After opening for the Avett Brothers at The Lawn at White River State Park in October, roots-rockers Truth and Salvage Co. returned for another hit on Indy, opening for JJ Grey and MOFRO at The Vogue last month. Indianapolis is becoming one of the band’s regular stops, thanks to singer/songwriter/guitarist Tim Jones’ roots here.
The band often hangs out at Jones’ parents’ house when in town; the guys also stayed around for a few days and cut some songs at an Indianapolis studio when they were here on October.
The band just finished a run of shows in the smaller, sweatier clubs, in a slew of one-nighters. As they finished up, I caught up with Jones to ask some questions that had been rattling around my little rock-and-roll head.
RN: You recorded some music in Indianapolis when you were in town, opening for the Avett Brothers in early October. What did you record and where?
TIM JONES: Well, we were planning on recording some demos for the next record with the Johnson brothers at Pop Machine or Vess Ruhtenberg and Andy Fry at Queensize, but then we realized we needed more rehearsal on the songs before we recorded them. So we spent four days at the Music Garage arranging 
and rehearsing 10 or so songs that we’ve been playing on this tour now.
RN: Have the songs been around for a couple months, or are some new?
TJ: We did a songwriting retreat at the end of August to try and put together a lot of ideas that we’ve been throwing around the last two years. We’ve literally been touring almost non-stop the whole time, so it’s been hard to actually write, especially as a band.
RN:: Why did you decide to record in Indy?
TJ: We rehearsed in Indy ’cause we had four days off after a couple dates with the Avett Brothers before our tour really started.
RN:: Will these tracks become an album, or are they demos?
TJ: We’re working on getting all the songs ready for the second record. We’ve got about 20 possible (songs) right now, so we fleshed them out in Indy so that we could play them on this tour and see how they worked. Hopefully [we’ll] get them real good so when we go into the studio it will be real easy to track and be natural. We really want to make a record that you can smell, taste and feel.
RN: What have you learned in the past six months that you wish you had known before?
TJ: From a business standpoint, it’s really hard to tour without a publicist. There’s so much music out there, and constant entertainment choices. If people don’t know you’re playing, then they don’t even have the knowledge to make the choice of what they’re going see or not see.
RN:You are coming back through Indy for at least the third time since September. Besides being your hometown, what is it that the band has started to like about Indianapolis?
TJ: All my family and friends have now become the band’s family and friends and there’s just no place like home. [I love] being there in October and watching the changing of the leaves and feeling the crunch of the ground walking around, and the smell of the air. It really is a magical place in the fall.
VIDEO – From final show of 2011 tour
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9BKrkJy_3E&feature=related]
Truth & Salvage Co.
Truth & Salvage Co., Shooter Jennings hit Indianapolis with WTTS
Truth & Salvage Co.‘s show at Birdy’s in May was one of the best of 2010, and they returned Wednesday (Oct. 6) as part of WTTS’ Emerging Artists Concert Series, with a show at the Creation Cafe on the Canal in downtown Indianapolis. One day later (Thurs., Oct. 7), outlaw rocker Shooter Jennings will perform live in for Studio 92 before his concert at The Vogue that night.
It continues a string of excellent shows for the station, giving spotlight opportunities for roots rock bands. It also give WTTS the chance to brand its 92-3 VIP Room, keeping the concerts private for their listeners, who register online for a seat for a show. Comcast also records some of the performances on video for their On-Demand offerings.
We caught up with WTTS Program Director Brad Holtz, who talked about how Studio 92 has evolved (Band Of Horses, the Doobie Brothers, Train, David Gray and the BoDeans are among the artists who have appeared in 2010) and how the shows at the Creation Cafe, which started in August of this year, will continue in 2011.
Roots Rock News: Todd Snider in NY Times, Bruce doc in September, Truth & Salvage Co. video
A piece in the New York Times captures the essence of Todd Snider. I remember in 1996, seeing Todd and the Nervous Wrecks perform a sweaty blowout of a show at the Patio, and later that year, at the Vogue, and thinking then that he was pretty damn special. And I figured the road ahead to any mainstream success would be a long one. Truimphantly, he has persevered to create a solid spot for himself in the pantheon of Americana singer/songwriters. Viva Todd.
Read article here
Hear the BoDeans as they played both new and old music at Studio 92, in advance last week’s show at the Vogue. Brad Holtz chatted with them about returning to Indy, their new album, and writing “Good Things” in Bloomington. They played a set featuring “Idaho,” “Stay,” “Shine,” and “Good Things”.
Hear it on WTTS website
Americana songman Jethro Easyfields has two shows scheduled in Indianapolis on his birthday this Saturday. First, he is at Spencer’s Stadium Tavern from 7:00-11:00pm before hustling north for a rockin’ midnight set at Locals Only with his band The Arrowheads.
Wanna hit a show just south of Indy? Jennie DeVoe plays on the lawn at Mallow Run Winery in Bargersville Saturday night at 7:00pm. Tickets are $15 and available at the winery. Kids 12 & under are free. It s a blankets-and-lawn chair gig.
