I first stumbled upon Junior League a few days before their CD release. I was poking around interweb corners, looking at one indie local band after the other and there they were. And boy, were they special. I’d say “a breath of fresh air” but I can hear the cliche bells ringing.
Oh well, who cares…THEY WERE A BREATH OF FRESH AIR.
En route to their Pianos residency in New York, Lissy Rosemont, who leads this merry tribe of song mongers, wrote to me, placed a CD in the mail and ever since then if you walk into my house on a Sunday, I may make you listen to it. And by “may” I mean “I definitely will”.
The songs are both unabashedly old-fashioned and amazingly modern, a walk in the Appalachian Mountains crossed with a breeze in the middle of the sweltering city heat. It is the kind of music that makes you want to kick your shoes off, in the best way imaginable. There is banjo, a mandolin, some tasteful accordioning here and there, and Lissy’s crystal clear voice connecting it all. And they all write. They’ve been known to feature a fierce fiddle at folk festivals, busk drumless and acoustic on street corners, and are about to play a show this Friday at the Rock’n'Roll Hotel.

If you missed out on Neko Case, this is your chance for some first class bluegrass inspired music in the city this week.
They have also been kind enough to sit for us in Rock Creek, for our Twain inspired shoot (courtesy of kingpinphoto.com) and give us their record to play for you. (Lissy also wrote extensive liner notes which make for some wonderfully whimsiful reading and are below.) The band also keeps an audio blog on their website http://www.juniorleagueband.com/ which gives away a free mp3 every two weeks, so you should get on that.

Enjoy.

Charm
oh when I lie on a string, got some bright, shiney things and rings
I feel no shame, where were you to bury me nude?
oh when I lie on a string, got some twine shiney things and rings
I feel no pain where were you to tell me the truth?
oh when I lie on a string, got some bright, shiney things and rings
I feel the same where were you to carry me thru?

[ liner notes: Redtag originally wrote this song and played it for Lissy in early winter 2006-2007 when she was beginning writing for JL Oh Dear, probably December 7th or around then. He was adament about the words first. I remember adoring the words, these obscure visual images of a man on a wire, holding a hand full of diamonds…. Reminded me of that feeling I have when I am all alone. Just satisfied, despite all the shit, ad craziness, watching the world around you, you feel like your “in” on the best kept secrets in the world, particualarly my own brothers songwriting, or my fathers voice and demeanor or my mothers piano. On Christmas after I had returned from traveling a few weeks, I made sure to get the songs he’d written on tape, so I could listen to tehm again and again, try to sing/play them myself, then see if I had any other ideas, and bring them back to the guys. I and then played it with a very abrupt guitar piece. Lissy recorded in on Christmas at her mothers home in December 2007 with Redtag amoung many other songs. He had sung this song and safer grey over coffee to Lis at the restaurant “Treehouse” in Peachtree Hills, just around the corner from where he grew up and a few miles from where she grew up. You have to keep in mind, he’d play these hand positions on the guitar with a wonderfully jarring rythem, but he didn’t know what chords he was playing. He had just fucked around onteh guitar while in rehab and come up with his own “whatever sounded good” chords and made songs by moving up and down the neck. I think he knew G and C, but when I brought the songs back tot eh guys, we had a hell of a time figuring out how to play them cause nobody knew what the fucking chords were. And I think it made us all smile. The madness/genius or just creativity of coming up with music anyway you can. I remember in the living room, I was so anxious when we were recording these tunes. I don’t read music, or was just beginning to, and here I was basically a musical ethnographer, trying to capture as much of the tunes as I could before he left. However, he didn’t know what to tell me,other than the words and to let me record whatever sounds he’d come up with. I was scared it was going to be point blank too chaotic , not real chords, and it wouldn’t translate. I was frustrated with myself for not being able to read music. This was pretty sever all winter. Not being able to read music or speak that language…writing the album. I liked the tunes because I thought about Redtag and the words…… when he finally gets alone, grace sort of prevailed. But then it comes to our mutual father, who I adore, but who was a shitty father/guardian and essentially left my brother redtag to the wolves at a very young age, and his mother was no longer wround. SoCharm, to me, is what it is, and I enjoy singing it, because there are spaces to fill out that anger and passion. “Tell me the truth!” Where were you to carry me thru!?!?” ad then it drops back in to this sweet peaceful place that one would hope all folks can eventually come back to….peace. And that I’ve sort of prayed for my family, my brother in particular. It just wasn’t fair, what happened to him. Nobody being there to explain the crazy old man that is our dad. Not until recently that is.
In terms of arrangement, devin and I both loved it. I sang over redtag plaing it and we quickly got a feel for how we could hip this one out a little and have charm occupy the rock end of the record we had in mind. When Kailin came into town, I told him to hip this one out as much as he could and devin and Jason kind of let the crew into this song by funking it out. I dug how Dale found his own place on this song, so it is still true to Junior League’s line- up , but doesn’t have to mean the mandolin can only play bluegrass type sounds.]

