• Blue State Band
    Town & Count
    ry
    Shares Expansive Americana Sound
    A
    t Album Release Party
    M Bar
    in Hollywood
    Thursday, June 28, 2012

    LOS ANGELES, CA – June 6, 2012 – Town & Country, the brainchild of singer/frontman Rob Shapiro and songwriter/producer Brian Woodbury will bring its expansive Americana to the M Bar for an album release show on Thursday, June 28, 2012.  Says Shapiro, “We think country music belongs to the whole of the country, not just one region or one politics.” Woodbury adds, “We’re inspired by the great storytellers of [Nashville’s] Music Row, but we come at it from a more left coast perspective.”  Town and Country’s set will begin at 10:00pm.  They will be joined by the illustrious songwriter (and KPFK “The Music Never Stops” host) Mr. Smolin (9:00pm) and Gwendolyn (11:00pm) and her new-fangled country band, another left-field Americana combo.  M Bar is located at 1253 Vine Street, Hollywood, CA 90038 (323-856-0036; www.mbaronline.com).  Admission is $5.  For more information please visit www.TownandCountryBand.com.

    The first single from Town & Country’s self-titled album takes on the hot-button topic of marriage equality. “Everybody Wants to Say I Do,” which Shapiro and Woodbury wrote together, addresses marriage – gay or straight – from a universal point of view, as in “I will love you for the rest of my life.”

    With one foot in the musical heartland, Town & Country is not afraid to step out onto the musical headlands.  They bring a lot of styles into play but they’re all grounded in pedal steel, fiddle, banjo, mandolin and 4-part choruses. “We like to put that twang into places it doesn’t normally go.”

    From the Toby Keith-style honky tonk of “Get A Room” to “Why Can’t it Be Like it Was?,” a nostalgic lament to the lost promise of the ‘70s, ala They Might Be Giants, the album covers a lot of musical territory.  The Thanksgiving-themed country gospel “Pass It Down” culminates in an authentic mariachi chorus.  The prog-bluegrass instru-mental “Country & Town” becomes a Balkan hoedown.  The jazzy vibes and trom-bones of “Shadows” has a Steely Dan-tinged chorus.  “Smile He Took Away” is a poignant James Taylor-esque tune.  The ZZ Top-esque ode to bourbon, “Bottle of Brown,” playfully disses every other type of liquor as inferior.  And “All the People” is a paean to the people “I never had sex with in college,” has quirky chord changes and time signatures couched in a heavy dose of twang.

    Shapiro, guitarist and baritone crooner, has performed solo or with his band Populuxe in Texas roadhouses and Bora Bora lagoons. He moonlights as the narrator of bestselling audiobooks. Woodbury, bassist, has written Bollywood orchestrations, big band charts, musical theater scores and cartoon theme songs. Their 7-piece band is rounded out with Sid Page (Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder) on fiddle; Andrew Synowiec (Jordin Sparks) on guitars, mandolin & banjo; Peter Freiberger (Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell) on pedal steel; Daniel Alexander (Los Angeles Philharmonic, Little Richard) on keyboards; and Andy Sanesi (Eminem, John Zorn) on drums.

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    For more information, images, or to request an interview, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.


    Town & Country Album Cover

    Posted on June 6th, 2012 lynn-hasty No comments

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