BuffettNews.com

Monday, May 2, 2005

'Tambourine' dreamer Tift Merritt to play Mr. Small's today

By Regis Behe
TRIBUNE-REVIEW

If you listen to most country music stations, you won't hear Tift
Merritt.
But in February at the Grammy Awards there she was with Loretta Lynn,
Tim McGraw and the other nominees for best country album.

"I think it confuses radio," says Merritt of her nominated
release, "Tambourine."

But there's no doubting her abilities. Merritt, who visits Mr.
Small's Funhouse in Millvale today, is an engaging and diverse
singer, a strong songwriter and worthy of inclusion on People
magazine's list of the world's most beautiful people.

By any measure, she should be a marketing department's dream. Until
the Grammys, at least, Merritt's profile was lower than a prairie
dog's in winter.

To her credit, she refuses to complain about her lack of exposure.

"I've been really fortunate in that my career has had a really
natural, grassroots momentum," Merritt says. "The Grammy nomination
was a big step into something else, but our operation has always been
very family- and fan-oriented. Our band is a family, and we're just
building a fan base. I think we would love to have something on the
radio, but I think it's really important to keep doing what we've
always done, to make music that we're proud of, and that's the vision
that we chase."

She certainly caught something on "Tambourine." It's still in the alt-
country vein set by its predecessor, "Bramble Rose," Merritt's debut.
But it also rocks a bit harder and goes a bit deeper. A trio of songs
in the middle of the album -- "Your Love Made a U-Turn," "Plainest
Thing" and "Late Night Pilgrim" -- finds her moving from the blues to
a soulful ballad to a foot-stompin' rocker with the greatest of ease.

And that's not even mentioning the pop-flavored "Stray Paper"
and "Wait it Out," or the Motown soul of "Good Hearted Man," the trio
of irresistable songs that open "Tambourine."

"I think as a performer and as a writer, you really have to draw from
a whole range of feelings and a lot of different ways of expressing
them," she says. "If all you did were ballads, that would be like
painting with only one color."

Just when it seemed Merritt's life couldn't get any better, it did.
The highlight of her year so far hasn't been attending the Grammys,
which she compared to being "on a rollercoaster at an amusement
park." Nor was it meeting Lynn, although that was a special moment.

No, Merritt's year peaked when she was performing in Florida and her
alma mater, the North Carolina Tarheels, won the NCAA men's
basketball championship in early April. Desperate to hear the game,
Merritt actually paused, got her father on a speaker phone and
listened to the game while the audience patiently waited.

"The fans were really good about it," Merritt says.

No surprise there -- Merritt is a musician worth waiting for.

Merritt's mix a gift to live music

Bill Thompson | Enquirer staff writer

There she was, a Grammy nominee for Best Country Album, helping her
band mates load equipment into their van after a raucous performance
at the Hi Tone Café in Memphis.

Loretta Lynn? Be serious. Gretchen "Redneck Woman" Wilson? It might
have been plausible before she recently showed up on the cover of
Entertainment Weekly. Tim McGraw or Keith Urban? Disqualified by
gender.

Tift Merritt might have been the least familiar name in the category,
known only to the people lucky enough to have stumbled upon "Bramble
Rose," her debut album, or the Grammy nominated "Tambourine." The
main reason for her anonymity is that it's a stretch to call it a
country record.

"But it was awfully nice of them to nominate me in the category,"
Merritt says with a laugh. She plays tonight at Newport's Southgate
House.

The singer's profile has risen since being nominated (Lynn won
for "Van Lear Rose"), and she provides a model of how to build a
successful career one show at a time. Merritt was originally
scheduled to play Southgate House last winter, but Elvis Costello
asked her to join him for a string of concerts. It was a learning
experience.

"His catalog of songs is amazing, and his passion of delivering them
every night is something to behold," the 30-year-old North Carolinian
says.

Costello is Merritt's Lost Highway label mate, but they seem to be
more kindred spirits in music rather than commerce. Just when people
think they have pegged their sound to a specific genre, both artists
jump out of the box.

That's what Merritt did that night in Memphis. She was coming off of
a successful solo acoustic tour with Mindy Smith when she brought her
band with her to the Hi Tone. By the second song, the audience was
whoopin' and hollerin', and by the third song, people started to
dance. They don't do that when a woman sits on a stage by herself
with a guitar.

