thanks | jake loew, banjo and mandolin

Jake Loew played banjo on Am I the Midwest? and mandolin on another song on the record. He was a suggestion from Corbin Pratt. He was the one other musician who tracked remotely from a different state. He’s a former Columbus guy like Corbin, but we never met in person - just a few nice chats on the phone to get what we were looking for.

He was easy to work with and super accommodating, giving us a bunch of takes to choose from. We were looking for a bluegrass flavor without overpowering the dish - he walked the line perfectly.

His banjo playing does a beautiful job mirroring the string motion on Midwest - and his mandolin break on “Edges & Corners” is SPICY. You can listen to Midwest now, but will have to wait until the whole record comes out on 1/24/2020 to hear “Edges & Corners”.

Hooray for folk instruments! Thanks much, Jake!

"Am I the Midwest?" streaming everywhere | also a music video

Stream it on Spotify (or preferred music service), and watch the video below.

If you’re curious, read below for some context behind the track.

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from The Guardian

some context behind the track

In 2018, we were on tour in Germany. On Monday, August 27th, we played at a small cafe in Chemnitz. It wasn’t a good night to be in Chemnitz - there was a big anti-immigration protest outside, and it wasn’t safe to be out the street. The promoter made sure the show was a safe place for folks to be amidst all of that. You can read more about that night at The Guardian - but this screenshot of the article is really the core nugget. A few days later, we were interviewed on the radio in Berlin - the conversation touched on anti-immigration movements in both of our countries and what we do to combat it. It was an odd moment where I was asked to explain myself as a resident of the Midwest under Trump to a nationwide German audience. You’re welcome to listen to that interview on the blog.

Many of our conversations on tour were about guns, Trump, and racism - mostly because that’s what the word “Ohio” meant to most people we met. But I also talked about much of the good that I see in my home state and many unseen small acts of kindness. And I don’t think that remotely saves the state or absolves it of its sins - but what else can we do but try earnestly to make something a bit better.

This song struggles to hold all of those feelings together at the same time, kind of like I do.

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lyrics

Am I the Midwest
The one we read about
The one they send the reporters 
To cross the state borders 
Just to figure the people out

Am I the Midwest
The one we sing about
All pockmarked with dairy queens
State football dreams and universities towns

Am I the Midwest
The one we blame
The one we castigate
The one we shame
The one that shows up
On time at eight
The one we love
The one we hate

Am I the Midwest
The one they photograph 
After Delphi leaves and the workers grieving 
Become another think piece

Am I the Midwest
The one they interview 
On the radio stations 
In the European nations 
Where Americana still feels new

Am I the Midwest
The one that blames
The one that speaks up 
Two years too late
The one that shows up 
On election day
The one that votes
The one that hates

Am I the Midwest
The plain-spoken grout between the coasts
Am I the Midwest
Home of miniature golf and self-conscious boasts
Am I the Midwest 
Home of jersey cows in stallion shoes
Am I the Midwest
The one in the news

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credits

Sam Bodary: acoustic guitar and vocals

Daniel Seibert: percussion and string arrangement

Jack Doran: piano

Eli Chambers: bass

Leah Anderson: violin

Devin Copfer: violin

Rachael Keplin: viola

Stephen Forster: cello

Caleb Miller: organ

Jake Lowe: banjo

Corbin Pratt: pedal steel

Tony Rice: engineering and production

Emily Schmidt: engineering

Glenn Davis: mixing

Mike Cervantes (The Foxboro): mastering

Recorded at Oranjudio in Columbus, Ohio

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post script

Small things do help. Our last record release show was a benefit for Community Refugee and Immigration Services - our next one will be too. But you can always donate anytime. I’m also a big fan of libraries - many have read-aloud or homework help programs - Columbus Metro Libraries needs volunteers for both.

thanks | victoria butash

So, I did this thing last record where I wrote a bunch of public thank you notes to everyone who helped out on the album. I’m going to do the same thing this time - but I want to start with a unique person on the eve of the first single.

