New feature on KS.com

A forum - http://www.kenstringfellow.com/forum/

Also, there will be no updates from July 30 - August 1, as I'll be out of town.

KEXP

Ken's KEXP performance from last week is up at the site.

Mirrored from KS.com

7.23.2004

Hello all...tour is lovely...please come see me...

The Middle East show I did the other night will be available on their website...http://www.mideastclub.com/...big star is playing a hot festival in NYC...http://www.littlestevensundergroundgarage.com/festival/index.html

still need keys in cleveland...

best
KS
Merchantsville NJ

The show will be available here and the festival is August 14th.

'Get ready for music galore at the shore'

New KS interview in the Delaware Beachcomber.

REHOBOTH BEACH -- Multi-instrumentalist Ken Stringfellow has a busy, busy schedule these days.

The co-leader of Seattle powerpop band the Posies, who will play songs from his third solo album at a free concert at Dogfish Head on Wednesday, is also a member of the reconstituted Big Star. Oh, and he's also been the regular touring keyboardist for alt-icons R.E.M. for nearly a decade.

So which of these four projects is his priority?

"I don't know what it says about me, but everything's a priority," said Stringfellow, calling from a cellphone while trying to navigate the Massachussetts Turnpike on Wednesday. He was en route to Boston after having played two shows in one day in New York City Tuesday.

"That's kind of the vibe," Stringfellow said. "There's never just a show at night. In the daytime I'm either doing press or a radio show or an in-store (record store appearance)."

(read full article)

New KS date

July 28 at Dogfish Head, Rehoboth Beach DE

Shatner album released October 5th, plus another review

This time Shatner has teamed up with Ben Folds (Ben Folds Five) for what he states are "...thoughts and experiences of mine that very few people have heard before." He adds, "I wanted to share them with my loved ones."

Recorded in Folds' Nashville studio, Has Been features eleven tracks with select songs featuring Folds (also on piano), Henry Rollins on "I Can't Get Behind That," Aimee Mann, Brad Paisley, and Lemon Jelly. The band includes guitarist Jon Auer (The Posies), bassist Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing), and drummer Matt Chamberlain (Tori Amos, Fiona Apple).

Click here for a tracklisting and more info.

Another Soft Commands review - 'Stringfellow Avoids Soft Rock Stigma'

Billboard reviews Soft Commands

Ken's third LP implements the lush, gauzy hue its title suggests, seemingly embracing more of a kinship with the first Christopher Cross album and Don McLean's "American Pie" than the Posies' "Dear 23" on tracks like the piano-heavy "Known Diamond," "Cyclone Graves" and the gorgeous intro "You Drew." However, a closer listen to this album will also find Stringfellow exorcising his recent obsession with reggae on "You Become the Dawn" and its subsequent dub plate "Dawn of the Dub of the Dawn."

Stringfellow is one of the most underrated songwriters of our generation, and while "Touched" may still remain his all-timer, "Soft Commands" could most definitely be considered his textbook.

(read more)

'Working out'

By Jim Sullivan
Boston Globe Staff

Ken Stringfellow is a very busy man. He just released a gorgeous solo disc, "Soft Command." He's been recording with three bands he plays in -- R.E.M., Big Star, and the Posies -- and tonight he brings a solo tour to the Middle East Upstairs. "I was having some anxiety about having too much of a good thing," Stringfellow says from his Seattle home. "I've never had so much stuff working out so well." Stringfellow's music often has a lush, layered, Brian Wilson-like quality. The singer-guitarist-pianist admits to some sentimentality in song, but adds that "it's sincerity that I like in art forms. . . .What I can't relate to is mainstream pop music where the emotional content is so fake. That, to me, seems really sinister. . . . The importance of music is clear: It's communication that makes the world a little closer. At the same time, a musician's self-importance is something you can debate. My mission is to make people feel better rather than worse. My music isn't angst-y -- that is just not me. I'm here to give something comforting and humanistic." Opening the 18-plus show: Jesse Sykes and Phil Wandscher and Jabe. Starts at 9, tickets $9.472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-864-3278.

Stringfellow masks often bleak message

The Washington Times reviews Soft Commands.
by Scott Galupo

Mr. Stringfellow sings his heart out, giving the illusion of contentment. Really, he's singing about merely the concept of love, the promise it holds of making one humble and "less than useless."

Less than useless: It's far from walking on air, but it's credible. The satisfying thing about "Soft Commands" is that Mr. Stringfellow so easily juggles both the high and the low, the miserable and sublime of being useful - that is, in love.