Truth & Salvage Co., who showed why they are a band to remember when they came to Birdy’s back in May, is taping Jimmy Kimmel Live on August 16. They have a Gap-related video from Bonnaroo that is pretty sweet. Click here to watch
And as has been speculated for more than a year, official word now arrives that confims Bruce Springsteen is working on completing a new package related to ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town,‘ and it will include the new Thom Zimny film “The Promise: The Making of Darkness On The Edge Of Town.”
The documentary will premiere at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, according to Shorefire Media, Bruce’s PR people. The film reportedly has a ton of footage from the 1970s and has been rumored to have been in the works for a couple of years, as has a box set or re-release of the Darkness album tracks, plus some unreleased music from the sessions.
The Neo-Americana of Truth & Salvage: Interview with Tim Jones
The six guys, four singer-songwriters among them, who eventually formed Truth & Salvage Co. met at Hollywood’s Hotel Cafe, where Indianapolis native, guitarist and songwriter Tim Jones was talent booker.
Jones, ex-leader of Bloomington’s split-too-soon alt-country band Old Pike, which officially broke up in 2000, left for California around the turn of the century. His cohorts in the band hail from the Eastern half of the country: Atlanta, New Orleans, Tupelo, and smaller towns in Ohio.
Starting with impromptu jam sessions, they began to nail down a sound that eerily captures Old Pike’s anthemic Springsteen chord changes, not to mention the Bloomington band’s splash of church organ, rootsy guitars and rock and roll rhythm section.
Truth & Salvage Co.’s self-titled debut record, produced by Black Crowes leader Chris Robinson, releases on May 25. The band has already hit the road for an April tour with the red-hot Avett Brothers, and played at Birdy’s May 6.
Jones spoke to NUVO from Los Angeles a few days before heading on the road.
NUVO: Why’d you move to LA?
Tim Jones: Old Pike had all kind of split. The writing was on the wall and I really didn’t think that there was much more that I could do in Indianapolis. It wasn’t like there were A&R people in every corner. There was a producer in LA that I had worked with that said, “You know if things don’t work out with Old Pike, I’ve got a studio here. You can come out here and work with me for free.”
Three years ago or so, I started playing with all these other guys and music became fun again. It is what playing in a rock and roll band was like when I was in college, you know? When everybody got together just to play for fun. When Old Pike signed a major label record deal, a lot of the fun got sucked out of it. And it just became career-driven and success-driven, instead of music and soul-driven.
I always wanted to be in a rock and roll band and I loved that about Old Pike. After all these years, we finally get that back, where it’s more about, “Well, let’s make great music.” We have so many songs with four or five songwriters in the band that we just get to pick and choose from a wealth of material – it ends up making it easy.
NUVO: How did Truth & Salvage Co. hook up with Chris Robinson?
Jones: We were called the Denim Family Band for a while. We all took ourselves seriously as songwriters and musicians, but when we came together and play, it was like we just were having fun. Pete Angelus had been the Black Crowes manager since 1990. He found us through a mutual friend and was like, “I may know somebody who might like this, my good friend Chris Robinson.” And [Robinson] was like, “We’re starting our record label and were looking for artist”. So he came and checked us out two years ago this July and really dug it. And six months later, we’re signing our record deal and making a record.
Concert Review: Truth & Salvage Co. in Indianapolis
It was 50 minutes into the Truth & Salvage Co. concert Thursday night that the band, in the midst of a bang-bang-bang succession of songs from their upcoming self-titled album, leapt, without a bit of irony, into a cover of The Band’s “The Shape I’m In”.
The group, six guys who joined together in LA, though none from there, decided to reach into the songbook of the one band — The Band — that is so obvious of an influence, that by playing the song, Truth & Salvage Co. gave a wink to those who thought they might not want to hear the comparison.
They had been building up to some sort of musical climax. Within each song, and from one song to the next, they piled harmony upon four-part harmony, two guitars, drums, electric piano and Adam Grace’s thrilling and spiritual Hammond B3 on live versions of nearly every cut on the new album, due out May 25.
With abandon and smiles, the happy gang of six jumped, hopped, sang and looked at each other like they had found the magic. They took the great original version and gave it a shot of Midwest spark, something they did routinely during the 70-minute show.
The Lowdown: Four (or Five) Roots/Rock Shows in Indy This Week
In my world of loosely-defined roots rock and roll, these four shows all fit, and there is a bit of a story to tell on each artist. And there is even a fifth band I thought should get added to the list, after I had decided I was already finished…
South Carolina guitarist/songwriter Zach Deputy plays Tuesday night Birdy’s (May 4), and is touring in support of his new record, Sunshine. He, according to a press release we got at NUVO, is “earning tremendous cred on the jam band circuit with his innovative blues, pop, calypso, soul blend”. They go on to mention Sunshine was named Album of the Year for 2009 by Homegrown Radio Network.
I dug into some of his online stuff, and especially checked into the YouTube videos he has posted. Here’s the deal: he’s a one-man jam band, using loops created live on stage to build up his songs and drive the young hippies and Dave Matthews fans into a groovin’ little dance trance. Definitely grab a puff and check this one out at Birdy’s, if that’s your thing, because I think he’s pretty damn good at what he does.