The second record would not be possible without Victoria Butash - even though she didn’t work on it. But, LP2 wouldn’t exist without LP1, and LP1 wouldn’t exist without Tori.

She was the superhero behind the first record. When I knew next to nothing, she was a lighthouse to point towards the right way to make music with friends. She recorded and mixed nearly everything you hear on the record.

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Here are a few things about Tori.

She’s a killer sound engineer - that’s her bread and butter. But on this project, she was also a killer producer. Her artistic guidance was invaluable from recording through mixing.

She has an unparalleled work ethic - in everything, but also in music. She combines technical know-how with a knack for in the moment problem-solving (personnel problems included). She was with us for 48-hour recording sprints at Oranjudio and a marathon of mixing and revisions in the months to follow. She treated me, and everyone, with respect through the whole process.

This all collapses into one thing - Tori is a role model. She taught me some basic lessons in how to speak clearly for what you believe in, treat people with dignity and professionalism (especially when they are volunteering their expertise at a steep discount), and how to take accountability for everything within your control. She taught me a lot about being a leader, including when to get out of the way so your collaborators can do what they’re best at.

Tori is touring the country running live sound for big bands that make records I love - because of course she is. She’s killing it. For all the above reasons. This is what she’s great at.

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One of my favorite things about the first record is how the acoustic guitar sounds. Tori tried a few different mic techniques, including hanging one just over my shoulder, pointing down towards the guitar. Whenever I hear the guitar on Travel, the sound still floors me. That’s thanks to Tori.

Thanks, Tori. Cheers to the future.

an amazing message from a stranger | a new song on friday

I’ve been reflecting on how the last record was received and trying hard not to take anything for granted as we prep for another release. I’ve been keeping two things in mind as I do this.

First - more people listened to our first record than I ever thought would. I peeked into our stats and found the big number to the left - that’s amazing. But when I looked a little deeper, it got a bit more amazing.

Spotify shows you the playlists that you’re on - and the ones you’re not on. We were never put on any big Editorial Spotify playlists, but listeners put us on over 1,600 playlists. Because of that, some of the Algorithm-based playlists picked us up and shared us around - but that wouldn’t have happened without a bunch of people making playlists with our songs.

For that - I am deeply grateful. Thank you very much for listening to and sharing our songs!

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Tess from instagram

The second thing I’ve been keeping in mind is based on a message I received the other day on Instagram. You can read it, then freak out like me.

“Hello! This is random but I had an assignment in class today where I had to pick an album that I never get sick of and I immediately knew I wanted to pick Above The Floorboards. That question made me realize how important your music has been to me for the past 4 years. So I wanted to thank you, because it feels like no matter what I go through I can always come back to your music and that means a lot.”

We made someone’s high school record.

We made someone’s high school record.

We made someone’s high school record.

We made someone’s high school record!!!!!

I had records that I loved in high school. I still love them, mostly for the same reasons. The records that I loved in high school carried me through difficult years and hard lessons and just plain loneliness. The records that I loved in high school shaped my love of records in general. They shaped the kinds of songs that I gravitate to today. My high school records were by The Mountain Goats, The Decemberists, Local Natives, The National, and Bright Eyes. They were by The Tallest Man on Earth, LCD Soundsystem, St. Vincent, and Jackson Browne. They were by Michael Kiwanuka, Sharon Van Etten, Arcade Fire, and Sufjan Stevens. They were by The Magnetic Fields, Frontier Ruckus, Blind Pilot, and Bon Iver. They were by Ezra Furman. They were by Fionn Regan.

Those songs helped me understand myself and songs at large. But I only had the opportunity to talk to a few of them to say thank you. So, it’s amazing to think that (1) we had that kind of impact on a real human person and (2) we would never have known if they didn’t reach out to say something.

