Adam Gnade Shares Some Of His Favorite Contemporary DIY Tracks

Adam Gnade & The Hot Earth All-stars have announced that they will be re-releasing two of his EPs called Americans and Greater Mythology Blues on September 2, 2016 through Three One G Records. Mr. Gnade is also known for the books he has written. The first one he ever wrote is called The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin’ Sad. So because he is such a champion of the DIY ethic, we had him make a playlist of some of his favorite contemporary DIY/self-released songs that he has been listening to lately.

Adam Gnade, well-known for his published works including The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin’ Sad and Caveworld, is not just an author, but an all-around artist spanning into music. Gnade fuses the two forms to create “talking songs” that have a powerful cinematic quality, somewhere in the realm of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Mogwai at times. His work with The Hot Earth All-stars, who went onto become a Sydney Eloise and the Palms, tells stories with sound in ways that show meticulous intentionality with a folk quality, influenced by acts like Neutral Milk Hotel  and Joanna Newsom (to compliment his literary influences of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce). Despite living now on a farm in Kansas, his strong attachment and familiarity to the music scene of San Diego as well as his adamant DIY ethics have lead to his current collaboration/re-releases with Pioneers Press and Three One G records, run by Justin Pearson (The Locust, Retox, Head Wound City, Dead Cross).

Adam Gnade’s albums, AMERICANS and Greater Mythology Blues, are being digitally released by Three One G Records on September 2nd.

AMERICANS/Greater Mythology blues were both recorded and mastered at Birdhouse Studios in Atlanta, GA by Damon Moon in 2013.

Amid the rampant distrust, dissatisfaction, and dissent in the United States during these times is the re-release by Three One G of Adam Gnade & The Hot Earth All-Stars’ AMERICANS and Greater Mythology blues, which seem not only particularly apt, but necessary. Here we see fractured lives in the form of three separate storylines– a companion to Gnade’s novel, Caveworld. His songs are teeming with doubt (“we have kids/ but do our kids have us?”), depression (“are your friends dragging you down/ or were you down to begin with?”), isolation (“but what do you do when none of them speak for you?”). In the Southern Gothic dilapidated landscape, though, there is also hidden hope, self-salvation, kinship. “There’s no meaning of life, but there is meaning in life,” Gnade murmurs. In Greater Mythology Blues, one finds stories from AMERICANS continued, ended, and renewed, the cyclical nature of human existence framed like a county fair’s rusted ferris wheel. Keeping an overarching Americana style, the music vacillates from doo-wop to plucked banjo and upbeat percussion. These are punctuated by segments of slow, sobering guitar riffs, hushed organ gospels and occasional musical silence as Adam speaks, sometimes gently warbled and others shared more aggressively. Throughout, a nearly tangible desperation seems to be fighting its way out in his vocals. Gnade’s knack for gut-punching narrative and heartbreaking imagery is thought-provoking and resounding.

“Rainy Day End-of-Summer Farmhouse Mix” by Adam Gnade:

Summer’s ending here on the Hard Fifty Farm and things are changing. I mean, they’re always changing—that’s a constant when you live rural—but now we’re at the start of seasonal change, which is a whole ‘nother beast. Soon the leaves on the oaks and black walnuts that line the drive will begin to drop and the trees on the penitentiary road will go from dark green to all sorts of yellow and red and gold. Fall hits this part of the world like a Mack truck and it’s not the worst thing to see.

With summer’s end comes a cooling off and with that the return of the thunderstorms. I listen to a lot of loud, brutal, heavy music that sounds like tectonic plates crashing together and cars being crushed into metal cubes then dropped onto the sidewalk. But not right now. With the end-of-summer storms you want something quiet and slow and gently noisy to match the tone. Here are my rainy day jams. What with Orlando and Turkey and Trump and all the shitty murderous cops, the world has been evil and mean all summer. I hope you can chill out a while to these …

1) Ohioan “Spring in Marcy” Rumor has it (or memory dictates?) that this was recorded in the high desert of Northern Mexico. Maybe Death Valley at night? Maybe Barstow in a shitty motel with the ghost of Hunter Thompson running the tape? Anyway, makes sense. Mysterious origins.

2) Ohioan “Sometimes” Comedy relief here with three times the Robin Williams, twice the Whoopi Goldberg, and no Billy Crystal. Ryne from Ohioan writes my favorite one-liners.

3) Under White Pines “Poor Family” A few of the best moments on my Three One G EPs come from this talented guy. Somebody please tell him to make music again. I think he lives in Warren Zevon’s old room in Echo Park. Right by the taco stand with the chile relleno burritos. Tell him to cover “Carmelita.”

4) Castanets “Out for the West” Sometimes I miss living in Portland and this rainy-day-in-the-life sums up what I miss. Shitty junk shops like Value Village, the last of the trains, porches, porches, porches, wipers knocking around on your windshield while you pass by all that gray cityscape. This one’s got everything except doom bands at the Tube, soggy copies of the Mercury in the gutter, and Sauvie Island.

5) Your Friend “Tame One” My favorite Lawrence, KS band. Slow burn glory here. If Jana Hunter from Lower Dens is David Bowie, this is Jobriath or maybe Cockney Rebel.

6) Damon Moon and the Whispering Drifters “Lay With You” More band-mates from the new EPs. This is a lust song and I think you’d be pretty stoked if someone wanted you enough to write this about you. Damon Moon as Luther Vandross?

7) Damon Moon and the Whispering Drifters “Guild the Lily” A total hit. Pretty thing to hear when the skies are heavy and dark. Final sigh. Last release. Goodbye, goodbye.

Adam Gnade Official Website

Adam Gnade on Three One G Records

Adam Gnade – Americans

Adam Gnade – Greater Mythology Blues