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Guildwater News Archive

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—  The Tour of the West (2017)  —

December 5, 2017 (Tuesday) - With the Lone Star State now a two-day memory in a rearview mirror, Thayer Sarrano and her Tour of the West arrive -- it was bound to happen -- on the West Coast. Tonight at the Soda Bar in San Diego, in southern California, she proffers a musical performance. Skimming over a few pop-up sets here and there, such as the Sarrano Show in Los Angeles, at Genghis Cohen, in March of this fleeting year of 2017, the zesty parchments and dusty scrolls of our Guildwater archives reveal to we scribes of feeble eyesight that Sarrano last toured California extensively in 2015, for what was then the West Coast Shaky Tour 1.0. That maiden voyage was also once upon a December. To commemorate, we trot out below the tour poster of that erstwhile sojourn, hastening to underline that the photograph itself is provenance of Thrasher Photo and Design. You know, the fellow behind that recent book everybody's talking about -- Athens Potluck -- which features Michael Stipe, Patterson Hood (with whom Thayer laster toured the Pacific Northwest back in 2015), Thayer Sarrano, and T. Hardy Morris, amongst a bevy of other Athenian musical-archetype-types. If your coffee table doesn't now boast a copy, your coffee table is incomplete, and something is missing in your life. (No, it's not mere existential angst, although it's probably that, too, we hasten to inform you. You just need this book, folks, to feel even remotely complete.)

As the memories rush back to us -- they "bum rush our show" -- we recall that, upon Sarrano's Departure for the West, back in 2015, when Shaky was but a freshly-released vinyl LP, not yet legend, we scribes received marching-orders from on high to deliver copies to local Athenian record dens, such as Low Yo Yo Stuff Records, and Wuxtry to boot. We monks complied, being honor-bound by that key third essential vow of the Benedictine order dating back to Monte Cassino itself -- obedience. As pudding in the proof, we share this photo below from Wuxtry, dated December 1st of 2015, to mark and enliven the calendar further, with the true yarns we spin, duck, dodge, bob (for apples), and weave.

As we never tire of highlighting, although we promise not to always take so long to get to this essential point -- this evening's iteration of the Thayer Sarrano Experience is in support of Nicole Atkins, whose Goodnight Rhonda Lee is out everywhere. Get "Hep to the Jive," like Cab Calloway. Put on your Zoot Suit, with its "reet pleats," and its "drape shape." You are now perhaps smooth enough to check out Atkins' latest single "Darkness Falls So Quiet" -- a scribal favorite. But why stop there? Consider also Atkins' collaboration with Tommy Stinson (YES, he of The Replacements), and his group Bash & Pop, on their single "Too Late," out on Fat Possum Records, as debuted in Pitchfork, back in September of this year.

Also performing tonight shall be Lauren Ruth Ward. She is a Los Angeles-based musician, transplanted by way of Baltimore, replete with full backing band. Ward's self-titled debut EP was released in 2016. It was preceded and followed by a handful of singles. From Ward's presser, we read: "Her lyrics are secrets to strangers, writing about her life’s trajectory sharing both vulnerability and strength delivered with grit and vibrato." Check out Ward. Check out Sarrano. Check out Atkins. Three ladies all on point at the Soda Bar in San Diego.  

November 30, 2017 (Thursday) - The saga continues. Thayer Sarrano returns to the tour circuit today, embarking on what we shall dub as The Tour of the West (2017), since this is no mere coastal affair. This is especially evident today as Sarrano lands onstage, smack in the middle of the continent, (or roughly thereabouts), at Antone's, on 305 East 5th Street, in Austin, Texas. As is the case with those soon to follow, this evening's Sarrano show is in support of crooner extraordinaire Nicole Atkins, whose freshly-released record Goodnight Rhonda Lee (2017) continues to gain momentum, both at home in The States, and abroad in Europe. Rolling Stone writes: "Atkins' breadth on the album – both vocally and musically – is astounding…." Tis' true, dear readers. Pick up your copy today.

Also performing tonight at Antone's are Austin-locals, The Midnight Stroll, who released their self-titled debut EP in 2014. This was followed in 2016 by their first full-length LP Heartbreak Bugaloo. Released just this year, Western Static represents the very latest from The Midnight Stroll, all out on Skeleton Farm Records. Many thanks to the Nicole Atkins for inviting Thayer Sarrano out to win the West, all in the name of Goodnight Rhonda Lee.