MARTIN DEVANEY

in addition to the sweet show at Eclipse Records this Thursday(5/8) evening, Jake and I are the musical guests on a new tv show called “The Buzz”, I believe. It airs at midnight this Friday (5/9) on your local CW affiliate (a real tv station! not even cable access!) and is sponsored by Cheapo, which is where the performance took place. We play two songs. Thank you.

Eclipse Records returns to live shows!!!
1922 University Ave.
(just east of Prior)
(651) 645-7724

Thursday, May 8th
Martin Devaney Rock Band
w/ Kruddler
and
Ratt Poison
music at 7, all ages welcome

No, this is not a joke.
It’s been several months since we’ve played a show or anyone’s really heard a peep from the Devaney camp over here at Eclectone, so here’s just a little update for everyone. If you’d like to be added to the email list, please email: martin@eclectone.com

Everyone in the band has been busy with various projects, from the older, obvious (Heiruspecs for Sean, Peter, and Josh), to the newer (Supreme Privacy, a jazz trio Sean is in, Brutal Becomings and Bison Forest for Peter, and the Crossing Guards for myself), to the in between: Big Trouble (who have a great new EP with Crescent Moon from Kill the Vultures). Also, we’ve bid farewell to our great friend and band/labelmate JoAnna James, who has spread her wings out to LA. She’ll be missed, to be sure. Replacing her in the band is a welcome familiar face, Jake Hyer, who you may remember from back in the day and his past work: The Get Up Johns and ongoing: Pochantas County.

We’re gonna be pulling this train outta the station in a big way in the next couple months and hope to see you along the way. Some time this summer work will begin on a new record, finally following up “Letters Never Sent.” Expect a great “band” outing this time….and we will be playing plenty of shows, festivals, etc, as well. Tour dates? We’ll see. It might be a while before we’re back out there. But to kick things off, we are gonna play a little midweek “tuneup” show later this month (see below). It was supposed to be opening for Anders Parker, but that got moved, so we’re keeping the date. Come on down, we’ll probably play around 11 and pull out some new tunes to try for you.

thanks, take care, happy spring,
Martin

No, this is not a joke.
It’s been several months since we’ve played a show or anyone’s really heard a peep from the Devaney camp over here at Eclectone, so here’s just a little update for everyone. If you’d like to be added to the email list, please email: martin@eclectone.com

Everyone in the band has been busy with various projects, from the older, obvious (Heiruspecs for Sean, Peter, and Josh), to the newer (Supreme Privacy-a jazz trio Sean is in, Brutal Becomings and Bison Forest for Peter, and the Crossing Guards for myself), to the in between-Big Trouble (who have a great new EP with Crescent Moon from Kill the Vultures). Also, we’ve bid farewell to our great friend and band/labelmate JoAnna James, who has spread her wings out to LA. She’ll be missed, to be sure. Replacing her in the band is a welcome familiar face, Jake Hyer, who you may remember from back in the day and his past work: The Get Up Johns and ongoing: Pochantas County.

We’re gonna be pulling this train outta the station in a big way in the next couple months and hope to see you along the way. Some time this summer work will begin on a new record, finally following up “Letters Never Sent.” Expect a great “band” outing this time….and we will be playing plenty of shows, festivals, etc, as well. Tour dates? We’ll see. It might be a while before we’re back out there. But to kick things off, we are gonna play a little midweek “tuneup” show later this month (see below). It was supposed to be opening for Anders Parker, but that got moved, so we’re keeping the date. Come on down, we’ll probably play around 11 and pull out some new tunes to try for you.

thanks, take care, happy spring,
Martin

Recent interview with Reveille Magazine about the Eclectone 5-year anniversary.

