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My Favorite Cincinnati Music – 2009
Each Note Secure -- Topsy.com
It’s been another great year for Cincinnati music in 2009. Some of our favorite artist released new albums and some brand new folks caught our attention for the first time as well. Here are some of my favorite Cincinnati albums from 2009, if I missed you, I apologize, it certainly doesn’t mean I did not enjoy your art.
The Chocolate Horse – We Don’t Stand On Ceremony – The Chocolate Horse followed up a really great debut with this album in the fall of 2009. And for my money, this one is even better than the first. The eclectic mix of instrumentation is still there, but it takes some phscadelic turns that really make it stand out for me, I knew this would be a favorite on my first listen.
The Chocolate Horse – We Don’t Stand On Ceremony - Each Note Secure
Written and reviewed by Each Note Secure
posted by Administrator (Joe Long)
October 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment
The Chocolate Horse, Barn Dance Chicago 2009
It’s fall and slowly turning into winter in the Cincinnati area, and it’s also the time when music releases start to slow down as well. So it was a really great treat to get ahold of the new album from The Chocolate Horse a couple weeks ago. Since their debut record a couple years ago, The Chocolate Horse have raised their game to become one of the best bands in Cincinnati and the new record cements them into that category.
We Don’t Stand On Ceremony follows the excellent debut album from the band, Patience Works!, which the band released on their own label, as a vinyl and digital output. Not only do we love the way that album was released, but it was a catchy, warm adventure into layers of strings and diverse sounds.
The new album is actually more diverse, as frontman Jason Snell and his bandmates incorporate instruments again like banjo, French horn, flute, upright bass, drums and piano but also take a stab at some electronic weirdness here and there, courtesy of their affection for The Flaming Lips. For alot of bands this trip down a more psychedelic path could end up disastrous, but the subtly of it works really well for The Chocolate Horse.
Take the lead track from the album for example, “Your Daughter”, which begins with some spacey sounding feedback and and blips and softly merges into a gentle but building burner of a song. So far, it’s easily my favorite track from the new album.
So it’s not difficult for us to embrace this new record from The Chocolate Horse as one of our favorite local releases of 2009 already, and we encourage you to pick up a copy on vinyl or digital from the band as well right here. Snag a song for download below to get a taste.
Rock meets folk through this unusual combo of instruments
By Chris Varias
Special to Metromix
October 12, 2009
How many local groups could be the house band at both the Havana Martini Club and the Northside Tavern?
Last month at MidPoint Music Festival, the Chocolate Horse conquered the Havana, and it didn’t have to learn the rhumba to do so.
The band’s decisively non-rock instrumentation of banjo, upright bass and flute can cause a bit of initial bemusement, whether at a swanky room like Havana or anywhere else. But the Havana audience warmed to the pleasant melodic blend of those instruments, as well as the folky immediacy of Jason Snell’s singing and songwriting.
Snell, 32, talked about the release of “We Don’t Stand on Ceremony,” which the band is celebrating with a Saturday night show in the more familiar environs of the Northside Tavern. It’s the band’s second album, released on Snell’s own label, Stable Records.
Did you set out from the beginning to create a band with banjo, French horn, flute, upright bass, drums and piano, or did the instrumentation come together by chance?
It started with Andrew (Higley), Paul (Brumm) and me. From there, in the last four or five years, it’s gone from three pieces to having seven people on stage. It’s been an evolution. Sometimes you want it to be minimal. Sometime you want to build it up. There was nothing I was aiming for. Part of it has been trying to recreate stuff live. You can do whatever you want to do in the studio, but live, unless you want to bring a laptop along, if you want to keep it organic you keep adding.
I’m a big fan of the jazz saxophonist Roland Kirk, who also played a lot of flute, so I take it personally that the jazz flute is now a punch line thanks to the movie “Anchorman.” Have you had to defend the honor of the use of a flute in your band?
I don’t think it’s been because of “Anchorman” – well, maybe it has, and I hadn’t noticed. I’m a big fan of that movie, and I think we do get a little of that. We get a little more of, “Wow, you have a flute in your band, and it doesn’t sound like Jethro Tull. Oh, that’s interesting. You never see a flute in a rock-folky band. What’s that all about?” We raise a couple eyebrows that way. It ends up sounding more Middle Eastern, which is kind of interesting.
