Big Tuck Albums
Rolan Sacco
What Tuck Box offers, then, is simply another chance to revisit Nick Drake's short, sad story. Because Drake died in desolation and obscurity, and because his music grows more influential every year, there will never quite be a bad moment to rediscover him. His three studio albums have settled into cultural totems, albums that anyone hoping to know something about rock history buys sooner or later. Even 40-odd years later, their thumbprint remains unique, a strange and compelling mix of timeless poetic melancholy on the one hand, and cloistered, pampered schoolboy modernity on the other. They sit completely to the left of all rock music, which Drake could care less about; his version of a garage band was a group of boys at his boarding school, one of whom was the grand-nephew of John Maynard Keynes. (Their name was the Perfumed Gardeners.)
This approach extends to his guitar playing, which was so obsessively perfect it almost escapes comprehension. You will never hear a single string buzz. It's not the sort of virtuosity that quiets a chattering crowd, but once you've attuned to the absolute silence, it quickly grows otherworldly. Even on densely packed fingerpicking runs like "Day Is Done", each note sits in the mix like a stone at the floor of a clear pond. He was a frighteningly flawless player, in a way that served to magnify his incorporeality: There is no surviving video of Nick Drake playing live or talking. He died in 1974, but his physicality is as remote to our modern imagination as Gustav Mahler's.
Ironically, it was initially conceived as his "up" album, a poppy rejoinder to Five Leaves Left. Five Leaves was pastoral, written in the wooded confines of Cambridge. Layter was written in London, and was meant to reflect urbanity. It did, but only from the perspective of Drake's one bloodshot eye, peering out cautiously at the world. Over woolly saxophone on "At the Chime of a City Clock", he confesses "I stay indoors beneath the floors and talk with neighbors only/ The games you play make people say you're either weird or lonely". Over the peppy horn charts of "Hazey Jane II", Drake sings lightly of how it feels "when the world it gets so crowded that you can't look out the window in the morning." The city, on Bryter Layter, is one long harsh unpleasant noise occurring outside. Nothing good or stimulating seems to happen there.
A "pink moon" is a baleful symbol, a sign of impending death or calamity. On "Pink Moon", it's "gonna get ye all." On paper, this sentiment reads like vindictive rage, but on record, it sounds contemplative. Drake's voice never conveyed palpable anger or sadness; he had a slight, gentle voice and upper-class accent, the product of his upbringing, clipped and clean, and his guitar, as always, rang out with a crystalline purity. His music is so consoling that the darkness at its heart is not always accessible. It's almost impossible to hear the emotional abandon in Pink Moon, then, without the taste of his first two albums lingering on your mouth. It's only then that the bone-dry resonance of the guitars registers as slightly alarming, and the backdrop of silence suggests both the purity of Drake's vision and also something darker: like someone who has dropped out of the world, mumbling prophecies.
Family Tree also includes two of his mother's haunting, intriguingly wayward songs. "Poor Mum" makes for an odd companion with her son's "Poor Boy"; "Joy as it flies cannot be caught", she sings, searchingly, her voice climbing into a breath-catching question mark. There is an unmistakable hint of the fatalism that trailed her son's music in these recordings, and in "Do You Ever Remember", she sings lines that could lead directly into "Time Has Told Me": "Time was ever a vagabond/ Time was always a thief/ Time can steal away happiness/ But time can take away grief."
This was Nick Drake's existential dilemma: He would rather ponder time than observe the present, would sooner gaze into the sea than engage with the people around him. School friends recall conversations about spirits and "the little people" as the only times they saw him animated. The rage he directed at his producer Joe Boyd for his failed career on "Hanging on a Star" ("Why leave me hanging on a star/ When you deem me so high"?) was in part the sound of someone realizing that their worldly woes have slowly blotted out their view of the stars, perhaps forever. "I could have been a signpost, could've been a clock," he mused on "One of These Things First"; this is the sentiment of someone who barely assented to the burdens of being a person. For such a soul, there can never be such a thing as a career. There can only be a legacy.
