Hello again, music fans.
Strange days are upon us over here at DDG Records. It seems that after six years, three records, and five Canadian tours, my hard rock darlings, my bread and butter, Counterrevolutionaries, are calling it quits. Strange days indeed; most peculiar, mama.
Why? I don’t really know. No one tells me anything around here. I mean, why the hell should they? I am just the goddamned president of the label. But as far as I can figure Counterrevolutionaries’ frontman Adam
Nation has taken on too much. He’s spent the last couple of years recording and touring with not only Counterrevolutionaries, but also Kingsway and his neo-folk outfit The Great Outdoors. Not to mention the fact that he engineered and co-produced the four albums these bands have collectively released in the past year and a half. Something had to give.
But let’s not focus on the negative. What’s that old saying? When a door closes a window opens? Some shit like that, anyway. And over here at DDG a window is wide open in the form of The Great Outdoors third release, Food, Booze and Entertainment, set for release on April 17th. And let me tell ya, music fans, this one is something else.
Food, Booze and Entertainment is an album of 11 songs beautifully captured in Adam’s living room. Some songs are sparse, while others are fleshed out by Adam’s touring band of Steven Wegelin (Radiogram,
Kingsway) and Steve Wells. There are guest appearances by Jesse Zubot (Zubot and Dawson), Frazzy Ford (Be Good Tanyas) and Shaun Brodie (AC Neuman, Roger Dean Young), and RC Joseph of Kingsway
also drops in for a tune as do Adam’s Counterrevolutionaries band mates. And the whole thing was artfully mixed by Chon (Ox, Be Good Tanyas, D.O.A.) over at Profile Sound. This is the fourth collaboration between Adam and Chon and it looks like they’ve hit upon something great here.
And it wouldn’t be a DDG release without incredible (i.e. costly for me) packaging to accompany it. Food, Booze and Entertainment is the second installment in a series of three album/books and, like 2005’s acclaimed A Scant Sixty-Three, the artwork has been aptly handled by Daniel Brodie.
So pop this one into your headphones, go for a spring day stroll through the cherry blossoms, and let the warmth of The Great Outdoors help you forget about your own closing doors while reminding you of all those open windows. (Hey, when you are as tough as I am, you can get away with saying poetic shit like that.)
Shine on you crazy diamonds,
Jon Raw
Press Reaction
“Dream child of multi-talented songster Adam Nation, this eclectic folk-rock project has become a catch-all filter of sorts through which numerous West coast musicians have distilled extended workshops and jam sessions into one cohesive collection. Nation’s love of anything with strings shines through on each track. From flamenco to steel guitar, he shifts styles and instruments with natural ease as he manoeuvres banjo and ukulele riffs around his tall and sometimes torrid tales. The Great Outdoors beckons you to join its bonfire and then wraps you in honeyed tones that warm your spirit like a wool blanket and turn your bones to liquid like a hot toddy. “ FFWD (Calgary, Canada)
“His ability to write a melody is almost shocking. If Jack Johnson or Ted Lennon played The Boys at the Shop during a show, thousands of people would download the ukulele ditty the next day. Chekhov and I could easily find its way into a Weakerthans set.” Herohill
“This project from Vancouver’s Adam Nation is so intimate and undeniably Canadian, it’s easy to close your eyes and feel the rocking chair underneath you, the heat of a fire on your face, and a merry – if slightly disorderly and dishevelled – group of friends crowded into a living room studio recording the 11 folky songs on the album. The Vancouver Sun
“Nation has found that seamless delivery that many musicians try their entire lives to achieve. Songs filled with Canadiana, from cold cars and prairie winters to East Van restaurants and getting a blue collar drunk-on, are all laid out with banjos, acoustic guitars, ukuleles, trumpets, fiddles and goose-bump harmonies. Cameos by Axl Rose and Jimi Hendrix help it all to make perfect sense.” Nerve Magazine (Vancouver)
Food, Booze, and Entertainment comes off as one of the more compelling folk-pop releases to come out of Vancouver in quite a while. That’s saying something” Discorder (Vancouver, Canada)