(read more)

'Still on the verge'

The Oregonian reviews Soft Commands.
 
For all his considerable gifts, Stringfellow's big break has proved elusive.

"Soft Commands" sounds like the work of a man attempting to correct for this fundamental error in judgment. It's Stringfellow's first disc with properly large-sounding Singer-Songwriter Production, encompassing a dozen new songs written in locations around the world -- New York, Stockholm, Paris (Stringfellow's occasional home, after marrying French girlfriend Dominique Sassi) -- and reflecting the restlessness that characterizes his tireless work ethic.
 
For all its sonic clarity, the boldness of the production doesn't serve the songs well. For every "Cyclone Graves" (Stringfellow's best song since the Posies' 1993 "Frosting on the Beater" album), there's also "Don't Die," a maudlin meditation on suicide set to a Squeeze-style backing track that fails to capture any of Stringfellow's typical charm.
 
(read more)

Ken on KEXP tomorrow morning

Reminder: Ken will be appearing on KEXP tomorrow morning (9am Pacific time), and you can listen online at http://www.kexp.org.

Rolling Stone reviews Soft Commands

Ken Stringfellow Soft Commands (Yep Roc)

Posies co-founder, R.E.M. cohort and Big Star confederate Ken Stringfellow is deep into his second decade of creating sterling pop music. Soft Commands is his third solo release of intricately arranged, intimate songs that mine Bacharach, Bread, the Beach Boys and at least one Beatle (McCartney, of course). Written and recorded all over the world, from Seattle to Senegal, the album unfolds like a travelogue, with spartan piano ballads in between mini-symphonies with a few surprise stops along the way, like Stringfellow's baroque mandolin on "Any Love," the brisk electronic rhythm underneath "For Your Sake" and the blue-eyed soul-steeped "Let Me Do." Occasionally, the multi-instrumentalist gets a bit precious (the Doors-y darkness of "Je Vous En Prie," the dub experiment of "Dawn of the Dub of the Dawn" and the boy's choir and reggae verses of "You Become the Dawn"), but Stringfellow's clear, composed croon forgives all sins.

Soft Commands is released

Ken's new album Soft Commands is released today in the US and Canada on YepRoc.

Big Star feature in this month's Mix Magazie

Down in the Delta
The Heart and Soul of Memphis Recording
By Rick Clark

Memphis is a town of contradictions, a seemingly illogical place where nothing seems to happen and a lot of things are happening at once. More than a million people live in the area, yet it feels like no one's in a hurry and they'll arrive in their own time.

The music that has come out of the River City has in many ways changed the world, thanks to iconoclasts, renegades and dreamers such as Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, Estelle Axton and Jim Stewart, who started Stax Records (Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding), Willie Mitchell and his Hi Records label (Al Green), Quinton Claunch of Goldwax (O.V. Wright, The Ovations) and John Fry of Ardent (Big Star, Cargoe). So much important music has come out of Memphis that it is easy to overlook fresh, new homegrown talent such as the North Mississippi Allstars, hard-rockers Saliva and hip hop act Three 6 Mafia...

(read more)

Congratulations!

To Jon and Michelle, who got married yesterday!

Ken featured in Dusted Magazine

Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists determined by our favorite artists. This week: Ken Stringfellow and Bill Wells.

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/262

GEAR HUNT CONTINUES - Mirrored from KS.com

I am looking pretty good, equipment wise (some say this hawaiian shirt i have on *also* looks good) --still coming up short for keys (see other posts for what i'm looking for) in Chapel Hill and Cleveland (see tour dates). For all the other folks that have come thru, I humbly thank you! Ohioans, I needs you!

KS
ile de re FRANCE

Ken on the SXSW performance

"This is the show where I debuted much of the Soft Commands material. It was an emotional night. This year at SXSW, I was doing it all hours, full speed," Ken says.

"The Posies played electric and acoustic sets, Big Star performed and I played several solo sets plus accompanied Robyn Hitchcock (twice) and John Roderick from the Long Winters.

"I was influenced by my fatigue and by wherever I was in my life at that point. Anyway, somehow, when I played these songs, I had a lot to release, and many mysterious and deep sentiments were attached to the erformances, hopping on as stowaways, making it sometimes difficult to proceed without being overwhelmed, but all in all it was an intense set."

from murmurs.com

New KS date

July 27 @ the Room, Charlotte NC

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