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Bloodkin & Friends with special guest Joshua James
Friday Nov 6, 2009 8:30 PM
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Tickets on sale now! **It's football Friday in Athens, so parking at the hotel will be extremely limited. Special event parking is available in the city lots on Dougherty and Jackson streets.** Doors open at 6:00 p.m. for dinner and drinks.
Joshua James | 8:30 PM
 Joshua James has been writing and singing songs for only five short years, but the 25-year-old heartland poet has the perspective of a wise, old soul.
On his second album, Build Me This, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed The Sun is Always Brighter, produced by industry veteran Shannon Edgar, James expands his musical palette to foreboding doom-laden hard rock. Progressing from folkish harmonies, to country twang, world beats and southern home rock while further exploring themes of spiritual searching.
Possessing a whispery and intimate vocal style that works its way into the ear peacefully and directly, Joshua James is pitched midway between seminal influences like Bob Dylan and Neil Young.
“I find solace and beauty in darkness and depression,” admits James, who grew up in his native Lincoln, Nebraska, skateboarding and sneaking listens to music his parents banned, like classic rockers Jim Morrison and The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, “But there are contrasts to everything. You have to combine the sweet and salty, the ugly and beautiful. Music is very therapeutic for me. It’s all about making a connection with humanity, with the audience, in ways that I normally wouldn’t be able to.”
Over the past three years, James has been doing just that. His debut was the #1 Folk Album on iTunes, and “FM Radio,” a song about a childhood friend coping with the death of his father, amassed more than 150,000 downloads as part of an iTunes promotion. In addition to performances at Sundance, SXSW and CMJ, James has toured with John Mayer and David Gray, winning legions of fans along the way. His new album, Build Me This, has already attracted major-label interest.
“I feel strongly about the things I sing about,” nods Joshua. “I want people to know how I feel, which sounds kind of dumb, because who cares how I feel? If someone feels similarly, though, that’s what I’m looking for. That’s the most important thing. If you can relate to what I’m going through, then I’ve achieved my goal.”
The album title, Build Me This, refers to his dream of salvation. “It’s my way of asking God to show himself,” declares James. “To prove he exists. Do something. Give me a sign. It’s a call to whatever or whoever is out there. I don’t want him to strike me down or paralyze me, just give me something to believe.”
Aside from the spiritual, Build Me This is also about the difficulties of everyday relationships, the inadvertent hurt we cause to those we love. “Magazine” deals with the pain of separation (“Go take your bags to New York City, call me when your plane arrives/I’ll feed the children, wash the dishes, I’ll keep the house lookin’ nice/Well don’t you worry, everything’s gonna be all right.”), while “In the Middle” envisions a posthumous conversation with a loved one from the other side (“You’ve tried so hard to forget me/You burnt the letters I’d made/Though my memory has been dyin’/I hope the feeling still remains”).
On the stage, though, is where Joshua James’ music comes alive and reveals its true intent, which is about drawing people into his insular universe, a sense of mystic that only the truly great ones can communicate.
“Perhaps the darkness comes out a little more often that I’d like,” he offers “but that’s just where I gravitate to when I’m writing. I don’t usually try to tackle specific subjects; it’s usually about what I’m feeling at the time. Things start to come out, then they form a story and a reason, and that’s how things evolve. I’m influenced by everything… by life, by love, by hate, by music.”
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Bloodkin | 9:30 PM
 Bloodkin’s 23-year history has been a roller coaster of trials and tribulations. There have been lots of hard knocks, real tragedy to endure, and a very uphill battle to keep their creative relationship intact. But through it all, their music remains a genuine article of Southern Gothic narrative wrapped in the cloak of powerful and raw guitar-driven rock & roll music. The band has just released its 8th album (Baby, They Told Us We Would Rise Again) and has further established its place as an undeniably important part of the contemporary Southern musical landscape.
This collection of songs, produced by David Barbe (Bettye LaVette, Drive-By Truckers, Son Volt, Sugar), is a stripped down rock & roll record that harkens back to the days where songs were recorded in a single take and relied on the raw energy of 6 guys playing together in a room.
As the heartbeat of the band, Daniel Hutchens and Eric Carter have been making music together since they were children. The relationship began during elementary school in their hometown of Ripley, West Virginia. In this rural mountain environment, their creative collaboration started with countless hours spent listening to The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan and their parent’s Johnny Cash records. Music became an obsession that formed their high school years and ultimately landed them in Athens where the collaboration assumed the name Bloodkin.
While the band has enjoyed only limited commercial success, they have always found respect among other artists. From their early days in West Virginia where poet Allan Ginsberg invited them to be his “backing band” during a spoken word event to recording and performing with Moe Tucker (of Velvet Underground fame), Bloodkin has collaborated with a long and impressive list of performers, writers, and producers.
The most productive of these relationships exists with the touring juggernaut of Widespread Panic. Their legion of fans has come to know the band’s work through the list of Bloodkin covers that regularly find their way onto the WSP setlists.
Bloodkin will be hitting the never-ending road with band members Eric Martinez, David Nickel, Aaron Phillips, and William Tonks to support the new album.
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