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This is where the metrics conversation breaks away and I get a little less anxious about our new release.

I care about a lot of people hearing our new record - but only because I think that 0.01% of the people that hear it might find it really important and helpful, like our high school pal on Instagram. So, heck, I’m excited to share the first song next Friday. Maybe more people will listen than last time - maybe fewer people will listen. Maybe I’ll be needlessly embarrassed - maybe I’ll be overly prideful.

Regardless, I think I’ll focus on this small message from a stranger. I think I’d like to hope that some of these songs will find long-term homes in a few people, providing some sense of solace in a hard time or sweetener in an easy time - and something to reminisce on at a later time.

Wow, I love songs.

The first single of our second record comes out in exactly one week. We finished it in the Spring, and I’m just plain delighted to share it. If you like it, share it with someone or put it on a playlist.

Or just send a message my way.

release dates | planting our feet

This is a video announcement that we will release our first single via Anyway Records and K&F Records on November 22, 2019.

Be sure to sign up for emails and follow on spotify to make sure you don’t miss it.

More soon.

Sam

A view from my couch

We will put out a new record in January. I think that’s nice. I hope you do too.

This is the view from my couch. I think it’s nice, so I’m sharing it. I won’t live in this apartment forever, but I am happy that I get to right now.

Happy Friday, whatever that means to you.

a new record | a midday show

Hi hello! Long time no read! Sam here with news.

We’re putting out a new record in 2020.

Thirty people sang on it! There are strings and horns and pedal steel and rock/roll electric guitar and clarinet and synthesizer!

I am excited about it! I think it is worth hearing! I think some people will find the songs useful and good!

There are two easy things you can do now to help us out

1. Follow us on Spotify or your preferred streaming platform.

2. Make a playlist and include our songs. Spotify algorithms track that junk, and it will help us out as new songs come out.

More news and details on that in the coming weeks. Also…

We’re playing midday show this Sunday - free tickets with the code below

This Sunday, we’ll play a show with local queer death pop legends WYD at the MacConnell Arts Center in Worthington, Ohio. If you’re not a nighttime person - then this is your kinda show.

Tickets are available here - and use promo code “owl” at checkout to get free tickets.

The show starts at 12:30, and we’ll play from about 1:30-2:30 with clarinet and saxophone.

See you there if we see you there - happy Friday.

Sam

An invitation to our pre-lease show | Listen to The Western Den’s new record

We’re playing the last show for several months at Rumba Cafe in Columbus, Ohio on Monday, 2/11 at 7:30pm. We’re going to play on our favorite local public radio station, WCBE, that day at 2PM.

We’re going to play most of the songs from our unreleased, unrecorded, unheard-even-to-us record. We’re celebrating this with our heroes, The Western Den, who just put out a beautiful record.

I wrote a poem using only lyrics from their record that came out on Friday. If you click any of the words, it will open up the corresponding song in Spotify.

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Paint me a forest out there:
tenfold December snow,
an old little flame,
an ocean for a mountainside.

Where did we get lost?
Hemmed up waiting
for our footsteps?
Company
all around us?

Befriender of old lovers,
I’m still holding on.

Paint me a forest out there:
Overgrown,
dimlit glow
past the tide.

Stare across a lesser view
like you do.

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I first found The Western Den in a year between colleges. I had spent a year that I shouldn’t have spent at Belmont University and spent the summer back home in Dayton before studying literature at Ohio State University. A friend (hi Michael Dause!) was touring with The Accidentals, and they were playing a show at Berkeley.

Berkeley was streaming the show, and there were two bands on the bill. The Western Den was the other. So, in my childhood bedroom during a weird and awkward pivot point between childhood and adulthood when I was spending my days at the phone book company as an IT intern, I listened to this show.

There was no video feed that I remember - just a stream of the college radio station online, complete with awkward silences and set changes.

