Pre-Production
Pre-Production work for a new album has begun. We’re waiting on our buddy Dennis to recover from a recent surgery so we can fill these scratch tracks out a little more.
Filtering by Tag: new album
Toss Your Javelin Vinyl Is Here!
Dilated Time Records has released Toss Your Javelin and it's very limited.
If you backed the Kickstarter to make this record, please hang tight! Your copy is priority #1 and it's on the way to you RIGHT NOW from Dilated Time Records along with some other stuff from here in Michigan! You'll remember Ethan's really nice and personalized notes from the last record we did together.
To everyone else, this one is limited to 300 copies. She's beautiful inside and out. The album was really made with vinyl in mind and I'm so proud of everyone involved that we've arrived at the point where I can present this to you for purchase.
If you liked Living Is Trying on your turntable, you're going to love Toss Your Javelin. I've been listening to the test pressing with my baby girl Dorothy and hearing it on the stereo speakers really gets us both dancing around the apartment.
You can order the record directly from Dilate Time's online shop or if you're a bandcamper, it's over here.
Toss Your Javelin
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
Video Teaser of "Kings, Gods, Fools" by Zachary Schneider Studio
After some discussions with a few trusted friends, I decided to self-release the album. The undertaking of this album from the beginning has been in that spirit, I think.
I reached out to a few creative, productive people I know to assist me in creating some promotional material for the album. A few ol’ reliables like Anthony Simpkins of GemsOnVHS (may God grant him wealth) and some fresh talent from where I live too. Namely, Sarah Reynolds (Couturra) and Zachary Schneider Studio.
I saw Zachary at someone’s birthday party and I remembered seeing some of his photography. It made me wonder if he did video work. I got in touch later and Zack responded with enthusiasm and a bunch of good questions and got to work right away on collecting some footage I described to him. I think what he captured and sequenced works perfectly for the feel of this song and the images are captivating. It’s a cool thing about where we live (Upper Michigan) that that imagery is around you all the time. I hear it come through the songs on this album.
Please go full screen and enjoy the look and sound and feel of the song and the visuals and hear “Kings, Gods, Fools” on your favorite streaming platform on April 28th.
Thanks for listening.
-John