We’re trying to get a new email list going, as the old one was somewhat obsolete and a bunch of it got deleted. If you’d like to be on the list or suspect that your address was erased, please send an email request to martin@eclectone.com. I’ll be trying to update here more often, but you can always check www.myspace.com/martindevaneyband for info, as well.
thanks,
Martin

We are very excited to be a part of the Concrete and Grass Festival (Sept. 6-8) in Lowertown at Mears Park. Sponsored by the Ordway and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the event brings together all kinds of music through three days, ending with a full day and night of music on Saturday, Sept. 8. We play at 5pm that day, below is the whole lineup for that day, starting with the Jug Band at noon. It’s free, all ages, and outside! Hope to see you… More details at concreteandgrass.com

COMO AVENUE JUG BAND, FRONT PORCH SWINGIN’ LIQUOR PIGS,
TOTAL PRAISE GOSPEL CHOIR, STOOK! & THE JUKES, THE ALARMISTS,
MARTIN DEVANEY BAND, ORDWAY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS,
THE JOANNA JAMES BAND, IKE REILLY

Radio K (770AM) is running their annula fundraiser, the Powersurge from Wed. April 11 until Friday, April 20. They are the great college station of the Twin Cities and could really use your help to keep them on air. They’ve always been big supporters on all things Devaney and Eclectone (including sponsoring our Varsity Theater Showcases the last two years!), so I’ll be going on air on Tuesday, April 17th at 3pm to hang out, play tunes, and talk local music. Tune in on your radio or at radiok.org on the interwebs.—Martin

Green Room/Eclectone Showcase- Friday, March 16, 2007’s South By Southwest Festival, Austin, TX
Club One 15, 115 San Jacinto St., Austin, TX
7pm-2am (set times to be announced)
w/
Honeydogs (Minneapolis, MN - Copy Cats Entertainment)
Hopewell (Brooklyn, NY - Tee Pee Records)
Bedroom Walls (Los Angeles, CA - Baria Records)
Ruby Isle (with Dan Geller of I Am The World Trade Center and Mark Mallman/Minneapolis, MN and Athens, GA - Kindercore Records)
The Melismatics (Minneapolis, MN - Sustone Records)
Little Man (Minneapolis, MN - Eclectone Records)
Martin Devaney (St. Paul, MN - Eclectone Records)

music starts at 8!

we’re gonna throw down at the Turf Club! a bunch of people playing including:
Martin Devaney w/ Band
JoAnna James
Roma Di Luna
Suzanne Vallie w/ Mike Gunther
Ben Weaver

Wed. Nov. 22
Turf Club
9pm

Here’s a great new review from our pal Tom Hallett at the Pulse. It begins with a nice piece on Stefan Olson from the Turf, who recently passed away. Also, they are trying to close down music at the 331 club in NE MPLS. Heres a link to their myspace page to find out more. Please support them.

A very sweet piece of writing from Andrea Myers’ (Pulse and howwastheshow.com writer) blog.

From Jack Sparks’ excellent blog at citypages.com:

City fishin’.

What I’ve done in this space in the past few years is roughly the equivalent of catching a 32 inch Northern Pike within 300 yards of major urban interstate. As we loaded the boat back on the trailer at the Long Lake launch at 4pm, we could hear the afternoon 694 rush howling over the “soundproof” wall. A mechanic, recently released from his employer’s grasp, stood on the fishing pier, reeling slowly with his greasy paws, not really angling as much as decompressing.

More often than not, if you’re going to fish, you want to go somewhere rural and wild, and fish big water, maybe at midnight, exposing a middle finger to the Sun God, and yanking Moby Dick himself from the dark water as a testament to your superiority on the world’s food chain:

But that’s banjo picking in a relative sense, with a full jug at the foot of your rocking chair and “a loaded burglar alarm” leaned up against the load-bearing pillar of your front porch.

If your cursed with a city job, you gotta find twang where it hides, growing through the cracks in the sidewalk, in defiance of mainstream pop herbicide.

