FRANK FAIRFIELD
with support
Friday 31st August 2012
Dempseys,
Castle Street, Cardiff
7.30pm / 18+ show
£7 adv from | www.swnpresents.com |
| www.seetickets.com |
| www.wegottickets.com |
| www.ticketlineuk.com |
| Spillers Records |
FRANK FAIRFIELD
The California based fiddle, guitar and banjo player and ardent 78 collector Frank Fairfield sings soaring hillbilly ballads, arcane rambling songs and murder ballads delivered in a reedy tenor with that irresistible dust to digital quality. Still in his early twenties but steeped in the pre-War Americana of Mississippi John Hurt and Dock Boggs, he cut his teeth as a street performer in LA and has the raw intensity and spellbinding technique to make your hairs stand on end.
Fleet Foxes handpicked him to open for them on their 2008 US tour and since then he has found fans elsewhere in Ry Cooder, CW Stoneking, Charlie Parr and Grammy winning producer Chris King (Charley Patton, People Take Warning box set). His eponymous debut album came out last year on Tompkins Square and picked up rave reviews across the board, and was followed by Unheard Ofs & Forgotten Abouts, a compilation of rare and unheralded gramaphone recordings from around the world, on his own Pawn imprint.
“A young Californian who sings and plays as someone who’s crawled out of the Virginia mountains carrying familiar songs that in his hands sound forgotten: broken lines, a dissonant drone, the fiddle or the banjo all percussion, every rising moment louder than the one before it.” - Greil Marcus
“one of America's best conduits of antiquity” - Pitchfork Videos:
“Nine Pound Hammer”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lefJBwJhQ6E "Poor Ellen Smith" - http://vimeo.com/9693398 "Sweet Milky Peaches" & "Darling True Love" - http://vimeo.com/9731696 Frank Fairfield & Blind Boy Paxton - http://vimeo.com/16229680
Myspace: www,myspace.com/frankfairfield Pitchfork interview: http://pitchfork.com/features/the-out-door/7777-the-out-door-1/3
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