I was taken by this Western Den band that I had never heard or heard of before. Their arrangements are careful. They never step on each other. They never get in the way. But they cook up a mood and toss melodies back and forth without ever feeling too busy. And the arrangements never got in the way of the song.

A month out from the studio, with a growing list of friends and session players filling out these new songs, I’m thinking about these folks a lot. So I’m overjoyed to listen to the record, hear so much happening in each song without detracting from the song itself.

We had a Bed by 11 show with them over a year ago. It was one of my most favorite shows. I’m looking forward to next Monday the 11th. And I’m looking forward to celebrating their beautiful record. And I’m looking forward to hopping into recording our own right after.

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Next show will be the last show for a few months. Then we’re working hard. And I’ll keep putting something here every week, but that’s more for me than anyone.

Also PS If you know any labels who are hankering for a band with a triumphant song about a daring middle-aged woman on an airplane flight from Arkansas to Oregon to meet her estranged high school boyfriend after roughly two decades apart, send them our way.

I’m excited about that song.

three reasons i play shows | three reasons i never close them with “hallelujah”

Once upon a time, I agreed to play a house show. Some weeks later, I was caught off guard to see ads billing it as an exclusive venue with high ticket prices. In the future, I’ll ask more questions when I get a strong guarantee.

At the show, the booker said that it had been tradition to close with a sing-along of “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. I said that I would be very uncomfortable doing that. He politely dropped it, so we didn’t sing it.

This all felt a little gross, but I had trouble understanding why. So, I journaled a bunch, reached out to friends, had a frank chat with the booker, and then journaled some more. All this reminded my why I play shows in the first place and why I chose not to use “Hallelujah” as a sing-along.

This is what I learned in the form of a listicle. (omg! you won’t believe number three!)

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one reason i play shows: for fun (or something like it)

Playing shows can be fun, but they’re a strange kind of weighty, exhausting fun.

Shows are places we can gather to celebrate songs and the people who love them. And making something out of nothing is a damn miracle, especially because it’s always easier to not make anything at all. And even after something is made, it’s easier to not care about something than it is to care about something.

So, playing a show is a basic celebration of both performer and audience choosing to care about something instead of nothing.

That’s fun.

Shows are places where we can say things to strangers that don’t come up in everyday conversations. And you can kick up a bunch of dust without causing a fuss. Or cause a fuss, kick up dust, and own the fucking room for about a half hour.

And shows can be a source of community with a little dash of risk and potential rejection - that can be more rejuvenating than your favorite facial scrub.

That’s fun. 

Shows are how some people make meaning - asking questions, making proclamations, and raising attention for the problems they want to solve together.  

When you put three bands on a stage together who ask different questions from different perspectives using different sounds and different instruments, you create a space where no one has a monopoly on meaning. And then we all get to be properly challenged/unsettled/delighted.

That’s fun.

At their best, shows can give you a little bit of hope on the bad days when your job feels like it scrapes out your insides, plops the goop down on a scale, and direct deposits that to your bank account. And they still give you energy on the good days when it feels like your goop is endless and worth its weight in gold.

But that’s all a bit much. It’s easier to just call it fun.

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one reason i’ll never close with a “hallelujah” sing-along: with great power comes great responsibility

“Hallelujah” is a song written by Leonard Cohen and released in 1984 on the record Various Positions. You’ve heard it, but maybe not the original version.

“Hallelujah” is a case study in what a song is, how it moves through people and time, and how it changes clothes, popping up in unexpected places with different things to say each time you run into it.

Malcolm Gladwell spent 40 minutes digging into the song on a podcast. A book called The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah" came out in 2012.

“Hallelujah” is a powerful song, but that power wasn’t immediately apparent. It didn’t make it on the original Leonard Cohen album that it was written for. He apparently wrote 80 verses to get to the original version of the song. It was quiet and hid for a long time before John Cale covered it in 1991 for a Leonard Cohen tribute album.