I like Martin Devaney’s music because I know all of the honesty and earnestness behind it. He’s a man so driven to make music that if he saw a roach banging on a pop can with a matchstick, howling at a half eaten crust of garlic bread, he’d set up an eight track board and tell the roach one more time, with a little more feeling. Someday, all the suits will die and Pepperland will be free again,* but until that day comes, there are outfits like Eclectone Records, where folks who want to make music out of self defense can do so. I’m through “arguing” about the future of Americana, Alt-Twang-Pop, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. The thing is, people get out of bed every morning in every city in this country and put pick to acoustic guitar, pedal to steel, and foot to ass, and it comes out slightly hillbilly lost in the red brick jungle, moaning about unique shit that doesn’t always involve senoritas, margaritas and fucking angels.

Two (2) songs on Letters Never Sent do wonders for my little hipster doofus heart: “An Open Letter (song 2)” and “Drought (song 3).”

I got blood in my eyes
and there’s chaos on the wall
and the spider now has 9 legs
when I see him crawl
and the little sun is settin’
on the streets of old St. Paul
and I don’t know how I fell this far

Queue the fucking saxophones. Sean Hoffman’s driving beat is the “Folsom Prison” train, moved to town, screeching to a halt every 3 minutes to pick up 15 more zombies on their way to the next shit hole in their lives. This is songwriting boys and girls, and it’s what separates Minneapolis from Omaha, Nebraska, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Megargle, Texas.

well she was a cast iron beauty too
so sturdy and true
and she had come along always
spun a dime store fable
a touch beneath the table
burned out and becoming amazed

and when the kiss was over
the more i missed her shoulder
the more the flame fled from red to blue
and when the drought came down
i guess i always knew

Queue the foot tapping. This is city fishing. This is jerking a wild animal out of the asphalt and taking a photo to juxtapose the feral and the urban. You gotta dig it when somebody knows how to put pen to paper, wheat to sidewalk, BobCat to metaphorical dirt pile of self pity.

My pet song on the record is “Blessing and the Blame (song ,” but only because I’m a sucker for ghostly steel guitar and growling about chicks.

*—quoting Jimmy Thudpucker from a Doonesbury strip

(Author’s note: all fish in this story were photographed and returned to the water to eat smaller fish and fuck and make more fish)

The new album is in stores in the Twin Cities now and at our brand new eclectone.com! Soon it will be at iTunes, emusic, Napster and other such sites. Read below for the latest thoughts on the new record.

“Devaney’s ‘Letter’ day

It’s amazing that Eclectone Records founder Martin Devaney—one of the hardest-shilling guys in local show business—even found time to make his own new album, “Letters Never Sent,” which he’s promoting Saturday at the Turf Club. All the more impressive is that “Letters” boasts the kind of poetry that most of us would be lucky to produce just once in our lives.

Over a basic Americana soundtrack (a little piano, a bit o’ violin, loose guitar parts), Devaney offers a less-than-basic view on a musicians’ lifestyle. Things like “living for a ringing phone or a printed page,” as he puts it in “Five Day Affair.”An Open Letter” finds him “clenched up like a fist.” And in the tender downer “Almost Alone,” he sings to an either unforgiving or unrequited love, “All I’ve got to give are these hand-me-down dreams, pillow pardons and matchbook poems.” The guy’s truly on fire here. ”
—Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune

“The starting point for Martin Devaney is always Bob Dylan. Not only does he look more than a little like the young Bard of Hibbing, but Devaney’s first album of folk-rock songs was clearly inspired by Dylan. Nowadays, listening to the St. Paul native’s fourth solo album, Letters Never Sent, I hear Devaney’s boyish vocals, charming hooks, and appreciation of the opposite sex and am reminded of a different Traveling Wilbury: Tom Petty. Devaney celebrates the album’s release on his own Eclectone label with Mike Gunther & His Restless Souls and Big Trouble.”
—Paul Demko, City Pages

