My 40th Birthday Party is Also a Dream Bill

Me and my dream brother Chase Roden’s 40th birthday is also one of the dreamiest shows I’ve ever put together/been part of. Saturday night, my band Scenery will be sharing the bill with two of my favorite songwriters ever.

Chris Simpson

The first time I met Chris Simpson I was 19. To me, he was an old man approaching his mid-twenties. He had just recently started The Gloria Record whose self-fitled EP was on a perpetual loop in my cd player.

I was compelled to get to know Chris, because not only did I love TGR, but his recently deceased band, Mineral, had quickly vaulted themselves to the most hallowed of status in my life. The controlled intensity of the music, combined with Chris’ stark vocals resonated (and resonate) with every cell in my being. Their album End Serenading is and always will be one of my five desert island discs.

This part of my musical life came to a head in October 2001 when my band at the time, Mr. Body, covered Mineral at one of Emo’s celebrated Hoot Nights. After covering a full set of their music, Chris came onstage and performed the epic track Parking Lot for an adoring crowd of Mineral fans.

Over the past two decades, Chris and I have become friends and collaborators. Chris is one of the gentlest and sweetest souls in the grand state of Texas. His subsequent projects (Zookeeper, Mountain Time) have found him maturing in both sound and word.

All in all, I’m honored to have him play my celebration.

The Party

Richard and Chase’s 40th birthday celebration will be on Saturday 11/16 at 4608 Tanney St. Austin, TX at 7pm.
Chris Simpson - 8:00pm
Stanley Knives - 9:00pm
Scenery - 10:00pm

The show is FREE and all ages. You can find the FB event here. We will be raising money for RAICES and Casa Marianella.

Redding Hunter
(aka Stanley Knives)

The first time I saw Red Hunter play was as Peter and the Wolf at the old OK Mountain in East Austin during SXSW 2006 or 2007. After the set I asked him “hey man great set, can I buy a copy of your cd.” Without looking at me he returned “I don’t have any, I’m sure a record store has some.” He walked off.

Red has made some incredible lo-fi music over the years under a variety of different names (Peter and the Wolf, Gender Infinity, Traffique, etc etc). I remember the moment that I fell in love with his song craft. I wasn’t four tracks into his masterpiece album Lightness when I realized his talent. The back to back tracks of Safe Travels and Gray Overcoat may be my favorite consecutive tracks in all of music history.

In the years since, Red and I have become good friends and collaborators. Red is, without a doubt, the most creative person I’ve ever known. Whether it’s making music, writing novels, making movies or scoring them, or running DIY music venues… everything Red touches is uniquely his.

I’m so excited that Redding Hunter will be coming in from Detroit and will perform under the name of Stanley Knives at my birthday celebration.

New Music: Scenery's "Lady Bird" Cassette Now Available!

I'm very proud to present Scenery's Lady Bird Cassette. It's our first release since 2017's full length Two Stares. While the latter was a sweat-filled summer of partying, love, and loss, Lady Bird is a quieter, more intimate night on the lake. 

There's a lot I could say about it, so I'll just say it in bullet form:

• The album cover of this release is very special to me. The photo was taken by my grand-uncle Roland Chatham in 1947. The subject was his girlfriend, my beloved Aunt Catherine, whom we lost in 2016. She was truly a Lady Bird, as she flew airplanes in WWII in an elite women's air group. I love how my talented friend, Bryan Butler, took the photo and brought it together perfectly.
• The title track, Lady Bird, is a story about falling in and out of love in Austin in the late 90s and early 2000s. Back then there used to be impromptu concerts in the middle of the Lamar Street pedestrian bridge. That's what I'm referring to in the chorus when I sing "Meet me on the bridge over Lady Bird and I'll sing you my song." It has since been pointed out to me that Austin's Town Lake wasn't renamed "Lady Bird Lake" until 2007. I think that really just speaks to how our memories and nostalgia can be so wildly approximate, with people, places, and times conflated into a single picture; a single feeling. That's what we tried to do with this song.
• The B-side, Queen of the Night, is also very special to me. When my good friend Elizabeth Lodowski passed away in 2016 her boyfriend gave one of the most moving eulogies I've ever heard. She wrestled with cancer for several years, but they only met a couple of years before she died. This is my best attempt of catching that moment and putting it into a song.
• This is the first album I've put out of my own music that I didn't play a large role in mixing since the passing of my best friend and partner in music, Travis Bannerman. Major props to John Michael Landon at Estuary Studios for mixing the two featured tracks with such skill and care. 
• This was also the first time I've employed anyone for mastering except for Travis or the ever-so-talented Tim Gerron. Big shout out to Kevin Butler at Test Tube Audio for last-second mastering that was perfectly crisp and clean. 