"Whether it's folk, country, soul, rock or whatever, it's just
music," Merritt says. "And when you get on stage, it's all rock 'n'
roll."

When it works, it makes packing up the equipment at the end of the
night a little easier.

E-mail bthompson>@enquirer.com

Southgate crowd learns that Merritt knows best

By Bill Thompson
Enquirer staff writer

Sometimes, good songs aren't enough make a concert successful.

Sometimes, it takes the sheer force of will to make the audience
understand that it's witnessing something special.

Such was the case at the Southgate House in Newport Friday night when
Tift Merritt worked herself into a sweat belting out tunes from her
Grammy-nominated album, "Tambourine" and her debut effort, "Bramble
Rose."

Starting with "Stray Paper," the singer led her fine band (Brad Rice
on guitar, Jay Brown on bass, Danny Eisenberg on keyboards and Zeke
Hutchins on drums) through an hour's worth of top-flight songs,
including "Wait It Out," "Late Night Pilgrim," "Virginia," "Plainest
Thing," and "Still Pretending," among others.

It was charming, and it had the mostly older crowd (the youngsters
must have been in Over-the-Rhine for Jammin' On ...) swaying gently
in their seats and clapping politely after every effort. However,
something was missing - there was no electricity in the room.

That was inexplicable. Merritt was doing everything she could. Her
voice was soaring on songs that were good enough to earn that Grammy
nod. She worked the stage like someone who had been playing live a
lot longer than she has. She was reaching out to an appreciative
crowd, but the two - singer and fans - were not connecting.

Then, slowly at first, the atmosphere began to change. Two women
walked through the tables and chairs to dance in front of the stage.
It was if they were saying, "We're with you, Tift, even if nobody
else has the nerve (or good sense) to join us."

Then two more women walked to the front. Then a guy handed Merritt a
beer, and she thanked him with a big smile. That gesture seemed to
loosen up everyone, and led to the breakthrough that came with the
final two songs: "Tambourine" and "Shadow in the Way."

"Tambourine" has the elements of a classic rock song. It starts with
a spoken introduction, then the band goes from 0 to 60 in seconds.
All of a sudden, legs were uncrossed and feet were stomping on the
floor. Chins came out of palms and hands were drumming on tables.
Rice and Eisenberg traded frantic riffs while Merritt flew between
them shaking her tambourine. As the volume of the music increased, so
did her voice, and it stayed crystal clear.

As the song ended, people finally stood to cheer. The polite applause
was gone. Merritt had converted the audience into believers.

And she knew it. Just before kicking off "Shadow," she flashed a "I
love what I do for a living" smile, raised her left hand and wiggled
her fingers in a come-with-me gesture. She didn't have to ask again.

People rushed to join the four women and the beer-buying guy. The
inhibitions were gone: the singer had imposed her will and everyone
in the room was better off because of it.

After taking so long to join in the fun, the crowd wasn't about to
let Merritt and her comrades leave quickly. After the encore began
with another foot-stomper, the singer circled back and reminded
everyone that she had promised to play "Still Pretending" for a
second time. As the spotlight dimmed, she sang the heartbreakingly
beautiful ballad while every person in the room with a partner danced
with them. Those who didn't probably wished they did.

This was a night that was meant to be shared with someone.

With a name like Tift, she's gotta be good!
Sorry, I know that's not true, but I'm glad she is. I couldn't resist... we have a Tift Avenue here in Tift County in Tifton Ga., and I regularly visit the Asa Tift house (otherwise known as the Hemingway House) in Key West, Fla. And we have a lot of people with the first name Tift around here. I've heard of Tift Merritt, but have not yet heard her music... Gotta get caught up...

carolinagirl wrote:With a name like Tift, she's gotta be good!
Sorry, I know that's not true, but I'm glad she is. I couldn't resist... we have a Tift Avenue here in Tift County in Tifton Ga., and I regularly visit the Asa Tift house (otherwise known as the Hemingway House) in Key West, Fla. And we have a lot of people with the first name Tift around here. I've heard of Tift Merritt, but have not yet heard her music... Gotta get caught up...

Cool. I've never heard of a lot of people with that name either. Actually, I don't think I heard of any until Tift came along. Hope you get a chance to see her soon, she's definitely getting more popular with each new album she releases. The Grammy nod she got this year didn't hurt things either. I would have loved to have seen her win just to send a message that there's still good country music being made out there but I was also tickled to death to see Loretta take home the award. She certainly deserved it for Van Lear Rose and during her acceptance speech she let folks know that she's still making good country music too even without the support of "country" music radio.

