LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ CineMedia Promotions) Michael Cerveris & Loose Cattle's "North of Houston: Live At 54 BELOW" will be released digitally on November 15th and on CD on November 19th, 2013. The CD is now available for pre-order at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G9COK36/
The track listing and cover art were unveiled today by Broadway Records.
When the snazzy 54 Below Supper Club asked Michael Cerveris & Loose Cattle repeatedly to play, the band dragged their boots in typically disorganized fashion. What was this shabby downtown bunch going to do uptown in such plush surroundings? Well, the same ramshackle thing they always did, as it turned out. At least it was literally underground. And then, on the eve of their residency, Hurricane
Sandy made the psychic distance between New Orleans and New York seem very small indeed.
After 5 days spent in the cold and dark, it seemed unlikely the shows would go on. But all the same, they carried instruments and walked miles across bridges, rode bikes, huddled in cars to practice with a heater on and squeezed on top of each other into a Broadway dressing room to keep playing--and to keep their minds off how creepy it was in pitch black lower Manhattan and how precarious this whole civilization thing was after all.
And the shows did go on. The first one was the Friday post-storm. A surprising number of hearty souls braved the lack of transportation and power. The night started heavy with the weight of what friends, families and neighbors in the Rockaways and Jersey Shore were digging out from under. Just being around people felt good, and songs like "Get Down River" and "Evangeline" got added to the set and took on more meaning. They learned (ok, half learned) Electricity at sound check as a kind of ode to wishful thinking. And Lo and Behold, by the end of the set, word trickled in that power was coming back on slowly in their homes downtown...not saying they made it happen, but....
By the end, worry and uncertainty was giving way to relief and resilience and a commitment to celebrating community...there may even have been Skynyrd played at some point. The next night was a rowdy show for a full crowd that carried on well past the allotted time, ending with an utterly unrehearsed, countrified "Pinball Wizard".
Followers of Michael Cerveris' stage and screen work may be surprised by the lack of Broadway crooning and pretense on hand here. But then, Cerveris' fans know the only thing to expect from him is that expectations will be confounded. What is here instead is a document of a band at a moment in time, friends just playing together and making music they were raised on regardless of where they were born and how they pay their rent these days.
"North of Houston" was recorded live, clams and all, at 54 BELOW, NYC, and mixed by legendary producer Mark Bingham at Piety Studios, New Orleans.
Track Listing:
1. intro
2. Get Downtown
3. Gasoline And Matches
4. mandolin instruction
5. Backwater
6. Electricity
7. Jolene, F**k You
8. dedication
9. Dog Eared
10. Lost In New Amsterdam
11. Raise Hell
12.
Ghost Of Virginia
13. longfellows and shortcomings
14. Evangeline
15. Get Down River
16. Run That By Me One More Time
17. band intros
18. Walking Down The Line
19. Hard Luck Story
20. Wagon Wheel
21. Pinball Wizard
54 BELOW is owned and operated by Tony Award winning producers Tom Viertel, Marc Routh, Richard Frankel, and Steven Baruch.
More "Live at 54 BELOW" titles will be announced shortly.
MICHAEL CERVERIS & LOOSE CATTLE: They were a couple at the time. And it was hard times. And because therapy was damned expensive, they thought if they spent more time singing in the living room, there'd be less time for fighting.
The idea was pretty simple: squeeze a bunch of friends together in a living room and play through some country tunes. Good time songs and sad ones, old ones and new ones. Not too much planning, not too much drinking (well...not everything went as planned). The name was conceived at a gig with their friend
Laura Cantrell downstairs at Hill Country Barbecue under a sign warning of Loose Livestock (they never could quite remember it right) and they became Loose Cattle. Southern by birth or by inclination, they gathered some like-minded friends, made some new ones, convinced them all to lower their prodigious musical skills
to their commonest level and something like a band was born.
Mindful that the Road to Hell is paved with actor/singers, Cerveris went to a lonely corner of the pasture and buried his Tony Award, five nominations and myriad accolades from stage outings in Broadway's Tommy, Sweeney Todd, Assassins, Evita, Hedwig, forsook his television lives as
September the Observer on FOX's "Fringe" and Marvin Frey in HBO's "Tremé" and his punk and rock days spent touring and sharing stages with Bob Mould, Frank Black, the
Breeders and Pete Townshend, turning instead to embrace his West Virginia roots along with Jersey-born co-vocalist Kimberly Kaye (former trumpet strumpet with WARP tour punk/ska vets New Direxion), Gabriel Caplan (guitarist for Naomi Shelton' Gospel Queens), Jon Graboff (pedal steel multi-instrumentalist for Ryan Adams, Shooter Jennings,
Laura Cantrell and many others), Alex
Harvey (fiercely independent theater director and, more famously, the mandolin star of those Geico ads), Justin Smith (the giant fiddler of The Defibulators),
Lorenzo Wolff (bass and sousaphone player for The Lisps), and Eddy Zweiback (percussionist and founding member of Losers Lounge).
And though they only ever meant to play in folks' living rooms, they've found themselves flown to West Virginia to play Mountain Stage with Arlo Guthrie, gracing the Allen Room at Lincoln Center for the American Songbook series, with repeat appearances at Joe's Pub and a residency at 54 Below--the source of live recordings for their rollicking debut album, "North of Houston" on Broadway Records, to be released 19 November 2013.