“One would be hard pressed to find a harder working and nicer guy in the TC music scene then Mr. Devaney. Modest to a fault, Devaney’s wry warm alt.country songs are equally effective whether he’s taking an electric rock ’n’ roll approach (as on 2004’s La Mancha) or stripping it all back down to his acoustic essentials (the dominant mode taken on his just-released album, Letters Never Sent). The spare sound doesn’t lack for local scene star power, however, as the always lovely windpipes of JoAnna James grace several tracks, as does the violin work of Jake Hyer from the Get Up Johns. This gig celebrating Letters Never Sent’s release is sure to be memorable as Devaney’s rounded up a particularly slick set of players for the occasion, including his longtime guitarist Josh Peterson and the always dynamic rhythm section of drummer Peter Leggett and bassist Sean McPherson (known for their work in live hip-hop outfit Heiruspecs).”
—Pulse of the Twin Cities

“St. Paul singer/songwriter Martin Devaney has spent much of the year concentrating on his ever-growing label Eclectone and establishing it as a homegrown, heartfelt brand with numerous label showcases. But he also managed to find time to record his own fourth album, “Letters Never Sent.” It’s his strongest release to date and, despite a roster of special guests (including JoAnna James and Heiruspecs’ rhythm section), his keen, observational songs remain the true selling point.”
—Ross Raihala, St. Paul Pioneer Press

There is a new Eclectone website, as mentioned before and there’ll be a new one here sometime soon. And you can always go to the myspace page, as well.

hope to see you soon and thanks,
Martin

1. Flowers on the Doorstep
2. An Open Letter
3. Drought
4. Almost Alone
5. Five Day Affair
6. On Learning to Love
7. One For the Road
8. Blessing and the Blame
9. Soundtrack to Our Success
10. Aftermath

more news soon, I hope.

here are the ways to contact Martin concerning booking, press, and Eclectone Records.

martin@eclectone.com

you can join the email list for info on shows releases and the latest public embarrassments at martin@eclectone.com

Martin

It was a lot of fun hitting the stage w/ the Big Trouble boys, most of whom I’ve been playing with for my shows lately, this past Tuesday (1/28). Running through the likes of Michael Jackson, Prince, and Guided by Voices, among others has given me a lot to think about concerning what we bring to the stage….
below is a nice mention from the Star Tribune’s Chris Riemenschneider:

Big Trouble in Dinkytown

Sean McPherson and other members of the Heiruspecs/Ela/Jessy Greene society are performing every other Tuesday at the Kitty Cat Klub as Big Trouble. The shows include music trivia and a guest singer of covers, then the guys get serious with a couple sets of instrumental music.

As much as I enjoyed seeing Martin Devaney do flying leg-kicks to choice covers by Guided by Voices and Prince this week, Big Trouble didn’t make a big impression until the instrumentals. With a clever take on the Zombies’ “Time of the Season” and original jams that are part “Maggot Brain”-style P-Funk, part Sonic Youth, these guys should amount to more than a fun Tuesday. Next gig: March 14.

Hey everyone,
we really hope you can make it down to the Varsity Theater this Saturday, January 28th for the Showcase. It’s the beginning of a new Eclectone Records and the beginning of (and product of) a lot of hard work. It’s an 18+ show(!) and doors are around 8. The lineup is as follows: John Ewing, Mark Stockert, Bob McCreedy, Martin Devaney, Big Ditch Road, and Dan Israel, with a short set from Mike Nicolai and a special guest spot from JoAnna James. All of the bands would love the support as we dive head on into this new year. Anyway, long story longer….we’ll be giving out sampler CDs to the first 200 people or so-unreleased tracks from a few of the artists-and the new Eclectone t-shirts will be available. Hope to see you there.

Hey.
I recently did an interview and performance at MinneapolisCast which you can listen to HERE. Dan Israel did this last month. There are a few shows coming up, most notably the Eclectone Records showcase, which you can read about below. Also, in March I’ll be on the road again for a couple weeks with Charlie Parr and Big Ditch Road for the first of which we hope will be many Eclectone tours. Glad to have 2005 behind me, even though this year has begun with a nasty flu that keeps me at this confounded computer. Gonna try to post more (interesting things) soon. Also there’ll be a new Eclectone site very soon.

Be good. Listen to the Band. Eat soup.