You mention Middle Eastern. What’s your answer when people ask what type of music you play? Indie rock? World music?
I like those questions, because it shows me people are curious. It starts a conversation. I won’t really tell people our sound. I’ll tell them the instruments we use. And then they hear us and it’s like, “Wow, you went from more of a garage-rock Kinks song to this Middle-Eastern-like Beatles tune.” It’s kind of cool to run that gamut. A big influence is the Beatles and things like that but also the Flaming Lips.
Can that eclecticism be defeating in terms of marketing the band? Record companies and the music media like to categorize bands.
It is kind of hard, because some people are like, “What is this stuff? There’s all these people. We don’t want to deal with that.” I think that’s kind of pushed me to start Stable Records. Working with Shake It Records, they’ll distribute it for us. It’s slow. I realize that it takes time. We’re just building our basis and having fun.
Andrew Higley moved to Nashville and has been busy down there. Was he able to play on the new record?
He’s all over it. That was pretty much the last thing he did before he moved. He’s still part of the band. He’s just not gonna be here for all the local shows. (Higley will be at the Saturday show.) He’s playing with Ben Folds right now and they’re recording a new record. He’s also playing with Brendan Benson. I just talked to (Andrew) the other day. He’s starting a new band with Patrick (Keeler, drummer for the Greenhornes and Raconteurs). I guess they’re looking for some sort of Spanish-female vocalist. It should be pretty interesting.
Music: The Chocolate Horse
The Chocolate Horse (minus Sharon and Andrew)
Local rockers The Chocolate Horse corral the wagons around Northside Tavern on Friday to celebrate the release of their limited-edition vinyl album We Don't Stand on Ceremony. This marks the band's second full-length album and is a follow-up to 2007’s well-received, heart-on-a-sleeve Patience Works!.
Where Patience Works!displays guitar-driven distorted downtime, the new offering feels more uplifting (if only for its orchestration). We Don't Stand on Ceremony is a transition: Something optimistic hovers in the air. The album strums upon the taut heartstrings left behind fromPatience Works!, only to relax with a more intricate and diverse instrumentation: banjo, flute, tabla, ocarina, acoustic bass, swirling keys (to list a few).
This new collection exhibits the same honesty we’ve come to expect from The Horse. Raspy croons and cries meet with beautiful harmonies throughout the record, but the true expression might exist in the interplay between the vocal and musical arrangement. Here, the music isn't just vocal accompaniment but the point — often furthering any lyrical connotations.
The Chocolate Horse welcomes friends DJ Bryan A. Dilsizian and Me or the Moon to commemorate the occasion starting at 10 p.m. Friday. Get details here.
Fingertips: The Intelligent Guide Free and Legal Music: The Chocolate Horse
"The Caribbean" - the Chocolate Horse I find this very distinctive blend of homeliness and sophistication completely enjoyable. The Chocolate Horse are five guys from Cincinnati who give the impression of playing whatever instruments they feel like playing, in whatever style they happen to start playing. If "The Caribbean" has an island sound to it, we're talking about a peculiar island---one that maybe grows both palm trees and cacti, on which cowboys on horses saunter down the beach in suede bathing trunks and everyone else is on vacation, but prefers to stay inside reading and listening to the radio, which only broadcast bands from Omaha pretending to be from Cuba.
Or something like that. Over and above the rhythm's lazy sway and the eccentric interplay of trumpet, upright bass, and (dobro?) guitar, "The Caribbean" succeeds on the strength of Jason Snell's oddly appealing voice. Half whispering, half growling, Snell sings with a historical sort of command, his voice echoing with the authority of some long-lost '70s crooner, augmented with a ghostly falsetto and an indie rocker's penchant for straying (winsomely) off pitch. A French horn and a saw are additional recruits in the Chocolate Horse's instrument arsenal, although I'm not sure I'm hearing the latter in this song, and I may be imagining the occasional appearance here of the former.
"The Caribbean" is a song from the band's debut CD, Patience Works!, which was released last year and recorded when they were still officially a trio. Like every other band in the world, and every other music lover (truly, I'm sure no one is left around this week to read this except maybe you), the Chocolate Horse will be in Austin for SXSW. The MP3 is available via the vast SXSW MP3 collection.