Brother
Tell me how you knew you weren’t my brother
And when you saw he wasn’t just a friend
Take me back to how we got together
Just please don’t tell me it ends

Tell Me how you knew you weren’t my brother
And when you saw he wasn’t just a friend
Take me back to how we got together
Just please don’t tell me the end.

[liner notes: 2 major themes to the words. I heard the melody in my head in November walking my dog to the dog park. I was listening to a lot of Deathcab for cutie and thinking a lot about how to write songs and the breakup of my old band. I thought the song Soul Meets Body was just this perfect combination of energy and plays on words and charm. I would listen to DCFC and go walk my dog and sing out little melodies in my head. Whatever was on my mind would fill in the words. I was reading William Harrison’s memoirs “Off to the Side”, so I had clever words and phrases swimming around at my disposal for that week. The knew I wanted to start off singing, I knew I wanted a big drum fall in after the second 4 count and build up of all the instruments. I wanted it more pop, but once I heard Nate Leath play the fiddle on it, and how it could sound so beautiful Cajun, I reconsidered the pop rock, and went for pop Cajun 50’s sound. Devin made that easy. He immediately knew what I had in mind when I sang it for them at practice in January 2007, and threw in the rythem like he had been hearing what I heard in my head. Moments like that , for someone who doesn’t speak drums, are divine. Being musically illeterate, or close to, is entirely frustrating… fear of ideas being lost or not brought to fruition. Knowing it could be better, but not knowing how to say it. So abstract, making words out of sounds. Jason, bass player on the record, came up with the ending …half step up last verse, end on the word end. Jas was the only one who paid any attention to my lyric, but I avoided his, and everyone’s inquiries with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. They are meant to have enough cohesiveness to be interpreted, but they are rarely straightforward story tunes. As a lot of them were written from an abstract place, an image, a feeling in a relationship. I enjoy lyrics like Ben Gibbard, Jenny Lewis, Eddie Vedder, Gillian Welch, older Beatles (you know my name), my brohter’s stuff, combined with the simpler, but charming southern phrases from the Nashville and Mississippi blues folks leadbelly, Robert johnson, hank Williams and jimmy Rodgers.
Words- 2 themes. As a woman, you always wonder, if folks are working with you for what Jeff Mosier of “Blueground Undergrass” calls the “big maybe.” Maybe she’ll eventually want to fuck me. And I have wondered in different working relationships in the music industry, if my collaborators have truly cared about the music, particularly when dramatic shifts in character/beahvior happen out of the blue…and bands break up when someone gets a new girlfriend. Originally, it was “tell me how you knew you weren’t my lover?” so that all these boyfriends aren’t something you can belittle in your mind for the possibility of the “big maybe.” Finally, a moment occurs, and they/he knows its never gonna happen. And he leaves. The song, or the beginnings of it were certainly a reaction to that.
Then I thought about my own “big maybe”, Eddie Vedder, I was a huge “big maybe fan” of his. I admit that was why I was drawn to a number of my old rock band favorites. And in my obsessive ten club fan moments, I read this wild story about his family, where his mother kept the fact that his father was his father a secret to him until his real father died. Eddie thought that his stepfatehr was his real father and that this “Friend” who visited a lot was a neighbor. When he was informed later in life, he changed his name around to match his real father, and clearly began trying to process it all. So I switched “Lover to Brother” and turned my own angst into a play on this type of story, that you hear about a lot… families can be fucked up little scenarios. It left enough up to the imagination for listeners to make with it what they would. Again, William Harrison catch words, and a theme of transcendence “I’m holding here a better idea.”