You can listen below or on Spotify and you can purchase a physical cassette on our bandcamp site. 

Scenery's TWO STARES now available everywhere!

Scenery's first full-length album, Two Stares, is now available everywhere!
You can order a physical CD here for just $10, or check out your favorite digital music service below.

Spotify

Bandcamp

iTunes

Google Play

CD RELEASE SHOW: Scenery's Two Stares FREE release show & party 12/3/16

My friends and I in Scenery are so excited to celebrate the release of our fist full-length album Two Stares on Jan 6th. We'll be partying this Saturday night 12/3 at Cheer Up Charlie's with our good friends in Good Field, Kady Rain, and Ronnie Heart performing. THIS SHOW IS FREE!

Even though Two Stares doesn't come out until January, we'll have our cd for sale for only $10. 
We can't wait to see you there!

Here is a link to the event.
Here's the schedule:
9pm Good Field
10pm ronnie heart (Dallas)
11pm Scenery (LP release)
12am Kady Rain
1am The Bristol Hills (Shreveport, LA)

SCENERY/DAY WAVE at The Sidewinder 6/14

Scenery's back in action this week opening for the buzz band Day Wave.
We play early at 8!

New Music Video: Scenery - "For the Record"

You can view my band Scenery's new video here or on Facebook.
We shot it with an Iphone 5 on the VHS Camp app. I edited it on Final Cut Pro using the multi-cam clip feature. Overall we spent about 10 hours and less than $20 on this gritty little piece. Enjoy!

New Music: Scenery - "For the Record" Single Now Available Online

My newish band Scenery has released our second single, For the Record. It is available on Itunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and anywhere your ears care to consume. You can also listen to it by just clicking on the play button below.

Several folks have asked me about the song's dark nature, and who I might have kissed in 1993 that would be giving me such present-day alcoholism. Well, in a dramatic departure from the overly heady and deeply spiritual music I have become known for, I have let my songwriting for Scenery be fictional, universal, and as sappy as Robert Smiths'. It has been a lot of fun. Seeing as I have never allowed myself to just write songs that weren't part of a concept album or meant to be sung in liturgical worship.... it's very refreshing.
So hopefully you, or anyone, can find something you identify with enough to sing along or get down on the dancefloor. 

Friday 3/11: Scenery @ The Mohawk

My newish band Scenery will be kicking off SXSW in style with The Shivery Shakes, Borrisokane and more on Friday 3/11 at The Mohawk in Austin. It's really a great bill of local talent. You can get tickets here. We can't wait to play some new material and dance our way into SXSW with each one of you! 
 

New Scenery Promo Photo

A new promo shot of Scenery, more to be released in coming weeks.

Photo taken by Richard Kentopp.

Radio Beach is KUTX 98.9's Song of the Day

Scenery's new single Radio Beach is KUTX Austin 98.9's song of the day today. Check it out and download it for free. 

You can see Scenery play at the Mohawk in Austin, TX on Thursday July 16th with Poly Action and Volatile Colour. 

New Band, New Single

I've recently started a new band with my friends. We're called Scenery. We just put out our first single entitled Radio Beach. Please take a listen, and if you feel so inclined, please make it the Summer Jam of your 2015. You can listen and download for free at our bandcamp page.