LOS ANGELES (www.stanridgway.com) - Echoing swamps, talking beer cans. Midnight mystery trains and singing tumbleweeds. Lonely soldiers and voodoo chain gang ghosts. Must be a new album from Stan Ridgway. Well in fact, it is.
Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs, the forthcoming album from the Wall Of Voodoo mastermind, finds Stan offering 16 brand new songs in three acts. Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Ridgway continues his signature tradition of American storytelling with Snakebite, a recording that places him in the good company of Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits as songwriter and storyteller.
Stan Ridgway is an American music original. From his early days with L.A. art-punkers Wall Of Voodoo to his even more intriguing solo career, Ridgway has created a considerable body of work.
In Snakebite, what begins as a collection of hard, two-fisted tales for a desert road trip riding shotgun with characters populated from America's far away fringes, slowly turns autobiographical as Ridgway takes a personal inventory -- marking the trail with slashes of slide guitar, brass, exotic percussion and his inimitable vocals and detailed lyrics.
Always on the darker side of the road, Snakebite slinks and slithers its way through tightly wound arrangements, where echoing swamps, talking beer cans, lonely soldiers, and midnight mystery trains, all spin and float like ghostly mirages on the highway ahead.
Stan Ridgway's musical career began in the late seventies as part of a soundtrack company to create music for low-budget horror films. From its ashes, Wall Of Voodoo was born, and with Ridgway as lead voice, released an EP, two albums, and the 1982 single "Mexican Radio." Upon leaving, he embarked on a solo career that has included work on the film "Rumblefish" with Stewart Copeland, other independent film soundtracks, artist production (most recently Frank Black and The Catholics' Me Your Tears (2003) in addition to numerous critically acclaimed solo recordings - most recently Holiday In Dirt (2002) on New West Records and now Snakebite (2004) on redFLY Records.
Snakebite contains a now-it-can-be-told story of Ridgway's early years in "Talkin' Wall of Voodoo Blues, Part 1."
Rolling Stone called Ridgway "America's lost frontier. His songs tell stories that unfold gradually and trade in old fashioned narrative devices like character and suspense. It's a move at once conservative and daring -- but, best of all, it works." Added the LA Weekly, "Stan Ridgway is the Nathaniel West of rock." And the San Francisco Chronicle: "In fact he's an ingenious writer with a grip on lowlife imagery that hearkens back to that of Burroughs, Bukowski and Brecht."
The album, distributed by Bayside Distribution, is scheduled to hit the streets on August 20. It is also available via pre-order at https://www.stanridgway.com
Stan Ridgway Summer Tour Dates (Solo Acoustic with Pietra Wexstun on keyboards)
June 26 - BROOKLYN, NY - Hal Wilner Presents "Songs Of Neil Young": free concert with Stan Ridgway, Cat Power, Ron Sexsmith, Iron and Wine and others TBA
June 27 � DETROIT � Magic Bag
June 28 - CLEVELAND � Grog Shop
June 29 � CHICAGO � Schuba's