Darling too
Insatiable addictions, boil over on the curb
And bleed into the traffic lights
All patience can endure

All the steam blew out of the city
His affection, walls, and me
And there’s no one to blame if you take you leave
What’s a life with no memory?

[liner notes- similarly to brother, I heard this one in my head as a whole. This was in late January 2007. I was sitting on the paino in my mothers living room visitng home to help with dad in Atlanta, Ga. A boyfriend in town was coming over to break up with me, literally while we sat at the piano stool and I was playing this melody to see if it worked. I kept thinking I had already heard it somewhere, so I kept playing it for folks seeing if it rang a bell. It didn’t to my now ex-boyfriend in Atlanta. I was home to help with Dad, a monthly occurance as my siblings all live in Atlanta and are essentially his caregivers. I don’t want to move home, but I want to be here with him and them in this last stage, we are all very close despite his asshole nature. I adore him. So I come home once a month. Dad was diagnosed with Alzhiemers in August 2006. By January 2007, we were dealing with how to obtain the Power of Attorney over him. I was sad, dealing with this just as a concept. Having the legal right of my father over his very self. How odd! Just 7 years ago he had rights over me and my life decisions. How quickly things change. I suppose the same theme remains, life’s curses… walking around DC thinking about the coming loss with dad, the losses that have already happened in my life and with my siblings and mother, how sad it makes me, how deep I feel for him and my family, then all the poor people on the street, some cracked out yelling loud, sometimes passed out…. It very much so makes sense to me, poverty and illness and addictions. How do we all deal? The crack heads personified perfectly the wreckage I was feeling. The moment of grace, as is the theme, is the life of this band, rallying together, getting on the road, creating together, community, ideas, performing and the energy of that. Just sighing really big and picking yourself up…fuck it, he’s going, and I am sad… there it is. And I am his darling. I sing, and play music, so does he. He thinks I am made of gold and anybody who has played with us together, or been near us together knows this. All of us girls are his loves. We really connect over the music and have made it through the alzheimers conversations literally in song. “Dad, sing me “your cheatin heart.” It’s my go –to with him and its so satisfying. It’ll make him stop whatever crazy thing he was getting ready to do, and it makes me smile hearing him honky tonk it out loud over the phone… knowing he’s in his room by himself belting his old man heart out….fucker.

Candidate
Fill the map of where you live
Unglue the brass fittings
Blossom back into the dirt
Your time, its ending

Don’t they play so nicely?
I knew that you belonged!
In those throws of poverty, rest quiet and strong.

[Dale came up with this baby and Devin wrote the bridge. Dale proposed it to us in Devin’s living room in late January 2007, and we had a melody face off. We all heard the progression, and Dale challenged me to come up with a melody over it. We had a few days, and I came back with what is now the melody. He said I won and neither would play me what they heard in their heads, little jerk. Dale had originally played it real bluegrassy, choppy mandolin, but I couldn’t fit the banjo melody I had come up with over that chop, it was awkward. So Devin changed up the rythem, we recorded the progression and I took it home and threw my vocals on top of it with a few verses I had written, harmonies and all. I immediately loved what it was and sent it out to 5 folks at midnight, having just quietly recorded the vocals in the kitchen off the back of my house so as not to wake my housemates. When kailin came in town, he added that cool “plucking” bit at the beginning, and devin fucked around in the studio with his drumsticks, playing/popping them on a literal table towards the middle of the song.

