JOHN WESLEY HARDING
Cancelled due to travel
issues | After placing his music career on hold
while going to work as a best-selling author, John Wesley Harding returns
with his first new album in five years, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead.
Since his much-lauded debut, Here
Comes the Groom, on Sire Records in 1990 (declared “the first great rock
record of the ‘90s” by Robert Hilburn in the LA Times), Harding has
explored many of the darker corners of contemporary music, from traditional
folk to garage rock, even recording an a cappella record for good measure.
His songs have been featured in movies such as High Fidelity, and he
has recorded duets with Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed and Josh Ritter, among
others.
Harding took a break from music to
devote himself to writing fiction for the last nine years. Under his real
name, Wesley Stace, he wrote two novels, both published by Little Brown
(USA) and Jonathan Cape (UK): the international bestseller Misfortune,
nominated for numerous awards, and By George, a New York Public
Library Book to Remember of 2007. A third is slated for publication later
this year. He was also the subject of an ambitious concert movie (released
on DVD), A Bloody Show, filmed at Seattle’s Bumbershoot and featuring
the songs from Misfortune performed by an a cappella group, a string
quartet and a rock band, with Robyn Hitchcock in the role of the narrator.
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead
feels brand new, yet familiar and features old friends Peter Buck, Scott
MacCaughey and Bill Reiflin of The Minus Five, Young Fresh Fellows,
Ministry, etc.
In the opening lines of the record’s
first song, the epic “My Favourite Angel,” is God singing to Lucifer, his
fallen star. “Top of the Bottom” comes on like a memoir of Harding’s days
busking on the streets of his hometown, Hastings, England.
Musically, there seems to be a little
bit of everything. The influences, musical and otherwise, are as always
legion: outsider artists Henry Darger, The Lovin' Spoonful, Werner Herzog,
and G.W. Pabst.
:::
Opening for John is guest artist Dag Juhlin.
CANCELLED DUE TO TRAVEL ISSUES
Sat Feb 20
| 8 pm
CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
$14
+
fee advance
| $18
door
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