Martin

Eclectone Records Announces First Label Showcase Event at the Varsity Theater

Minneapolis, MN, January 5rd, 2006

On Saturday, January 28th, Eclectone Records will celebrate an official re-launch of the label with the first of a series of showcase events at the Varsity Theater. With recent developments behind the scenes at Eclectone, the label has taken steps to establish the company as a greater resource for inspiring music. “The angle is simple,” says Martin Devaney who founded Eclectone Records in 2002. “We like good songs and good songwriters and we want to do what we can to highlight such artists.”

The show at the Varsity will be the first of many label showcases which will occur every few months. While timed to help celebrate the CD release of Eclectone’s newest artist John Ewing, the evening will also include performances from Big Ditch Road, Dan Israel and the Cultivators, Bob McCreedy, Mark Stockert, John Ewing, and Martin Devaney.

“We want to help keep the Twin Cities on the map,” continues Devaney. “There is such a strong independent music community here with amazing labels celebrating hip-hop, rock, pop, and other forms of music. We’re continuing on that tradition to further celebrate what Twin Cities artists and songwriters can offer.” “There’s a lot of momentum in town right now,” agrees Scott LeGere, a recent partner at Eclectone, “and we just want to put the spotlight on what these amazing musicians are doing. This show at the Varsity on the 28th is a great opportunity to do just that while also giving the fans something special with a new limited edition Eclectone Sampler that will be free for the first 200 guests.”

“Unfortunately, the only person who can’t participate is Charlie Parr because he’s touring,” laments Devaney.

Doors at the Varsity Theater will open at 8pm, and music will begin at 9pm. The first 200 attendees will receive the first of a new series of Eclectone Samplers including new and unreleased music from every artist on the label. This will also be the first chance to purchase Eclectone T-shirts.

Eclectone Records is celebrating a label showcase Saturday, January 28th, at the Varsity Theater.

Eclectone Records was founded by Martin Devaney in December of 2002, with the release of his album, “September”. Since that time the label have released 10 additional records and will further expand the roster in 2006.

Just got off the road with Mike Gunther and his Restless Souls….thanks to everyone who made it a great week of touring, including: anyone who fed us or gave us drinks, let us crach with them, bought cds, flirted with me, Cooper the Sheep Dog, that Guatemalan Restaurant that raised the price of the breakfast special after I ordered it, the guy who sold me the harmonica, the crazy book lady at St. Vincent du Paul’s, and bad radio everywhere.

On Tuesday, Sept. 20th I’ll be playing (joined by Brian O’Neil on pedal steel and Jake Hyer on mandolin and fiddle) at the Turf Club with a great band called I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House. They are from Portland and are quite excellent. One of those balls to the wall all out performers type of band. We played with them in Des Moines. Great. Also, barring something strange, it’ll be my last local show of the fall-recording and touring will be taking up time-and we’ll be doing all new stuff…hope to see you there!

Martin

p.s. here’s a fun picture from the recent MN does MN show last month.

Hey folks, just some news on Eclectone stuff—
the entire roster, including Martin’s out of print record, “September,” is now available on the following download sites through RedEye Distribution:

Itunes, and iTunes international

Napster and Napster international

MusicMatch

Real/Rhapsody

MusicNet (AOL, Virgin, FYE, CDigix)

MusicNow (Circuit City)

MSN

Sony Connect

Loudeye (ATT Wireless, OD2, Starbucks)

Audio Lunchbox

Emusic

Netmusic

Puretracks (Canada)

Downloadpunk

-Both “La Mancha” and the currnetly out of print “September” (as well as all of Eclectone) are now available on the following music download sites through RedEye distribution:

Itunes, and iTunes international
Napster and Napster international
MusicMatch
Real/Rhapsody
MusicNet (AOL, Virgin, FYE, CDigix)
MusicNow (Circuit City)
MSN
Sony Connect
Loudeye (ATT Wireless, OD2, Starbucks)
Audio Lunchbox
Emusic
Netmusic
Puretracks (Canada)
Downloadpunk

-Come see me with Portland friends I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House at the Turf Club on Sept. 20. Rock.

to everyone who’s been out to the shows lately. We don’t have a link up to join the email list here, so if you’re interested, just send your email address to list@martindevaney.com and to reach me, it’s martin@martindevaney.com.
See you around.