Fellow Tift fans rejoice! Looks like she's going to be taping her first episode of Austin City Limits later this month.

From her web site:
http://www.tiftmerritt.com

Tift Recording Austin City Limits in October!
10/3/2005
Tift will be performing live on Austin City Limits on October 20th.
This will air on PBS on January 21st.
_____________________________

European Tour Dates Coming Soon
10/3/2005
Stay tuned for Eurpoean tour dates in November, coming soon.

Just found out Ryan Adams and The Cardinals will also be taking part in ACL taping happening later this month...

Jahfin wrote:Fellow Tift fans rejoice! Looks like she's going to be taping her first episode of Austin City Limits later this month.

From her web site:
http://www.tiftmerritt.com

Tift Recording Austin City Limits in October!
10/3/2005
Tift will be performing live on Austin City Limits on October 20th.
This will air on PBS on January 21st.
_____________________________

European Tour Dates Coming Soon
10/3/2005
Stay tuned for Eurpoean tour dates in November, coming soon.

Very cool! She opened for Sara Evans this earlier this summer here in S OR. She put on a great show!

From the Citizen-Times website:
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs. ... 06009/1033

Rising star Merritt surprised by success

By Carol Mallett-Rifkin
CITIZEN-TIMES CORRESPONDENT

Southern rock is safely in the hands of a beautiful and talented performer when Tift Merritt takes the stage. She is cagey, introspective, sexy, outgoing, articulate, immensely intelligent and refreshingly complex.

A University of North Carolina graduate who thought she would be writing novels, she is instead writing great songs, her second CD “Tambourine” sold more than 40,000 copies and also landed a Grammy nomination. Merritt joins with another songwriting North Carolinian, Jim Lauderdale, for a Saturday night show at Isothermal Community College in Spindale.

Question: You have had such a meteoric rise in music, amazing. What are some of the highlights of your year?

Answer: Hmm, I’d say taking my parents to the Grammys, meeting Loretta Lynn, playing with Elvis Costello.

Q: How did it feel to be nominated for a Grammy and three Americana Awards all in one year?

A: It is very rewarding to make a record you are proud of, and for it to find a warm place in the world is wonderful.

Q: How would you describe your music? It crosses so many genres.

A: Having always been someone who doesn’t fit conveniently in a box — radio and record people always try and put me in a box and I’ve come to a conclusion. That genre has nothing to do with music. What is Ray Charles, Bob Dylan? All the greats? O.K., if I have to do it (laughing), I’m a singer/songwriter tinged with the tradition of country storytelling but with the energy of soul and rock ’n’ roll.

Q: And your band?

A: My band is definitely a rock ’n’ roll band; I just have a great rock ’n’ roll band. There is a lot of energy live; it’s not a boring show. It doesn’t stay in a nice neat box.

Q: And your new record?

A: It is what it is. We played in the Triangle in June; it was the biggest concert I’ve ever done. We recorded a live CD that is coming out in the next few weeks. We played a great concert and luckily, we said beforehand, “Let’s record this in case it’s good.” We were at home in the Triangle after a year on the road and it was just awesome.

Q: What motivates or inspires you to write, what’s your Muse?

A: I’m as private as I am public, as much an introvert as an extrovert. Certainly, it starts with something in my own life that moves me and winds up different. It’s like making soup; you’re never exactly sure how it will turn out.

Q: There’s a rumor going around that you’ve moved to Black Mountain. Is it true or should I be rumor control?

A: We spent a week in Black Mountain hanging out and playing and then the rumor started. I’m really a gypsy but I can say I live on the coast of North Carolina.

Q: Did you ever think all this success would happen to you?

A: No, No. I never would have thought this. I thought I’d be a novelist.

Carol Mallett Rifkin writes about music for the Asheville Citizen-Times. E-mail to cpmallett@msn.com.

From The Daily Tarheel:
http://www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/displ ... 9ea9b30cf3

Alumna returns in style
BY MORGAN ELLIS
STAFF WRITER


UNC alumna Tift Merritt (second from right) performs an eclectic set of tunes at Memorial Hall on Friday night, accompanied by her bassist Jay Brown (far left), guitarist Brad Rice and drummer Zeke Hutchins.