Vinyl Frontier
CityBeat
My Mike Breen
When you walk up to Jason Snell's modest two-story home tucked away on a backstreet in Northside, you don't suspect it to be any different from the rows of well-worn houses that surround it. But walk inside and you are in Chocolate Horse World Headquarters, something immediately evident when you go through the French doors to a corner room littered with recording equipment and wires running wildly throughout like snakes in the Amazon.
Snell -- lead singer, writer of "one-liners" and guitar strummer -- is hanging out with Paul Brumm, the band's stand-up bassist and official Inspector Gadget. He's tinkering with some electronic device, either MacGyvering some makeshift piece of equipment or repairing it.
Brumm, once a member of such local bands as Filament and Keynote Speaker, has long been fiddling with wires in the presence of Snell. The veteran musician recorded Snell's previous band, the artful Indie Rock juggernaut Readymaid, in his Over-the-Rhine apartment. I know because, full disclosure, I used to live upstairs from Brumm.
I must say, I somewhat miss the days of coming home to find someone in the hall recording a French horn solo. Somewhat.
Snell and Brumm (the other core member, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Andrew Higley, is in Nashville doing session work with The Raconteurs' Brendan Benson) are gathered to talk about The Chocolate Horse's debut album, Patience Works!, which can legitimately be called an "album," because the band pressed it up as a glorious slab of vinyl with luxurious cover art courtesy of the graphic-designing Snell. While much of today's new music is compressed to fit the ears of iPod wearers, The Chocolate Horse's warm, soulful, organic sound is perfectly suited for the medium of vinyl.
(Fear not, phonographically-challenged: The packaging also includes a CD version of the record.)
"From the first things I recorded on a 4-track, it was my goal to put an album out on vinyl," Snell says.
The songs and sound were begging for the vinyl treatment, and Snell's visual art background also made him want a bigger canvas for the album art. But there were other factors behind the decision -- all the band members are passionate about sound and presentation. They remember the glory days of vinyl and they remain dedicated to the format today, like many other Indie and underground acts. Though they are far from format snobs.
"I don't have a ton of vinyl, but enough that if I go to another city or Shake It I'm definitely going to buy some," Snell says.
"I'm an analog guy," Brumm adds, noting they sent the album to be mastered in Chicago by Shellac's Bob Weston, a mutual analog lover. "We didn't have the facilities to do it all on tape (overdubs and mixing were done on a computer). I love the way it sounds, but once you get into the digital realm at all, I don't know how vastly different it sounds (vs. a CD version)."
Snell first saddled up the Horse as Readymaid was coming to an end. He was looking for something a little more focused and knew he wanted to keep working with Higley. Brumm continued recording with Snell and it soon became evident that he was headed to full-membership status.
The process of writing is as diverse as their sound, but, initially, Snell brought in what he calls "one-liners," little passages and phrases, and the other band members would flesh the ideas out. Brumm calls his role "scoring."
"It's scoring in an orchestral sense," Brumm says. "Our approach, especially with the odd instrumentation, is more geared towards having (parts) come and go. The songs are simple and generally short, so you'd expect it to be presented in the same way, with guitars, drums and bass. And it could go that way. But with Readymaid, Andrew and Jason were coming from a situation where they would have five or more parts going at once, with different instrumentation on (for example) the chorus. So we kind of just built on that."
For songs since Patience, the band records practices and then re-edits the parts together for an almost "cut and paste" type of composing.
"What's cool about that is you end up with those awkward moments, like something's dropped out or maybe Jason put down his guitar and went to the drum kit," Brumm says. "Then you keep that because the guitars dropping out there sounds cool. I like (parts) coming and going. You can really heighten a change in a song just by stopping. As opposed to, 'Oh, what can we add?,' it's more reductionist."
The writing process isn't the only thing that has changed. They are officially a five-piece now, having recently added Johnny Rusza (who adds trickling, sometimes spacey flute) and former Staggering Statistics drummer Joe Klug (previously, the band performed with a drum machine). This new arrangement is the one showcasing this week when the Chocolate Horse debuts at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Tex.
Between recording its first album and its membership growth, the band has written and recorded a wealth of material -- and the new lineup will likely lead to even more. So will the sophomore Chocolate Horse album be pressed up on vinyl?
"It'd be nice to," Brumm says. "It's expensive. But, whatever, it's completely worth it."
