***A three-song EP of 1970s recordings from CHARLIE TWEDDLE. Only 100 pressed. Comes in silk-screened jacket.
12" $25.95
02/26/2016
***Born and raised in Kentucky but calling Northern California home for some time now, CHARLIE TWEDDLE is an outsider polymath: musician, artist, taxidermist, designer of cowboy hats. And while that last one (imagine a wearable ten-gallon peyote trip) brought him a degree of notoriety among a certain swath of the showbiz elite beginning in the early seventies (Cher and Reggie Jackson are fans of his hats), it's his music that has been peaking the curiosity of underground and private press fiends for some years now. On Knee Deep Blues, the third release of the oddball troubadour's work from the Mighty Mouth label, Tweddle presents a more straightforward roots sound, albeit one still stridently unconcerned with any sort of commercial acceptance. Comprising simple, stripped-down blues and country numbers about forlorn, heartbroken loners and the bartenders who love them, the set finds Tweddle slightly askew of rebel songwriters like Townes Van Zandt or Blaze Foley, but still places him firmly within that tradition. While it doesn't have any extended forays into hillbilly musique concrète, a la side two of Fantastic Greatest Hits, Knee Deep Blues is indeed a Charlie Tweddle record, so don't be surprised to hear a croaking frog accompanying a slide riff or a squawking chicken giving Charlie some vocal assistance. To wit, this isn't exactly your daddy's country music, unless of your course your daddy is a milliner with a penchant for hallucinatory taxidermy. For all of his eccentricities, though, Tweddle is at heart a unique and...
LP $17.75
12/04/2015
***Deluxe all-analog reissue of the 1974 private press classic cut direct from the master tapes. Born and raised in Kentucky but calling Northern California home for some time now, CHARLIE TWEDDLE is an outsider polymath: musician, artist, taxidermist, designer of cowboy hats. And while that last one (imagine a wearable ten-gallon peyote trip) brought him a degree of notoriety among a certain swath of the showbiz elite beginning in the early seventies (Cher and Reggie Jackson are fans of his hats), it's his music that has been peaking the curiosity of underground and private press fiends for some years now. A beguiling patchwork of lo-fi country, warped folk, and way-gone found sounds, Tweddle's 1974 self-released opus Fantastic Greatest Hits is back in print for the first time in decades The estimable chronicler of all things underground and way out the late Patrick Lundborg dubbed Fantastic "one of the major pieces in the Fringe of Everything genre." Indeed, the album is clearly the work of a rustic iconoclast following his own hidden path, yet there is something peculiarly inviting at play here as well. The A-side comes off like a lysergic hootenanny that shares as much in common with Mike Rep and first-generation Shrimper tapes on the one hand as it does with Townes Van Zandt and Mickey Newbury on the other; while the B-side is a sort of Americana concrete piece where the gentle beat of the earth takes over, full of crickets and the wind. Cosmic country indeed.
2XLP $31.50
01/20/2015
***CHARLIE TWEDDLE, aka THE MIDNITE PLOWBOY, is an internationally known visual and performing artist currently living in Santa Cruz, CA. Born in Pickneyville, Kentucky, Tweddle sang as he plowed the fields. “I smelled the soil and watched the worms crawl as the earth and the grass came forth. When I sang, I smelled the ground beneath my feet and the sweat from the horses as they pulled the plow. I've changed some. I've got silver in my hair, gold in my teeth and lead in my pants, but I'm not getting old. I've only just reached the metallic age, and now when I sing; I sing with the stars over my shoulder." Recorded in 1977 and unreleased until now, these down-home, full-band recordings are the first in a series of Charlie Tweddle LPs to be released by Might Mouth Music. For fans of Utah Phillips, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and great cowboy poets everywhere.
LP $17.50
05/08/2012