Tift Merritt walked onto the Memorial Hall stage Friday and immediately fell off it. Probably not the homecoming she envisioned.

But the show-opening incident was not indicative of how the rest of the night would go.

Merritt, a UNC alumna, played her concoction of country, rock and soul to the sold-out crowd’s delight.

Headliner Nanci Griffith completed the performance, wandering through heart-felt folk and Americana.

After her fall, Merritt picked herself up and delivered a redeeming (and rocking) performance.

Rolling through a set that included cuts from both her albums Tambourine and Bramble Rose, Merritt never slowed her pace except to perform an acoustic solo from her forthcoming album and to relate memories from her days at UNC.

Songs like James Carr’s soulful “Your Love Made a U-Turn” highlighted Merritt’s musical diversity and showed her band’s mastery of the instruments. Guitarist Brad Rice more than adequately substituted for the horn section on the track from Tambourine.

Merritt garnered a standing ovation before Griffith took the stage to offer her condolences for Merritt’s pre-show mishap.

“It’s happened to all of us one time or another,” Griffith said.

And while she didn’t rock as hard as Merritt, her music was no less potent, exploring themes reminiscent of America’s heartland.

The songstress from Austin is perhaps best known for her performance of Julie Gold’s “From a Distance,” a song most notably recorded by Bette Midler.

Her musical associations range widely. She has performed Austin City Limits on many occasions and shared the stage with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter and the Indigo Girls.

Griffith has made a name for herself with her skilled finger picking, constantly changing guitar tunings and great songwriting.

The only song Griffith ever penned on piano, “Late Night Grande Hotel,” highlighted her set, showing Merritt that songs don’t have to be loud to rock. The harmonies were amazing.

While most of her performance was fairly quiet and subdued, she surprised the crowd with her dancing and scatting on “Beautiful,” a homage to her stepfather and his big-band legacy.

Griffith’s songwriting skill came to the fore on “Gulf Coast Highway,” a sultry duet with pianist James Hooker about Highway 90.

The down-home themes of that song and others are precisely what American Roots music is all about — exactly what the Carolina Performing Arts Series was going for with this special selection.

At the night’s end, Merritt joined Griffith for an encore performance of the Rolling Stones’ “No Expectations.”

It seemed appropriate, as both went above and beyond what anyone could have expected.

Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.

Joni Mitchell once sang of being “a free man in Paris … unfettered and alive/ Nobody calling me up for favors/ No one’s future to decide.” Since before the turn of the 20th century, artists have strolled the Champs-Elysees soaking up the culture of the City of Lights and unleashing it upon their art.

At the end of a grueling year of touring and promoting her knockout second album Tambourine, Tift Merritt needed a break to recharge her batteries. “It was really great to get off the road,” Ms. Merritt said. “Paris is one of the best places in the world to be an artist. After you haven’t slept in the same place for a long time, it’s wonderful to wake up in Paris several days in a row.” Ms. Merritt’s fatigue had a lot to do with the fact that Tambourine earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album, placing her alongside contemporary country superstars like Keith Urban, Tim McGraw and Gretchen Wilson. Unfortunately for all of them, they were competing with the legendary Loretta Lynn and White Stripes guitarist Jack White, whose collaboration Van Lear Rose took home the trophy.

But then there’s Paris. For Ms. Merritt, the city provided her with perspective and allowed her some much-needed down time to start creating material for a new album. “The idea of mass production doesn’t fly in Paris,” Ms. Merritt said. “You pass all these shop windows and the macaroons are freshly made with real care, the flowers are gorgeous and meticulously arranged and the whole feeling is one of quality over quantity. … When you’re there writing and trying to craft something carefully, you don’t feel like you’re going against the grain so much.”

Ms. Merritt returns to her former home of Wilmington on Saturday for a concert at UNCW’s Kenan Auditorium, and rumor has it that she just might play some of her newly minted Paris material. Prior to her 8 p.m. show, Ms. Merritt will conduct a discussion with singers and songwriters at 4 p.m. A winner of several songwriting competitions, including the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at the 2000 Merlefest, Ms. Merritt said she hopes to illuminate any subjects that her audience might be curious about. “We’ll talk about writing, and the differences be-tween writing with music and without,” Ms. Merritt said. “I’ll talk about whatever the people who show up want to talk about. I don’t really enjoy hearing myself talk about what I do, but when you are forced to put your feelings on certain things into words, you end up learning something from that.”