Euclid
It’s alright, I know you’ve seen me
Cause you broke up with me then you moved in 8 doors down the street
It’s ok, I swear I have moved on
But don’t blame me if I don’t believe you that you’re gone

So there, I might have used you
And clung tight to you, bought time to be confused
And ok, I suppose I am amused
Cause its beyond repair, but I just can’t stand to lose

[liner notes- this and WSM were the first two songs I ever wrote. Nothing much.. just fucked around with chords, and words, and harmonies. Also heard this one while walking to the dog park, words and all (that is for the first verse.) Late nights in my room in November 2006, messing around with this melody that I had heard in my head, trying to figure out the right chords behind it, dale helped me. In January when I came back from traveling/writing more, Devin, Dale and I sat down with it in the studio and Devin put the bridge on it. He loves that B minor. Dale had to show me where it was on the banjo. Dael had insisted we put that instrumental song “Black Mt. Aire” on the record somewhere, so we thought we’d start up with this theme of jamming on fiddle tunes into the original tunes. His sister, a professional fiddler in Nashville, had played it on her solo record, and dale had taught it to me in one fo the first times we ever tried to play music together. Since it was in D, we figured we could use it as a pretty intro to Euclid. Mark Schatz wrote Black Mt. Aire, so we shortened it and there it on as a bit of a raw instrumental intro. I wanted to pull it last minute before we finalized the record, but devin told me I was getting cold feet. I am glad its on there, its certainly raw, I feel like it highlights that simple melody bit we want to preserve as long as we are together…..not necessarily stay to long on that spot, but be able to recognize its importance musically.

Wsm
If you have the time to be denied, try it on for size, it ain’t so bad
But you’ll compensate when he negates, all the laughter you once had

Still….
[Liner Notes: Similar to Euclid, messing around on my banjo late in the evenings in November trying to write a song for the first time. Some of the chords I made up on the banjo, and Kailin and Dale had a time figuring out what to play behind it. I didn’t know this song was any good til I brought it back in January and Devin put drums behind it on top of an mp3 I had given him. Then I realized its potential. Yes I made upa chord or two for it, but everything welse was simple two chord stuff- just played on different parts of the banjo. I ahd written it on the banjo, but couldn’t sing it and play it at the same time and we were all in the studio after I came back from Colorado in January 2007 and Devin was like “Ok, go.” And I had this panicy feeling of “Oh Shit- I wrote this…1) are they gonna like it or think its too simple and 2) fuck- now I am expected to sing it and play it at the same time, I don’t know if I can keep my fingers moving fast enough and actually hit the notes. “ But I couldn’t say no- these guys were agreeing to believe in me to lead them with these songs as a musician , so I had to kind of fake it. They thought I could do it up to this point, and showed up at the studio to jam on the tunes I had arranged…. So I had to at least try to live up to their expectation alittle. I was scared as shot. And then afterwards, when they didn’t gawk, and were just normal and cool, I took that as a “you passed”. I think if I could have it my way, my favorite musicians, my band, would give loud applause and constant “this fuckin rules!!!” but they are guys and they are cool- and I have come to learn that no complaints is actually a really good thing… and time passing and catching them sing the songs, or overhearing them talk about the project to other people.
Lyrics- I had just met Deathcab for Cutie, and was taken by a certain audio engineer on tour with them. Some of the band and some of the guys I live with all had dinner and were talking all sorts of fun stories they had had with their introduction to folk music- Chris Walla had just met Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the Bridgeschool benefit in San Fran. Of course I adore Gillian W and David R. and I appreciated his appreciation for them- as its not the most likely pairing. As a musician in a tough spot (my band had just split and I was very disappointed) having some of the guys from DCFC come into town over the course of a few days and just talk music and guitars and production and band dynamics was simply put a shot in the arm. They left town, and I quit my job the next day to start Junior League. I also wrote WSM.