"Let's find someone to pick that bill up," Snell says softly before unleashing his raspy cackle of a laugh. "Double-live basement album?"
Daniele Pfarr - The Cincinnati Enquirer
"Holy shitballs, dude. The new album is AWESOME."
The Chocolate Horse , "Indie-Summer"
I love the Chocolate Horse. Jason Snell writes amazing melodies. They played Indie Summer on the Square and I couldn’t hold a conversation with anyone because I kept focusing on the music.
-- Bill Donabedian "Indie Summer"
SXSW: Attack of the Critter Bands
New York Times
By BEN SISARIO
In at least one sense the menagerie of rock bands that converge on Austin each year is literal: there’s a Noah’s Ark of animal names here, from the “wolfs” that have been so strangely ubiquitous in indie-rock recently — Sea Wolf, Pack of Wolves, Wolfkin, Peter and the Wolf, Le Loup and the debatable Wolff — to no small number of dogs, apes, lions, birds, whales and even dinosaurs.
Here is a sampling of the critter bands. I’m discovering new species every time I look at the schedule.
Cocker Spaniels
Bowerbirds
Deer Tick
Be Your Own Pet
The Republic Tigers
Elf Power
Music for Animals
Dertybird
Fight Like Apes
Dead Dog
Fleet Foxes
Panda
Simian Mobile Disco
Dodos
Birdmonster
Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man
Pigeon Detectives
Mothfight
Collections of Colonies of Bees
Japanther
The Octopus Project
White Rabbits
Apes
Plants and Animals
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Moonrats
Wombats
Scott Reynolds and the Steaming Beast
Two Cow Garage
Ghost Buffalo
Cat Party
Golden Dogs
Iguanas
Lions
Dale Hawkins with Rockin’ Billy and the Wild Coyotes
Tweak Bird
Panther
Birds & Batteries
Frightened Rabbit
Mouser
We vs. the Shark
Quiet Hooves
Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears
Noah and the Whale
An Albatross
The Blind Pets
The Faceless Werewolves
Tiny Animals
Megazilla
Horsebite
Horse+Donkey
Clothes Horse
The Chocolate Horse
Woodpigeon
Eagle Seagull
There’s even a “10,000 B.C.” theme this year:
Pterodactyl
Pteroacdudes
Lady Pterodactyl
Bronze Age
Diplo (short for diplodocus)
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Patience Works!
For no apparent reason, I have yet to bring The Chocolate Horse to your attention. The Cincinnati band released a full length LP last year, Patience Works! and I have been enjoying it ever since. Call me selfish or just forgetful, but I have yet to mention this great disc here on ENS. Well, it is as good a time as any to mention them here now, as the band has lots of news that is fresh.
First off though, a tad bit of history with these guys. They began in 2005 as Readymaid lead singer Jason Snell’s side project. The band was later joined by two other members, Andrew Higley and Paul Brumm to record their debut record. They have since been joined by Johnny Rusza and now Joe Klug, he formerly of Staggering Statistics for percussion duties.
Now, including the lineup change, the band will be heading down to Austin, Texas next month and will be one of many bands from our area playing SXSW. They also are hard at work on a new full length record as well. And big respect for the old school route on this album as well, as it was released as a vinyl only (a cd comes with your purchase as well) on Stable Records. So, please do check out these tunes from The Chocolate Horse, and be sure to catch them tonight at Northside Tavern if you can, it will be one of the first gigs with the new lineup.
And if you enjoy these tunes, buy the album here, on high quality 180 gram vinyl. Or just pick it up at Shake It Records if you are in the city.
The Vinyl Horse
For those who grew up listening to music on those big, black, round things (we called them "records"), it's a bit odd to think that vinyl is now something that needs to be explained like a museum piece. A tour guide will announce, "In the early 20th century, man invented clunky, large discs made of black vinyl as a means to listen to recorded music," in much the same way they talk about cavemen and their silly practice of making fire with two sticks.
Local trio The Chocolate Horse is one of those entities fighting to keep vinyl in the public's consciousness. This Saturday, the group hosts the release party for Patience Works!, its debut release which is initially coming out in a limited-edition vinyl package (done as much for the art possibilities as the sonic ones), and also includes a CD version for the phonograph-deficient. The show at the Southgate House also features Kelli Shay (from Nashville), Matthew Shelton (see Locals Only here) and The Hiders.
