bloods working for a dime instead of taking the family money. renters and owners, evangelicals and recovering Catholics, nine to fivers and the service industry.
they all touch there.
i stumbled through a one way door. i now have a knowledge of these beatnik/honkey tonks and i can’t seem to unknow it.
in these places j roddy walston and the business is the hometown band.
XXXXX
yoked from day one to a musical lineage that included “both kinds of music – country and gospel.”
he was told with regularity that it was close to sin to play either for any reason but God and Family.
and that when the city comes courting with contracts and such he was expected to follow tradition…and walk away.
“a weight is kindly put upon you with a heritage, and a choice comes to you in time, at that point you can just become an extension or you can get born and grow legs of you own.”
it is a stranger south that j roddy walston lived in, a place where radio gave equal ear to classic rock, hell-fire evangelists, and the elephant six.
powered and inspired by this mixture of art, spirit, and temptation he left home, in as much an attempt to bring his kin due credit as to rebel against the very things they had stood for.
he followed a girl north enough, and landed in baltimore with a low budget sense of manifest destiny and a handful of high dollar songs.
an undecided magnet started to draw to him a group of players. first came the challenge and compliment of billy gordon a musical mirror-image of j roddy and then steve colmus a sportly southpaw with a heavy snare hand. in them raw power met story and neither would compromise.
they felt a city squeeze. they formed an intangible thumb, and they them turned into a fist.
knowing good and well that you can predict a purebred, j roddy walston and the business opted to create a monster of the unknown, they threw what seed and egg they had into an american grab bag and hit the road. bending highways and rearranging maps to their fancy, making a different america for itself.
vision casting a strange view of the states to all who would listen, their agenda seems to be some sort of anti-secession, a growing over, rather than a breaking away.
a ceaseless expansion of the world where the rust belt and bible belt have been grown together to form a rock and roll quilt that knows no end.
i have seen their world. they perform in a place where the hedonists and believers are cut from the same cloth.
well-educated blue collars from busted boom towns forced to school when the factory option was taken away.
blue bloods working for a dime instead of taking the family money. renters and owners, evangelicals and recovering Catholics, nine to fivers and the service industry.
they all touch there.
i stumbled through a one way door. i now have a knowledge of these beatnik/honkey tonks and i can’t seem to unknow it.
in these places j roddy walston and the business is the hometown band.
XXXXX
Maxim Ludwig and the Santa Fe Seven
In California, Maxim Ludwig lives surrounded by the ghosts of the “Gone West” migration. Though barely broken into his 20′s, Ludwig embraces folk music of eras past, and his songs seem drunk-honest in their depiction of an uncertain life in a temporary town. He was born in New York, but spent time in Germany frequently where he first started playing blues harmonica live in beer tents at age 9. In his teenage years, Ludwig began writing and playing in bands in Los Angeles until he spent a year in college in New York, working on his songwriting. After leaving the Hudson Valley, Ludwig settled in Silver Lake where he finished his self-produced debut album.
When asked about the name of the band, he says, “None of them are from Santa Fe and there aren’t seven of them, which is why they’re called the Santa Fe Seven.” After playing with a cast of revolving characters, Ludwig set out to find what he refers to as “a balance between the Stray Gators and Booker T. & the MG’s”. He then teamed up with Los Angeles country music veteran and bassist Ben Reddell from Texas, a staple of the mid-west music scene, pedal steel player and guitarist Chris Vos from Wisconsin, and fresh from the Miami college rock world, drummer and percussionist Jorge Balbi from Peru. Together they make a hard, reckless, dust-laden sound.
His deeply personal and wild live shows that mix his influence of early rock and roll, classic soul, and songwriting craftsmanship have earned him comparisons to Bob Dylan, The Band, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley and caused the Los Angeles Times to label him as a “brash maverick” who “views rules as something to be broken, not followed”. An intense showman, Ludwig’s narratives follow the tradition of Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, and Kris Kristofferson.
Whether he is crooning over lap steel, piano, or violin, the young musician’s lyrics channel the feelings of rambling desperation that inspired such greats as Hank Williams and Tom Waits. Hard living and rock n’ roll tradition aren’t the only places he finds his inspiration. Ludwig is a voracious reader and disciplined scholar who admires the works of Robert Creeley, Walt Whitman, and John Cassavetes. Confessing, “I became heavily obsessed with words,” Ludwig’s songs unveil themselves like good literature, and string the listener along with equal parts suspense and intrigue.
Maxim Ludwig & The Santa Fe Seven’s animal-like energy at the The Hotel Cafe, The Mint, The Bootleg Theater, The Troubadour, Spaceland, The Roxy, The El Rey, The Viper Room, The Key Club, and The Whisky in Los Angeles as well as Ludwig’s passionate performances at the StageCoach Festival and the Austin City Limits Festival have earned them a showcase at this year’s SXSW and a reputation as the hardest working band around.
When asked about the name of the band, he says, “None of them are from Santa Fe and there aren’t seven of them, which is why they’re called the Santa Fe Seven.” After playing with a cast of revolving characters, Ludwig set out to find what he refers to as “a balance between the Stray Gators and Booker T. & the MG’s”. He then teamed up with Los Angeles country music veteran and bassist Ben Reddell from Texas, a staple of the mid-west music scene, pedal steel player and guitarist Chris Vos from Wisconsin, and fresh from the Miami college rock world, drummer and percussionist Jorge Balbi from Peru. Together they make a hard, reckless, dust-laden sound.
His deeply personal and wild live shows that mix his influence of early rock and roll, classic soul, and songwriting craftsmanship have earned him comparisons to Bob Dylan, The Band, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley and caused the Los Angeles Times to label him as a “brash maverick” who “views rules as something to be broken, not followed”. An intense showman, Ludwig’s narratives follow the tradition of Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, and Kris Kristofferson.
Whether he is crooning over lap steel, piano, or violin, the young musician’s lyrics channel the feelings of rambling desperation that inspired such greats as Hank Williams and Tom Waits. Hard living and rock n’ roll tradition aren’t the only places he finds his inspiration. Ludwig is a voracious reader and disciplined scholar who admires the works of Robert Creeley, Walt Whitman, and John Cassavetes. Confessing, “I became heavily obsessed with words,” Ludwig’s songs unveil themselves like good literature, and string the listener along with equal parts suspense and intrigue.
Maxim Ludwig & The Santa Fe Seven’s animal-like energy at the The Hotel Cafe, The Mint, The Bootleg Theater, The Troubadour, Spaceland, The Roxy, The El Rey, The Viper Room, The Key Club, and The Whisky in Los Angeles as well as Ludwig’s passionate performances at the StageCoach Festival and the Austin City Limits Festival have earned them a showcase at this year’s SXSW and a reputation as the hardest working band around.