Nameless
Well I’ll see you in my dreams, and I’m mighty glad you came
You know you broke my heart in boston, but I love you just the same

Your eyes, have spoken, forever saying bye bye bye….
[Liner Notes: Redtag wrote this. I had been singing it in practice, preparing to sing it on the record, but when I invited him to put some guitar tracks on the CD, I thought he should give singing the song a shot. We thought about having me sing on it with him, but it was such a last minutes decision, I didn’t feel I had enough time to figure out appropriate harmonies. B/c I loved watching my brother light up at the thought of finally having his own stage, I told him to take it all to himself. This was one of the coolest moments in the Studio. Devin and I , producing, were trying to figure out how to do this with Redtag now singing. I could tell Devin and Jason were really digging my brothers voice and this obscure track that was about to be added to the record. Devin and Jason are two of my favorite musicians in DC, so I went with it. Jason took me to my first Wilco show. He just gets it. So it was wild, the three of us and Rob Byers (our engineer at NPR for the record) were at Studio 4A down on Massachussets watching Redtag nervously gear up to sing this love song he had written. That was alos part of the reasoning for him to take Nameless, it was his own love song… And seeing as he’s newer back into my life, his love life is certainly special to me, and him sharing any of it with me was valued, so I figured he should take it.
He was nervous singing in the stoic studio setting, so Rob was genius and went into this huge studio were Redtag was and turned all the lights off (I have pictures up of him doing this piece on the myspace). It was so moving. We all adore his voice and the moment that was taking place. All the light off for him int eo studio so he could relax a little. You have to remember he’s been singing these songs to himself kind of curled up almost, in rehab facilities for the past 5 years, and who knows where before that. The studio is hard enough for accomplished musicians… and he was feeling the pressure. But we all felt like he killed it. It’s different than the rest of the record, but he’s part of the crew and we all expect to work more with him in the future.

Safer grey
Over yon’ mountain, there is a valley, there is a valley, cold and long, cold and long
And in yon’ valley, there is a family, there is a family, warm and small, warm and small

Old man, old man, why do you drink yourself away, why oh why do you drink yourself away?
Old woman, old woman, I drink myself away cause it waters down the darkness, keeps things a safer grey

[Liner Notes: Another Redtag song, one of the first he sang for me. He was certain we would love it, I would love it. He also sang this one over Christmas at the Treehouse bar to me in Atlanta, then we recorded it in Atlanta in mom’s living room around Christmas. I took it to Boudler to play for kailin and I had this Cold Mountain esque theme in my head when I heard it. Redtag played it real raw, rough, blues…. Like Bukkah White type style. But the words seemed to lend themselves to the Reeltime Travelors to me. So Kailin did this real old timey fiddle style on it, and I sang it out real slow. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to clawhammer on it or roll or what. We had a hard time with this. Then when I came back to DC, and looked at the band, and thought about singing anything that slow on stage, and I thought to myself, lets do a blues/rock version and then we’ll have the old time version on the record too, as a special treat for the fans who can listen to anything. So, we added a fiddle tune, and then devin came up with this great transition into the blues/rock version and I found a good spot for the banjo. JL really created this song as it is. We are going to start a podcast that chronicles the process of the songs, so everyone will be able to download it off the site soon. They’ll only be up for a week at a time, to bring folks back to the site, but the folks can download the songs for free.

Chess records
Some say he’s tempting fate, driving east on the one-way
Get back to the waiting band, you’re reading over my shoulder again
I overheard temptation say that party is on its way
Took off his jacket hung his hat
“Darling you can expect delays.”

Some say he’s tempting fate but I’ve come to learn to expect delays
And all of the day falls way when you showed up late, and I missed that play
The water is getting cold and the night is slowing down
The children are finally sleeping, “goodnight ya’ll!
My laundry’s finally done!”