Since returning from France, Ms. Merritt and her band have done a swing of West Coast festivals, as well as a few select shows in North Carolina. She even snuck off to Montreal to work on a film. “It was really just a way to catch up with some old friends and spend some time in Montreal,” Ms. Merritt said. “I’m really not an aspiring actress or anything. Besides, the best part was discovering Montreal bagels. They’re so much better than New York’s.”

Now her quintet is gearing up for a taping of Austin City Limits, and they’ll ideally go back into the studio to record the follow-up to Tambourine this winter. And while it appears that serious touring will once again become part of Ms. Merritt’s life, she’s reconciled herself to living largely on the road for now. “It is hard, but being in a position where you’re able to do your art as your life’s main focus is a privilege,” Ms. Merritt said. “Everything else that comes along with it is absolutely worth it.” The road ahead may be long and arduous, but Ms. Merritt always has the words of Joni Mitchell to remind her of the joie de vivre of Paris and the rigors of her chosen profession: “You know I’d go back there tomorrow/ But for the work I’ve taken on/ Stoking the star maker machinery/ Behind the popular song.”

From the Raleigh News & Observer:
http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/ ... 5469c.html

Merritt makes an unforgettable entrance


Tift Merritt is heading to Texas to tape an 'Austin City Limits' with Ryan Adams.

By DAVID MENCONI, Staff Writer

Tift Merritt had some unscripted excitement when she opened for Nanci Griffith at UNC-Chapel Hill's Memorial Hall last weekend. Merritt walked onstage with the lights dimmed and approached the front of the stage -- and fell into the orchestra pit as the crowd gasped.
After calling out that she was OK, she climbed back onstage and briefly struck a pose on the edge.

At the time, Merritt muttered that she would never live it down. But she was able to joke about it soon afterward.

"Everybody expects me to be all humiliated," she says with a laugh. "But it happens. Hey, it's rock 'n' roll, somebody is supposed to get hurt!"

Meanwhile, the release of Merritt's live album, "Home Is Loud" (RCAM/Oil Rig Recordings), has been delayed because of manufacturing difficulties. But the album should be available in selected independent stores "any second now," Merritt reports. She will also be in Austin, Texas, on Thursday to tape an "Austin City Limits" segment with her Lost Highway Records label mate Ryan Adams. The scheduled air date is Jan. 21 on PBS.

Tift's new limited edition live album, Home Is Loud is now available through this website:

http://www.buymusichere.net/rel/v2_view ... 88999&pt=1

For those that may be interested here's the artwork for Home Is Loud, no tracklisting is available yet that I'm aware of:

Hey, Jah!
I saw this in an email today from ACL.

Janauary 21, 2006

Ryan Adams followed by Tift Merritt


Austin City Limits presents two artists that combine country, rock and lyrical expression: Ryan Adams and Tift Merritt. A notoriously prolific songwriter, Ryan Adams performs songs from his newest and most country release to date, Jacksonville City Nights. Merritt follows her country, soul, and rock 'n‚ roll instincts to create music that features her intense and confessional lyrics.

I wonder how the taping went last Thursday.

conched wrote:Hey, Jah!
I saw this in an email today from ACL.

Janauary 21, 2006

Ryan Adams followed by Tift Merritt


Austin City Limits presents two artists that combine country, rock and lyrical expression: Ryan Adams and Tift Merritt. A notoriously prolific songwriter, Ryan Adams performs songs from his newest and most country release to date, Jacksonville City Nights. Merritt follows her country, soul, and rock 'n‚ roll instincts to create music that features her intense and confessional lyrics.

I wonder how the taping went last Thursday.

Thanks. I've posted about the ACL taping elsewhere but you may have missed it. There's shots of Ryan and the Cardinals' rehearsal at his pedal steel player Jon Graboff's site here:

http://www.graboff.com/photos_cardinals.htm

...and here's the setlist:

10/20/05
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
Austin City Limits

Magnolia Mountain
A Kiss Before I Go (x 2)
Games
Please Do Not Let Me Go
Let It Ride (slow version)
The End
September (solo; aborted)
Strawberry Wine (solo)
Now That You're Gone x 2
Hard Way To Fall
Cold Roses
Song Debut: Lost Satellite (sung by Neal Casal)
Peaceful Valley
Come Pick Me Up (aborted)
Call Me On Your Way Back Home

Performance date. To air in 2005.
On stage at 8:04; off stage at 9:40.
Brad Pemberton (drums); Jon Graboff (guitar); Catherine Popper (bass); Neal Casal (guitar).