It's tempting/easy to compare this project to Readymaid, the great band CH members Jason Snell (vocals, guitar, etc.) and Andrew Higley (French horn, saw, keys, etc.) were in a few years back. But, while Higley's unpredictable ornamentation and Snell's amazing voice remain, there is a sparseness and singular sonic presentation on Patience. With an old drum machine and minimal acoustic and unaffected guitars on most tracks, this record would come off like a demo in many others' hands. But Snell, Higley and third Horse Paul Brumm turn these short, compact songs into something transcendent. Each note is audible and crisp and the band fills the space around Snell's bruised, moving melodies with odd but tasteful sound effects -- the saw-and-bow creates a particularly intriguing, Theramin-like sound that adds an eerie element and Higley's egg-shaped French horn riffs add a melancholy elegance to the album's warm, inviting feel.
Great songs with just the right amount of experimentation surrounding them makes for an amazing album in my book. Patience Works! is just that. (thechocolatehorse.com)
Horse Flies
With Readymaid on hiatus, Jason Snell and Andrew Higley saddle up their Chocolate Horse
By Ericka McIntyre
Combining saw and bow, upright bass, French horn, acoustic guitar, trumpet, piano and a beat machine affectionately dubbed the "R2Beat2," local trio The Chocolate Horse have been creating eclectic musical "one-liners" for several months. But they are already emerging as one of the scene's most interesting acts.
Since local Art Rock/Indie favorites Readymaid went on hiatus last fall, two of that group's members, Jason Snell (guitar, vocals, beat machines) and Andrew Higley (French horn, saw & bow, trumpet, piano), have kept busy with this new project. Paul Brumm (upright bass) was added in February.
"This project was something totally different than Readymaid; it was more personal, and I had more control of it," Snell says of the Horse's genesis. "At the beginning it was very selfish. Now, being able to play with Andrew and Paul, it's not selfish at all. It has evolved in that way."
"Readymaid was stopping with shows for a while, and I had a 4-track and just wrote little one-liners, just really quick, simple songs, just one line, get in/get out," he continues. "A lot happened at once with (the songs), so I recruited Andrew. We've been friends for a while and he can play pretty much any instrument. We had a couple of shows, and then we really wanted to record this stuff. We had always wanted to work with Paul, so we recruited him, and said 'Hey, you want to play some and maybe make a record?' "
"Jason really wants to do a vinyl record and most likely we're going to put one together before the end of the summer, probably a full-length right off the bat," Brumm says.
Snell is emphatic about the recording's format. "Vinyl is definitely what I want to do," he tells me. "But I thought it would be cool to do both ends of the spectrum -- put the songs online so people can buy the record with the art, download it all ... or they can get it free. I want to give people MP3s who want them and then if they want to buy the record ... it's like hi-tech and no-tech. People who like vinyl will buy the vinyl, and people who like CDs ... well, a lot more people are just downloading MP3s and burning them anyway, so my idea is to just skip the middle man."
Regardless of the format in which you acquire the group's recording, you will be very pleased with it. Listening to the music of the Chocolate Horse is something akin to stumbling across a music box in the middle of the desert. Except this is a desert created by Dali, so everything is off-kilter, but more interesting and beautiful because of it. The sweet, simple melodies stretched over the group's unusual instrumentation gives the music a dreamy, surreal quality.
When you hear Snell's voice, you immediately think of Tom Waits. He has that same whiskey tone. Snell counts Waits among his major influences, while Higley counts among his "the street performer in Bath (England) I learned to play saw from."
"I was on a trip and I had a bunch of time to not do anything and there was a street performer in Bath and this guy would go sit in the city square," Higley tells me. "He had a CD of background music and he'd play over it. He was incredible. So I just sat around and watched him."
"Andrew came back, went and bought a saw and that afternoon, he was hitting two octaves on it," Snell says. "Pretty bad ass."
The Horse's main goal is to finish their record. They all have a lot on their musical plates, as Brumm also plays with local acts Filament and Keynote Speaker and Readymaid (now a quartet) is about to come back out of hiding for this year's A.M. Holiday concert at the Southgate House on June 11.
"We're just taking our time," Snell says of Readymaid. "It's been kind of nice. We had been playing a lot shows and had a lot of songs we wanted to record, and people coming and going, so it was good to relax a little."
