Daniel Ledbetter

Floodwaters

I knew Daniel as that guy in middle school that won the talent show by spinning a bo staff and liked a lot of girls. Mutual friends of friends, we didn't talk a whole lot until high school. I remember impressing him by playing a Tool song on a guitar at a party in the ninth grade. We were both in JROTC, playing violent renditions of basketball (with amended rules encouraging full contact) and competing on the Raider team together. Daniel started playing guitar, using his thumb on his left hand, primarily. We both have a soft spot for so-called 90's alternative, me more Alice in Chains and Tool, he more Staind and Stone Sour. He liked the bands I liked, I didn't really like the ones he did. On our many rides in my pickup, he'd try to pop in a Hurt cd or something like that, I'd curse at him and yell at traffic and put in Trout Mask Replica. Very patiently, Ledbetter listened intently to everything I showed him, from avant-garde to jazz to no-wave. He appreciated all of it, but offered honest analysis and conclusions. When I dropped him off, he went inside and did not put on Captain Beefheart.

I began recording Ledbetter before I recorded anyone else. His music was jarring to me; his songs were long, he sang low, and his songs were painfully painfully heartfelt. I couldn't reconcile that with my "punk" aesthetics and fought him every step of the way. I tried my goddamnedest to sneak in weird ambient shit or echo experiments, and he excitedly agreed. That's where I fucked up. I was trying to get

Ledbetter to be less accessible and more raw on the surface, for what? These songs are fucking raw. Yeah, they're catchy and listenable and poppy and are totally genuine. Thomas Yates, who played the same open mic nights as Ledbetter, told me, "He's loves what he does and he's really good at it. I respect him for that." I got it. I was being a shit and Daniel was being a real musician.

So we recorded. We recorded a lot. On one of my sleepless tweaks, I profusely promised to record his album on a computer. We recorded for months and months and never finished it before I moved to Detroit. But in that time, he honed his craft, loosing a lot of the Aaron Lewis darkness he was comfortable with as a blanket and fluidly melding Southern rock with his post-grunge sensibilities. The addition of Brandon Wilson, some kind of evil country-riff genius with fifteen music degrees (or something like that, it's hard to keep up when he talks), was one of the best things to ever happen to him. Daniel's way with words and composition and charisma matched with Brandon's virtuoso combusted into well oiled, bar banding machine. Yeah they play a lot of covers, people in bars like covers, but on their best nights, probably upwards of 50% of their material is original (aside: Ledbetter is one of the only musicians I know personally that has neither recorded a cover nor had any ambition of doing so).

So these songs are a collection of songs, started in 2008 to songs that he plays today in 2013. We recorded these in my parents' basement, in my home in the country in Ceder Hill, in my house near downtown Clarksville, a shed in Palmyra, and finally, finishing them up in my parents' basement. Daniel Ledbetter is one of my best friends. I was the best man at his wedding. He came to my rescue when my brother destroyed my bathroom on Cinco de Mayo. Daniel has worked hard all his life and doesn't bitch about it (more than one is entitled to). His love, patience, and devotion to his family and close friends in unrivalled. He's married to the love of his life (who appears on this collection) and has a baby on the way. And he appears to have zero interest in ever changing his art or his integrity, which is bullheaded and punk as fuck.

 

Listen to it right here for free. 

Daniel Ledbetter- guitar, vocals, percussion, keys on track 7

Kristen Ledbetter- vocals on track 7

Brandon Wilson- guitar, piano, and percussion on tracks 2 and 6

Nicholas Riley- bass, banjo, hammer guitar, electric guitar on track 9, percussion, Kaoss pad

All songs written by Daniel Ledbetter and recorded by Nicholas Riley between 2008-2012 in Clarksville, Palmyra, and Cedar Hill, TN. 

Deadbetter

This year, Daniel approached me with an idea for a quick, easy to record EP. I was all about easy to record because or our tendency of doing a lot of work and, curiously, getting nothing done. So, we sat down and in one night knocked out four gritty Southern-ass songs for his side-project, Deadbetter. This is a real accomplishment for us. There's not a whole lot else to say other than it's crunchy and sounds old and it's kind of weird...for both of us. Enjoy.  

Download it here, also for free.

Daniel Ledbetter- guitar, vocals, percussion, bass

Nicholas Riley- other stuff

All songs written by Daniel Ledbetter

All songs recorded in Clarksville, TN in the spring of 2013

 

Jacob Bailey

I've talked extensively about recording with Jacob Bailey. As far as mass quantity, I've put in more recording hours with Jacob than anyone else. After recording the No-Nothins, Jacob had me record his solo songs in the spring/summer of 2008. This is when Jacob was at his self-described "creative peak." He was cranking out paintings, drawings, and songs in prolific quantities. All of it good.

We sat about recording in my "studio" I built in my parents' garage, as per usual for 2008. Most of the songs were just Jacob and one of his acoustic guitars, me doing overdubs of ambience (with a hammer as a slide on a guitar or delayed cheap keyboards because I was trying my goddamnedest to be Brian Eno) or whatever else. I had an exceptionally hard time doing overdubs because Jacob plays notoriously out of time, which, admittedly, yields interesting and irreplicable results, but ultimately is a pain in the ass. This lead us to simplifying these songs, such drone and almost inaudible percussion in Log Cabin, no double tracked vocals, and minimal overdubs. Thick atmosphere became crucial to these recordings, leaving in incidental sounds like in American Dream. And in the intro to his rendition of Singin' in the Rain, we left the garage door opened and sat in silence as we recorded a summer storm. Jacob recorded a guitar piece that may have well fallen out of the clouds with the rain.

The writing on this collection is still political largely, albiet here slightly more veiled than with the No-Nothins. The writing is bleeding heart-on-the-sleeve emotional and beautiful and honest; it's the logical extension of his contribution to the No-Nothins.  American Dream makes me homesick, Bluebird is hopeful and reassuring, Memphis Blackfoot gives you wanderlust, and Drac and Wolfman, an allegorical take on homosexuality, contains one of my favorite and most empowering lyrics ever written by anyone:

"No god no book can tell you who to be, 

you've got one life to live so, honey, 

live it and be free."

Just like I've said before, it's young, it's naive, and it's absolutely perfect. A glass of water is a glass of water, but goddamn is it refreshing when it's hot out.

These recordings can be downloaded here for nothing in return.

Jacob Bailey- vocals, guitar

Nicholas Riley- bass, mandolin, percussion, drone 

Skrawny- bass

All songs written by Jacob Bailey except Singin' in the Rain, which was written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown.

All songs recorded by Nicholas Riley in 2008 in Clarksville, TN except The Mothership Awaits, which was recorded by Jacob Bailey in Palmyra, TN.