This movie came out 17 years ago you guys. That’s wild.

Cale reached out to him for lyrics, and Cohen faxed him all of them, even the ones that never made it into the original recording. From that, Cale built the version that most people cover today. Then, it took until 1994 for Jeff Buckley to cover it on Grace. And it didn’t become a big hit until after Buckley died in 1997.

It’s almost a fluke that we ever heard it in the first place, but this is a song that is so quietly powerful that it continued to move and shift patiently over decades, from Cohen to Cale, from Cale into Buckley, from Buckley to hundreds of others.

Now that we all have “Hallelujah,” we have to decide how and when we use it.

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another reason i play shows: to build and share a space with heroes

this is what happens when you google “spiderman with a guitar”

anyway, here’s spiderweb

Local heroes. Traveling heroes.

Quiet heroes. Friendly heroes.

Surprisingly unpleasant heroes who quickly stop being heroes. Strangers who become heroes when you see how well they treat people.

The heroes behind your favorite songs who ask your favorite questions and do things that you could never do. Heroes with superpowers who push you to ask more from yourself.

I feel indebted to a growing list of these people, and shows are a way to celebrate them, their songs, and the many ways they make the world a more interesting place to be. If an out-of-towner reaches out to play a show and I believe their songs will challenge/unsettle/delight a room of people, then it’s on me to help muster up a show to make that happen.

And then, if the show goes well, the list of heroes grows.

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another reason i’ll never close with a “hallelujah” sing-along: songs can be used in good faith or in bad faith, and it’s hard to tell the difference

what a cute fella

Over time, the song “Hallelujah” has become a tool. It’s like one of those screwdrivers with a bunch of different tips. Across many contexts and in many situations, this song can be emotionally resonant. And if you’re not trying to do anything more specific than elicit a vague Big Emotion, than this will get the job done.

It’s Cohen’s view that many different hallelujahs exist. Some are melancholy. Some are fragile. Some are uplifting. Some are joyous. Some are sober. Some are sincere. Some are orgasmic. Some are purifying. Some are about the disappointment of desperately wanting to be something more than human. Some are just disappointing.

If you’re in a rush, you could just describe it as “authentic.” But that misses the point.

The Edukators is a favorite movie of mine from high school. It’s also kind of a bad movie, and “Hallelujah” plays over the final scene. It’s heavy-handed, but I still tear up as Buckley’s cover plays through the ending.

The song has become a means to an emotional end. It often deployed as a direct appeal to “emotion” - not a specific emotion, just “emotions.” At its worst, it feels like a last-ditch effort at unspecific catharsis when everything else has failed.

It can become a song of manipulation. Some songs have the power to access certain feelings. And when people eventually discovered that power, “Hallelujah” showed up in talent shows, television dramas, and Shrek. And each time the song was used to emotionally heighten a scene, it lost a bit of its magic.

It can also still make for a wonderful performance (and it wasn’t bad in Shrek), but I’m wary of why and how people choose to perform it.

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the last reason i play shows: money

You can’t pay rent with two free drinks, unless they’re really really good drinks and your landlord is a super weirdo. My landlord’s just a normal weirdo because he only takes cash or physical checks.

You need money to pay rent for the place that you live and write songs in. And you need money to buy food that will keep you alive and healthy. And maybe you can even put aside money for when unexpected bad things happen. Maybe even health insurance? What a world!

Then maybe when you’ve met most of your baseline needs, you can spend the time and energy it takes to make something out of nothing. And maybe you’ll even buy an instrument.

I don’t make my living from music - I’m happy as a clam to work a day job that can support me and this peculiar hobby/passion/obsession/self-care tactic. That being said, if I can pay for a day in the studio by playing a gig and dodging a “Hallelujah” sing-along, I’ll consider it.

