Here we are with news of two new releases - one that has just happened and one coming up this autumn.
With over twenty solo albums released in a five decade career, not to mention his occasional appearances as part of legendary Texas band, The Flatlanders (with Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore), he is clearly no slouch. But this record is a little different, with tracks recorded over many years at his home studio (Spur) just outside Austin.
Ely explains, "Revisiting some of my studio files, I noticed there were a lot of songs I had written on the road about travelling. I had recorded them in my studio every time I got off the road. I compiled a selection of songs like that from different eras. That's Driven To Drive."
The album was preceded by the single Odds Of The Blues, which features his long time friend Bruce Springsteen adding his talent to the song. It is a slow paced song, with sparse honky-tonk chords, before the Boss joins in and we reach the mid-section which has a little more swing, and some pedal steel adding depth. It is accompanied by a video that includes lots of old family videos stitched together.
As an aside, one interesting fact (of many) about Ely is that he got to see Jerry Lee Lewis as a young boy, in the early fifties, playing on a flatbed in Amarillo during a dust storm. He started learning musical instruments within a year or two of that. He would also get to share the stage with Lewis many years later.
Verböten are an interesting band with a long history, sort of, which makes the fact that they will soon release their debut album all the more interesting.
In the early 80s, four young kids from Evanston, Illinois, formed a punk band. They played locally, they got an appearance on local tv, hung about for a year or so, and that might of been that.
Three of the four never even pursued a career in music. But a small seed had been set - because one of the band, Tracey Bradford had this cousin who liked what he heard and who has since stated that he was inspired to become a musician because of them. Less than a decade later, that cousin had joined Nirvana and then formed Foo Fighters. The influence on Dave Grohl was chronicled in the documentary Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways. That led many years later to the one professional musician from the band, Jason Narducy, to help write a musical - Verboten: A Story About How Punk Saves Lives - that was mid-run when Covid hit.
The album was recorded at the famous Electrical Studios (owned by the later, great Steve Albini) and will come out in October. In the meantime the band, Narducy, Bedford and Chris Kean - joined by drummer John Carroll (original drummer Zack Cantor declined to join in, but gave his blessing) - Verböten will play at this summer's Riot Fest in Chicago (21 September).
Narducy explains, "What was it that inspired us in the 80s? There were a lot of bands that were political, so we decided to lead this record with two highly political songs that are rip your face off, aggressive.... This is the punk rock record we always wanted to make... This is how I imagined this band would have grown if we had stayed a band."
Kean adds, "It was easy and natural to play together again... The new songs capture the spirit and energy of we were then and who we are now."
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