Vye for the soul of a janitor at Chess Records.
[Liner notes: Dave came up with the progression, they asked me to come up with melody and then I wrote lyrics to the melody later when traveling, I had just watched a documentary of Earth, Wind and Fire about Chess Records. Took note for later. The general idea was what you hear a lot of musicians talk about crowds coming and going, but you know that your music is worthwhile if you can make the bartender tap his/her foot. Similarly, I figured some sort of full time service employee at a label like chess records, that has housed so many of the greats over the years, would know good from bad. If you could win over a janitor at Chess Records, you know you’re doing well, despite the ebb and flow of any kind of commercial success.
Arrangement wise, dave and dale introuduced it, I wrote the words and melody, played it for devin, he added a nice beat after the first chorus and helped jazz it out live. Fairly straightforward tune. We knew it was gonna be fast, and its really fun to play live.

Same as you
Same as you, same as you , I need love, same as you
Keep my pride deep inside, same as you same as you

Take my comb, bake my bread, please stop rolling in my bed.

(oh dear)

[Liner Notes- another Redtag song. I liked the tructure of it, as a blues progression, and enough room to vamp out and get all saucy with the vocals and bass. Jason Mattis is such a phenomenal bass player, I dug hearing him do his thing on this tune and feeling like a lounge singer with him laying in saucy bits and pieces on top of it, charged words that my brother wrote nonetheless. Really a redtag song. I just loved singing it. He played the guitar on this with that cool bluesy vamp style he has. We caught him saying “Oh Dear” at the very end after all the playing and sexy demeanor the whole tune took on. It was charming and all of us in the studio took note at his exasperated “Oh Dear”… I interpreted as an “Oh shit- my sister is a woman.” I think anybody who knows him knows its probably just a “oh shit” at all of life around him.

Pennies
If I could lounge, all around in your pocket
Would you concede to carry me around all day?
Smell your sweat, hear your sighs when no one’s looking
Rest my head on a penny and hide away

If I could lounge, all around in your pocket
Would you concede to carry me around all day?
Smell your sweat, hear your sighs when no one’s looking
Rest my head on a penny and hide away
[Liner Notes: I heard this in my head on the way to Spain, and I remember trying to put it down in the hotel room in San Sabastian, throwing around a lot of words in San Sabastion. Then recording it in the hotel room in Madrid when my godmother and sister and grandmother would leave me alone. I couldn’t tell if I had heard it before, similar to Darling Too, but once I played it for enough folks and realized that wasn’t it, I felt better. By the melody, I knew right away it was gonna be slow and was gonna be on the end of the record. I didn’t play this one for anybody until we were in the studio and they were all quite shocked. I wanted it to be raw with vocals and fiddle, so in the midst of all the other songs we were trying to finish, there wan’t major importance that we all sit down with it. I had mentioned it to Dale and Devin and they were cool with it, as an idea.. Kailin and I had gone thru the demo and he played the baritone fiddle on it when I was in Boulder. I went out to Colorado and asked him if he had a cello. He didn’t, so he used a baritone fiddle. It was his idea that we use the accordian too, like our own organ. I likedit evenutally where at first I didn’t think I would. I was very protective of my ideas and collaborating at first. He respected that, then I asked him to play it. I needed a lot of space for my ideas this record, as the last one I was in I wasn’t given much space to have input.
Straight up love song-. Know that feeling when you are just so wild about someone, all you want is to be near enough them, not necessarily even talk, just be near- near enough to smell there sweat, see their side glances, … just be near. I liked this abstracted idea of being so minature to fit into my loves pocket, and him on me, like out of some childhood cartoon. You know when you’re in love and you feel like you are in on a secret- that person- that nobody else knows. As obvious to you as if they were sitting on your shoulder watching you walk thru your life, but completely unaware to anybody else around you?

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