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the last reason i’ll never close with a “hallelujah” sing-along: the surest way to ruin a song is to try to make your voice heard over the voice of the song (but sometimes even that won't work)

This reason is one of Ezra Fruman’s tenets of songwriting. This is Ezra’s face.

Even in the wrong setting, “Hallelujah” is powerful enough to mean something.

And even if a singer sings it with the calculated passion of a high schooler trying to get laid at a party where someone forgot to lock up the acoustic guitar, it can still be strangely beautiful.

But using it too much starts to feel desperate. Hallelujah is a song of desperation, but that’s different than using it desperately.

It’s a song that people have pointed to as “real” or “genuine” while those words increasingly cease to mean either. It’s a song that some people sing to woo the people they’d like to fall in love with the idea of.

But it’s also still a song that asks serious questions about love. And sometimes, somehow, I can still hear someone cover that song and love every second of it.

But there’s a big difference between someone covering that song and someone covering up that song.

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so what?

I can see how someone might lean on a “Hallelujah” sing-along for some kind of reliable catharsis at the end of a show. Maybe some people would even feel moved, like I was in high school at the end of The Edukators. But to me, turning “Hallelujah” into a sing-along prioritizes a cheap, unrisky attempt at “emotions” over anything you can really sink your teeth into.

But I’m probably taking this too seriously. Maybe songs are just songs and people sing them together sometimes. It’s not like this is some Fyre Festival shit. I was paid for my set. And my desire to abstain from an “Hallelujah” sing-along was respected. But it all still feels gross.

“That’s what it’s all about. You’re not going to be able to work this thing out. There’s no solution to this mess. The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is when you embrace it all and say, ‘Look, I don’t understand a fucking thing at all - Hallelujah!’”

— Leonard Cohen

Sometimes people try to make their own voice heard over the song they’re singing. That doesn’t give me faith in the singer, but maybe the song can still do some good. I’ll keep rooting for songs.

Anyway, here’s wonderwall.

i have a friend named Tom Ebner whose name is also Nemo Bathers

Tom Ebner is a friend of mine. We met going to college in Nashville. I left the university after a year and transferred to OSU, but he stuck things out. And we kept up after going our separate ways.

Tom put out his first EP. It’s under the name Nemo Bathers. You should follow him on social media (bandcamp|insta|spotify) and give him a listen.

I’m not a very good letter writer, but Tom is. He’s consistent. He’s diligent. And if I send him a letter, I know that I’ll get a letter back promptly. I’m not as good at writing letters. I let them sit, get back in a month or so. I’ve let our connections lapse and have to restart them the next time we actually talk in person. He’s also taught me that that’s ok. It’s ok to fall down sometimes. It’s ok to feel bad sometimes. Lord knows we've both been on the ground our fair share.

Tom and I also share songs. I wrote Ohio mostly because of an informal songwriting challenge based on a text message. I’ve probably heard more in-progress songs from him than I have from anyone. And he’s probably heard more of mine than anyone.

The first track on his first EP is one of my favorite songs to come out in the past year or so. I put it on repeat sometimes. It makes me happy. I’m going to write out the lyrics as I hear them - like someone just invited me into their house, made tea for the both of us, waited for the steep, then sat down on a plump couch to start a conversation after writing letters back and forth for a few months.

“In my dreams, it feels so far in the back of my mind… like I’d bought enough time between the windowpane you shake in vain and my eager dancing feet. All my wounds are coming clean.
She sits still. I take her picture in the withering light; she smiles at the sight of a squirrels chase. Lovers race in the tree branch above, but I never saw her fall in love. 


The irony of fate is some things never change, and when we notice them they always come too late. The golden days will hide behind the average haze while we wonder what we’re missing in this game. 


So, if you don’t mind, sing something kind to me now. Rediscover the sound in the breaking light of our morning bloom, shaking dust from your hide as you float across the room.”

— “Overture” by Nemo Bathers

Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Nemo. This is one of many photos I snapped in quick succession to startle you while we hung out with your very good dog.