Here's the tracklist for Home Is Loud:

1. Write My Ticket
2. Your Love Made a U-Turn
3. Ain't Looking Closely
4. Laid A Highway
5. Supposed to Make You Happy
6. Neighborhood
7. Tambourine
8. Shadow in the Way
9. When I Cross Over

Click below for a slideshow of a recent Tift performance:

http://www.candidcreationsbymary.com/Ti ... /index.htm

Fans of Tift's may be interested in checking out this sideproject from some of her past and present band members.

----------------------------------------------------

http://indyweek.com/durham/current/music.html

Rome wasn't built...

Finally, Stillhouse does its deed.

By Grayson Currin

The beer--watch the beer. If something doesn't change in the next five seconds, it's going to be everywhere--spilled on the floor, spewed from mouths, sprayed from noses. This is too funny.

Dave Wilson is leaning against a table in Mitch's on Hillsborough Street on a Saturday afternoon, halfway staring into his half-empty glass of Bass Ale from the half-empty second pitcher. He's in the middle of a monologue about the travel habits of his absent bandmate Johnny Irion, and his other bandmates--bassist Jay Brown, drummer Zeke Hutchins and steel guitarist Greg Readling--are about to lose their liquid.

"Johnny wants to rock. Real bad. He's stuck in a folk revolution that's going nowhere. He married into an acoustic guitar, and he's f****. So he will fly at any expense from any part of the f**** globe to rock for two hours with us and go home," Wilson says, trying to grit away the smile and pretend this isn't funny, just as he lets Zeke join in on a chorus of "two hours" and "go home." "But I understand. If I had made the same commitment in my life, I'd be on that plane, too, man. God."

Such a rant is funny in isolation. But considering the context, it's hilarious.

Brown, the bassist in Stillhouse and Tift Merritt's backing band, picks up on a thought that started before Wilson's bit, explaining, "You have to have a calendar to be in this band, and there has to be a lot of Blackberry wireless communication to make this happen."

"We could all just have a hole in our calendar and go on vacation. But, lately, it's been like if there is a hole, we say, 'Oh, let's do this,'" Hutchins, three seats away, elaborates.

Post-sip, Wilson continues: "I need a break from the acoustic guitar myself. I f**** myself just as bad as Johnny did."

To wit, Wilson is the lead vocalist and lyricist for Stillhouse, though he pulls the same duties in Chatham County Line, a rising bluegrass band that has toured Europe and released two well-received albums of traditional, gather-round-the-mic music with a freewheeling-rock bent.

For Irion, Stillhouse is rock 'n' roll escapism from the stringent itinerary he keeps with wife and collaborator Sarah Lee Guthrie, literally the third-generation heiress of American folk as presented and preserved by grandfather Woody Guthrie and father Arlo. Guthrie and Irion spend most of the year on the road, and Readling casually refers to them as "real road dogs" with a respect that implies he doesn't understand how they're able to stay on the road so much and stay sane. And that comes from no stranger to the road. Readling has toured as a former member of Merritt's band and as the bassist in CCL. Sometimes, dreadnoughts get old.

For Wilson too, Stillhouse is the same electrified utopia. But they can still rib Irion.

"He spends more getting here for a show than we all make on it," Hutchins laughs.

Such a commitment to a band with one independent record out is not surprising, though, especially given the pitfalls and roadblocks that have already slowed Stillhouse's progress. Their first album, Through the Winter, was released last October--only seven years after the band formed through impromptu jams in 1998.

But pitfalls and roadblocks isn't exactly accurate: Along the way, Tift Merritt & the Carbines--of which everybody in the band has been a member, except Irion--have achieved critical acclaim, a measure of popular success and a Grammy nomination; CCL grabbed a premier spot at this year's Merlefest and have recorded for the BBC. If Stillhouse has taken a backseat, it understands why.

Because of the relaxed, do-it-when-possible nature of these five joking, toast-prone buddies, it's remained important for everyone involved. It's music that's a hobby for otherwise-occupied musicians, and it shows on record. Through the Winter is a relaxed affair that takes an apparent litany of B monikers--The Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, Badfinger, The Band--and rolls them into one loose-fitting, all-encompassing, low-pressure pleasure. In fact, because Stillhouse has always been such a come-as-you-can franchise, it almost didn't occur to them they had a real record.

