order the album Summer Nightwind from the store. streaming everywhere october 6th, 2023
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a man, a truck, a horse
I released a demo of my song “Summer Nightwind” to subscribers on bandcamp. If you’d like it, become a monthly supporter for $5, $10, or $25/mo to get access to back catalog material and exclusive demos.
Toss Your Javelin has been germinating for years. The third long playing album by John Davey is a collection of maxims and self-injunctions set to memory evoking melodies.
A black and white photo taped to a wall in Kansas City, the spiny ridge along Chimney Tops in Eastern Tennessee, the train station platform in Lansing in the dreary rain, neck craned to see the parade down Washington Street on the 4th of July, mammoth Ore Boats chugging in and out of Upper Harbor from all over the Great Lakes. This collage is the running start which throws the weighted dart.
”Lower Tiers” is the centerpiece of the album. Its arrangement borrows pages from The Great American Songbook, seeking common ground with 20th century greats Irving Berlin, Paul Simon, and Randy Newman.
The bookends of the album are the newest compositions, “Q” and “Boreal Lullaby”, both fruits of a tree transplanted. “Q” is the disentanglement of overlaying personalities and the proper identification of a newly emerging self. “Boreal Lullaby” is both old and new. It’s the hymn we hummed in church. It’s the subject of a trial, a lamentation, a psalm.
”Hard Times, Strong Men” is the outlier. Pulsating and fuzzy and rhythmic. It’s Jules Vern, Robert Louis Stevenson and George Harrison at a game of craps. Harrison rolls snake eyes. A prophetic warning. A new archetype.
Toss Your Javelin was crowdfunded by 134 generous supporters.
Songs, guitars, and vocals by John Davey
Production, mixing, and arrangement of a variety of instruments performed by Shane Leonard in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Mastered by TW Walsh in Boston, Massachusetts
Engineering by Evan Middlesworth at Pine Hollow Audio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Basses by Jeremy Boettcher
Piano and other keys by Joshua Gallagher
A brief retelling of the moving pictures in my memory of “Moving Pictures” , a short story by Andrew Jones:
Is seeing your fate in advance a blessing or a curse? What would you do with the power to see your future if you had it?
A young man was given a secret embedded in a simple toy. Through the slots in a cylinder he could see the last day of his life as it wound down. The preliminaries and the final event of his passing. The man told no one and buried the toy in a watertight box in the bottom of a forest pond. Once a year he would visit the pond and retrieve the toy to watch his last day. He would then sink it again and return to his simple life.
In his old age, the man’s four grown children began noticing strange sequences in his behavior on their trips home. Many crates were delivered to his porch. A locked door shut off a wing of the house. Inscrutable noises emanated from behind the door. Correspondences.
At his deathbed he gave them all knowing winks and smiles and quickly drank a tincture when all but one person were out of the room.
In his wake, he left instructions to take his ashes and a sealed box to a large house on a hill several days’ journey away. All his children went, one reluctant.
Before the arrival to this shrouded mansion on a hill, a storm began to rise. The few had barely arrived at the gate when the wind swirled gustily and the rain pattered hard on the cobblestones leading up to the house. They hurried to the door and were welcomed into the grand old home and ushered into the study of a young man who looked old. Or was he an old man who looked young? There was something about his eyes.
The Old Man laughed and twinkled and regaled the young travelers with stories of their father. He easily opened the locked box and produced a stack of bendable slides. He swore siblings to secrecy before unceremoniously tossing the bundle of pictures overhead. They watched them fly into the air above them and noticed for the first time, to their surprise, a crystalline dome in the tower above them which captured the picture slides in something like an updraft and held them there, hovering and swirling. The light from the thunderstorm now blowing full bore around the safety of the warm study flashed through the crystal dome and fractured, conjoined, multiplied, and bent the light, showing sequences of pictures. Some images fully familiar, some partially obscure, some altogether untranslatable flashed and danced around the walls of the room. All were enraptured and silent until the storm and the display dissipated.
The Old Man produced small packages in paper and whispered parting words to each of the four before demanding they retire before their long journeys home.
—
So you planned and saved and stored
Was your body slave or lord?
You were utilizing tools
Are we Kings or Gods? Or Fools?
Last night I visited the WUPX studio at Northern Michigan University and played some songs live on the air for about an hour.
The music director Alex Watenen was nice enough to invite me in for the performance and make all the necessary arrangements. We had a good time talking travel, art, music, and pickled eggs (look it up). He showed me the music library packed to the hilt with music that’s being transferred from physical to digital format and he introduced me to some interesting new stuff.
I played pretty good. I had fun. Radio is cool. Let’s do more.
-John
My band and I had a great time at Wayside Fest up in Atlantic Mine, Michigan this past weekend. the weather was delicious and despite some technical delays, we had a real blast playing our set to a small but enthusiastic audience. It felt the most like a rock n roll band in comparison to all our shows yet. Furthermore, the Aurora Borealis lit up the sky in an untamed display later in the evening. I couldn't capture it on my phone, but I'll remember it forever. We're lucky to be alive.
Ancient Urge
Sycamore Smith
Secret Grief
Yours Truly
Jonny Negaunee
Raymond
John Davey & the Ancient Urge had a packed weekend and we're all resting up. I wish I would've got more snaps, especially from Sekoitus, but I've included some taken by Jesse DeCaire and Taylor Freeman. All the rest were taken by me.
Sekoitus Fest was so fun and we wished we could've stuck around for all of the festivities.
Farm Block was a treat. Great weather, old friends, new acquaintances, good food, fun set, some exploring of Keewenaw spots, delicious food, powerfully good bands, lots of laughs, and I had the pleasure of riding up with my treasure of a fiance with the windows down. Highlights music-wise: M. Sord, Big Dudee Roo, After Ours, The Go Rounds, Kansas Bible Company. JD&theAncientUrge also did a quick recording for The River Street Anthology. We missed Mostly Midwest.
Art on the Rocks. We drove back on Saturday night after all the fun on FarmBlock Saturday was over. We were up and at 'em early on Sunday to load gear down to Lower Harbor. Despite some heavy noise restrictions and being about a thousand yards from the nearest electrical outlet, the show went on and it ended up being a good exercise in adaptability for the band. I don't know if we'll ever play as subdued a set or two as we did at Art on the Rocks, but I loved it. Shout out to our buddy Greg Sandell who, out of the damned goodness of his heart, lent us gear, helped us load it into the festival, set stuff up, ran cords, coordinated and was supportive in every way. He is the man. His mug is that last photo in the set.
Love ya.
-John