As of last week, the Minnesota Twins radio broadcasts have been using music from Dan Israel, Martin Devaney and Missing Numbers for bumper music (when they go to commcercial breaks) on WCCO AM 830! They join other locals such as the Replacements and the Olympic Hopefuls on the air this summer.

In addition to the BLB show this Saturday, I’ll be playing at the Nomad on Sunday with Dan Israel and Yep Roc recording artist Ian Moore. The appearance scheduled for the Current this past Sunday was understandably replaced with a very nice tribute to Soul Asylum’s Karl Mueller. It will air at some point. You can contribute to Karl’s memorial fund here:

The Karl Mueller Memorial Fund
c/o Smith Barney
345 St. Peter Street
1800 Landmark Towers
St. Paul MN 55102-1637

Also, you can read a review of a recent daytime show at Peavey Plaza at How Was The Show.

Duluth, MN—slept in the car following a fun night at Pizza Luce. Kevin on snare, me on acoustic, nine people in crowd….roughly. Nice of our old pals Jamie Ness and Slug to stop by. Then on to P.J. McPaddywhacks or something….then the car….blown tire on 35E the next morning…the horizon is getting blurry…

Also, thanks to all the people who stopped dow at Mayslack’s over the Memorial Day weekend. It was truly great to share a stage with Spider John Koerner, Tony Glover, and Willie Murphy.

The BLB show coming up should be a great night. Aside from being a rare all ages show, Bill from Ela will open the show solo, later accompanied by a cellist. I’ll be trying out a bunch of new material for the upcoming recording. There may be an additional promotion for this show, but I’ll wait until I know…

I’ll be on 89.3FM The Current on Sunday, June 19 from 5 to 6pm with Chris Roberts. Jake will be in there on mandolin and fiddle.

Finally, concerning the comments section on these posts, please don’t post spam about online poker or penis enlargements or drug perscriptions or any other dumb shit. We’re just going to delete it and we’re taking steps to block it.

There are some new pictures from a recent surprise Turf Club show here.

There’ll be more info soon on the digital deal through Red Eye Distribution.

Look for a great review in the recent issues of Amplifier Magazine and Punk Planet. And here’s a recent review of La Mancha from Americana UK:

Twin Cities Alt-Pop/Rock with a rootsy edge. Part of the same scene that spawned Dan Israel and The Ashtray Hearts, though less folky than the former and less gothic than the latter, Martin Devaney and his impressively drunk looking pseudo-loser bandmates turn out to make determinedly melodic and upbeat alt pop. Their melodies insist on imposing themselves as much as their (regularly) broken hearts, yet some of the time, you might be forgiven for thinking that some of what’s going on is impeded by a tongue planted in a cheek. So- energetic, ironic, emotional and slightly irreverent, then- just what the old quack ordered, and the boy Devaney emotes “never crossed the city-line”-isms like a good ‘un. It’s hard to get this style right without sounding workman-like: even Uncle Tupelo managed that occasionally on “Still Feel Gone”, yet the Devaney sound is loose enough, and hints at late 60’s RnB enough to make you want to dance when you’re not despairingly staring into your pint. The album begins with “Is That You?”, a bouncing Tillbrook / Jam-esque tune, both wistful and a bit dumb, as though it might forget what it’s up to or change it’s way half way through; yet something that catches in Martin’s voice makes you think of Westerberg, or of Mould singing “Keep Hanging On”; it’s a strange feeling in a deceptively light song. “Theme For An Anonymous Waitress” is pretty mellow but involving, possibly edging towards Lloyd Cole territory with a twist of Scud Mountain Boys and The Cars; “Empty Moon”, though, is more rock n soul, a bit Ryan Adams and a bit Robyn Hitchcock. “La Mancha” won’t immediately make an impression on you, or ever be your favourite record, but it’s catchy, has a heart and deserves a wide audience.