It was Ryan Pickett, a sound engineer with a studio in Durham who records bands when he's not on the road with My Morning Jacket, who urged them to stick with Stillhouse. When Pickett would come off tour, he would listen to Stilllhouse takes and work on early mixes, sending them off to the band's members. After some cajoling, Stillhouse finally followed Pickett to a makeshift studio at Jim Denny's home in Rougemont for a three-day session, set on finishing a record.

"We were at a good place making the record. It was a good state of mind for recording," says Readling, the most reticent of the bunch.

"Ryan is like one of us. He's doing it in his free time just because he wants to get together with us and do it. It's not an official role," Hutchins says of Pickett, who is--it seems--something of a sixth member. "It's fun for us all."

While CCL was touring through the Midwest in July and Merritt was living in Europe, Hutchins and Brown went on the road with Guthrie and Irion and finalized the logistics for releasing Through the Winter.

"It's like painting a picture. First you draw in an outline and you fill in some colors, and it may not be working, so you start over," says Wilson, just back from a European vacation with CCL and Hutchins. "Two-and-a-half years later, you might have a finished product. I mean, some label could buy this record from us and ask us to re-record these songs. But we'd just take their money and make another record."

The search for a label hasn't been the most active quest imaginable, primarily because none of the members knew how much time they could commit to an upstart band. Especially when other projects are winning awards and selling records.

"We couldn't make any promises about how much we could support it or tour, so we decided we would put it out ourselves," says Hutchins. He polished his D.I.Y. stripes when he and Brown spent an afternoon blow-drying shrink wrap around the first pressing of 500 discs.

But no one in Stillhouse is content to let the stuff sit on the shelf. They're having fun writing songs and making music. But, if a label wants to act on it, Wilson says he could use a new suit.

"We're going to keep putting it out ourselves until somebody snaps to attention and says, 'Here's a few thousand dollars. Go buy some outfits.'... It's just about having a good time," says Wilson, who is giddy that the band is already getting attention from the BBC and will play a festival in Holland in April. "It's a hobby, like fishing or hunting. Yeah, we're hunting for a hit."

Again, watch the beer.

Stillhouse plays The Pour House on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5.

From the Raleigh News & Observer:
http://www.newsobserver.com/442/story/390320.html

A guitarist who pulls double duty

David Menconi, Staff Writer

Back when he lived in the Triangle, Brad Rice was the go-to guy for bands seeking a hotshot guitarist.

The Backsliders drafted Rice into their lineup in the mid-1990s, after Rice's former band Finger broke up. He joined Whiskeytown in 1998, during one of that band's many lineup purges, then continued with Ryan Adams after Whiskeytown broke up. And Tift Merritt tapped Rice as her lead guitarist when it came time to tour for her Grammy-nominated 2004 album "Tambourine."

So when Jay Farrar needed a guitarist for Son Volt's "Okemah and the Melody of Riot," he turned to Rice. The connection came via Farrar's manager, Sharon Agnello, who knew Rice in Raleigh.

Rice recorded with the rest of Son Volt in St. Louis in October of 2004, during a short break from touring with Merritt. In many ways, Rice is the star of the "Okemah" album with gritty, Neil Young-style guitar squalls.

"We were just knockin' stuff out, it was so spontaneous," says Rice, who nowadays resides in Austin, Texas. "We'd learn the songs, play them that day and everyone just went with their instincts as to what we thought would be good. I didn't even hear the finished product until right before it came out, and it sounds great -- even better than I thought while we were making it."

By the time "Okemah" was released last July, Rice was back on the road with Merritt. In Rice's absence, Chris Frame handled lead guitar for Son Volt's first round of touring. But now that Merritt is on her own between-record down time, Rice has rejoined Son Volt for a 16-date tour that kicks off Wednesday at Raleigh's Disco Rodeo.

Even though Rice played on the album, Wednesday's show will be only his second time onstage with Son Volt. Footage from the first Son Volt show Rice played (shot at the Mound City Music Fest) is on the DVD portion of the "Okemah" album package.

Merritt is opening Son Volt's Raleigh show, so Rice will pull double duty Wednesday night and play in both the opening and headlining sets. And if you're going to the show, you'll want to set your television recording device to record that night's "Austin City Limits" -- a performance by Merritt and Ryan Adams, taped last October. It airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday on WUNC-TV.