For his first correct solo album in seven years, Peter Holsapple reconvened with an previous buddy: influential ’80s producer Don Dixon (R.E.M., Smithereens). And from the sounds of it, he’s additionally rekindled the identical ardour for lead guitar that knowledgeable his early days with longtime foil Chris Stamey within the dB’s, the final word cult band for followers of energy pop and Southern-tinged new wave.
Beginning within the late ’70s, the dB’s made a number of critically acclaimed, if commercially disappointing, albums, touring the U.S. and England. Holsapple later joined the Continental Drifters, a type of pre-Americana supergroup that additionally included Mark Walton (Dream Syndicate), Susan Cowsill (Holsapple’s ex-wife) and Vicki Peterson (Bangles), amongst others.
Throughout that post-dB’s interval, Holsapple bounced round fairly a bit, transferring from North Carolina to New York to Los Angeles to New Orleans earlier than discovering his approach again to the place he began. The Face Of 68 (Label 51) was produced by Dixon in Holsapple’s house studio in Durham, with Rob Ladd (Connells) on drums and Robert Sledge (Ben Folds 5) on bass. Grammy nominee Jason Richmond engineered the four-day session, with Dixon taking every little thing again to his house studio in Canton, Ohio, for mixing.
Holsapple works his approach via every monitor beneath.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Anytime Quickly”
“Some songs come to me music first, some phrases first. That is the previous, and I needed to work the story fastidiously round what I heard as a slippery association. The lyrics are an appraisal of one other misplaced love, with a slight peppering of candy recollections. You gotta cling onto these days on the seashore in your reminiscence—or they’ll disappear utterly.”
2) “The Face Of 68”
“It’s the album’s title music, however like a pair different tunes herein, it had some completely different lyrics at one level. I lastly selected ‘The Face Of 68 and constructed it across the title. To paraphrase the Stooges: ‘Final 12 months, I used to be 68/Most of it was fairly nice/This 12 months, I turned 69/That’s OK, that’s simply high quality.’ In 1968, the British pop press named Peter Frampton—together with his profitable demeanor and basic attractiveness—‘the face of ’68.’ It crossed my thoughts to get in contact with Peter’s administration to see if he’d think about taking part in the quick guitar solo in the course of the music himself. After transient contact with them, we by no means heard again, so it’s me hitting the licks within the music. Peter’s a busy man—we completely perceive.”
3) “Bigger Than Life”
“I’ve numerous hassle processing dying. Within the case of this music, it’s about my buddy Carlo Nuccio, one of many founders of the Continental Drifters, who handed away in 2022. His dying tore a gap in his household and his New Orleans and international buddies. I wanted to jot down it as a partial dialog with Carlo, that he tell us from the opposite aspect that he’s OK and watching over us—and perhaps impart somewhat about what all of it means anyway.”
4) “My Thought #49”
“On my Music Memos app, it saves every entry as ‘My Thought # … no matter.’ This one occurred to be quantity 49. As soon as in a blue moon, you get impressed to jot down a set of lyrics from a possible title, which was the case right here. I additionally like laundry lists. Dixon had Rob sit out within the ‘checklist’ part, then return for a number of passes of that ramshackle stuff you hear on the combination. It was elegant.”
5) “Excessive, Excessive Horse”
“I used to be telling somebody just lately that I hope I’m writing a special type of music from those I wrote once I was 22. Expertise and loss will do this to you. It is a take a look at the way it was for me—and the way it’s now. It’s a steadiness between the enthusiastic rock-boy flâneur and the late-middle-aged household man … after which going through that towards no matter future’s left. In any other case, it’s obtained a cool, considerably soulful Southern sound, and you’ll dance to it. This options the stunning and proficient Mark Simonsen on organ, my longtime buddy and the co-producer of ‘Don’t Point out The Warfare’ a number of years in the past.”
6) “That Type Of Man”
“He’s me, he’s you, he’s somebody everyone knows or knew. I’ve been on each side of the file counter since I used to be about 14, once I began working at Reznick’s Thruway in Winston-Salem. I discovered, I absorbed, I learn each journal, I wrote, I performed, I sang. Largely, I listened. I understand how you turn into that type of man—and I nonetheless am. My thoughts is cluttered with issues just like the declension of the Mayall, Butterfield and Savoy Brown lineups via the early Nineteen Eighties, but I can scarcely bear in mind my very own telephone quantity anymore.”
7) “One For The Ebook”
“The title got here from a comment I made to Continental Drifters biographer Sean Kelly as he neared the tip of the enhancing course of for White Noise And Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story (2024). It’s a real story that occurred to the Drifters—one which was very twisted, with good intentions and dangerous drugs mixing as much as make for an insane episode with an sad ending. Within the lovely, peaceable world of that band as of late, it appeared like an anomalous state of affairs—and it didn’t make the reduce.”
8) “Fireflies”
“I really like subtraction. Are you able to inform? Much less is greatest. This music kicked round for a number of years whereas I used to be engaged on the association. It had a fury of its personal within the studio, a tribute to the nice taking part in of Rob Ladd and Robert Sledge, with whom there’d been no rehearsal previous to getting into the doorways of Overdub Lane in Durham. Proof constructive that an excellent rhythm part will get you the place you need to go in consolation and with velocity. The lyrics are a fever dream of Louisiana someplace a few years in the past, earlier than waking to another person’s disconnected recollections of the identical factor.”
9) “See About You”
“Simply checking in on a buddy—it’s what buddies do. ‘Come See About Me’ by the Supremes was the plain leaping off level for the lyrics. However I heard the phrase once more in a gospel music a few years later, and it caught with me.”
10) “So Unhappy About Sam”
“In Winston-Salem, one of many best guitarists of our technology was Sam Moss. I say ‘our’ technology, however he was truly a number of years older than me. I consider him as our Mike Bloomfield—blues-immersed, however with jazz, nation and what-have-you blended in. He was a mentor and inspiration to many years’ price of musicians within the space. His guitar retailer (‘conveniently situated close to Sam’s home’) was a salon for pickers, and conversations ranged freely. When Sam took his personal life in 2007, the musicians who knew, liked and admired him have been gutted. For me, the aid from grief is to jot down a music (see ‘Bigger Than Life’). I hope it’s perceived by Sam’s buddies as a tribute.”
11) “She And Me”
“A love music to my spouse and doubtless probably the most power-poppy monitor on the entire file. I couldn’t have imagined making this album with out her help, assist and solutions.”