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Tuck wrote his first song in 1972. He released his first independent project in 1988 on a 45 rpm record titled "Don't Call Us" to 1700 radio stations nationwide on NSD Records and Cashbox charts. . He had a video on the first video show "Video Country with Shelly Mangrum" on TNN . The flip side of the 45 was a song called "One Man Rodeo". The record was produced by legendary hit songwriter Joe Allen. Joe was famous for writing hit songs and for being a studio bass player for major stars like Don Williams, Crystal Gayle and Johnny Cash. Tuck and Joe Allen went on to do independent albums " A Songwriters Collection" in 1989, "The First Fool Fell " in 1999, and "Ozark Mountain Bluegrass"in 2008. Although the independent albums were not picked up by major or other labels in Nashville, Tucks music had modest success as background for cable TV shows in the early and mid 90's. Tuck has recorded 8 albums total and the album "Honeysuckle on the Wind" is the 4th album he has recorded with Nashville professionals. With 2 more on the way.
Tuck owns independent publishing company Crow Mtn Music (ASCAP) and has been writing, co-producing, and recording his songs in Nashville since the 1980's of original work. Through a licensing company, formerly in New York, that works exclusively with independent music, his songs have played on national cable TV shows . Crow Mtn Music has also signed songs with other larger Nashville Publishing companies. He sings and plays guitar, banjo and harmonica.
FACEBOOK: Donald Kevin Tuckfield
Tuck recently started a podcast called Arkansas Cowboy Radio Ride, as a pilot show, to promote Arkansas Independent Cowboy Artists and Songs and then was picked up by KWMV 88.5 FM Mtn View AR - "Music Town" home of the Ozark Folk Center. Now Broadcasting from the attic of Cypress House Log Cabin on Crow Mtn its Arkansas Cowboy Radio Ride!
For over 44 years, this unique, genre-crossing vocal/guitar duo has cast its passionate musical spell worldwide, capturing the hearts of lovers, the respect of jazz buffs and the jaw-dropping awe of guitarists and singers. Their recording career took off with 1988's groundbreaking Tears of Joy. Now, 13 albums later, they have toured the world incessantly as a duo, appearing at times alongside Miles Davis, Count Basie, George Benson, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and many others. They have long been regarded by musicians and critics as the standard for an improvising musical duo. Their music spans Duke Ellington, the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix--rock, pop, jazz, gospel, blues, folk, world and classical--classics and originals, but inevitably finally just sounds like Tuck & Patti. Transcending categorization, Tuck & Patti are known for individual virtuosity in service of the greater goal of expressing love, hope and gratitude through their musical collaboration.
To understand Tuck & Patti, start with the wellspring of love within them, then their music begins to make perfect sense. Married 41 years, Tuck Andress and Patti Cathcart continue to stoke the fires, not only of their own love, but also of their love of life and their passion for making music together. They have a long-standing tradition: Minimalist arrangements featuring Tuck's extraordinary virtuosity and Patti's rich mezzo soprano. Renowned for her remarkable ability to touch hearts directly with her voice, Patti is also the writer, arranger and producer. Without even blinking, Tuck-the-problem-solver brags, "Patti writes and arranges; I am just the orchestra."
When they're not touring or recording, they teach as well as produce, record and mix other artists in their studio near San Francisco, part of their mission to use their expertise to help others realize their own dreams. More at tuckandpatti.com
Through our guiding principles: environment shapes behavior, people are assets and creativity fuels enterprise, and our mission to preserve, present and promote jazz, we aim to strengthen the Pittsburgh jazz community and contribute to the overall cultural and artistic diversity of the region.
Since Bullet For My Valentine formed in 1998, the Welsh metallers have become one of the biggest bands in metal, selling over 3 million albums worldwide and scoring three gold albums, as well as defining British metalcore with their now classic debut, The Poison.
Bullet for My Valentine's new album, Gravity, marks a major turn in the band's sound as they distanced themselves from their roots and expanded their skills as songwriters. Frontman Matt Tuck spoke about the album with Full Metal Jackie.
Head and the heart... Unfortunately, we were in a bit of a dark place. I had gone through a little bit of a rough time behind the scenes in my private life and stuff the last couple of years, as well as trying to get the band rolling and on the road, and write a new record and all that stuff. Yeah, [I was] just kind of introverted, kind of darker place than I usually am. I'm usually [have a] quite upbeat, positive, metal attitude kind of guy, but the last couple years I really struggled with a lot of things. It's all come out on Gravity.
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