press & news
JULY 2022–Jr. James labyrinth guitar T-Shirts available here.
DECEMBER 20, 2014–Yo, Humbug! makes Asheville Holiday Music Top Ten
- Thanks to Alli Marshall for remembering our holiday compilation.
PREVIOUS PRESS:
A-Tone label
- Like the stars of High Fidelity, the proprietors of the Asheville-based A-Tone Music map their lives through their music collections and musical memories. . . A-Tone Music represents [Nancy Alenier’s and Jim Gardner’s] public effort to share quality music that may be off the beaten path, but will nonetheless occupy a treasured place in aficionados’ collections.
Draw Blood
- Things take a pronounced veer early in the set with James’ cover of “Crimson and Clover”; what’s initially a straightforward, garage-pop rendition suddenly morphs, midsong, into “Dublin,” a kind of jamband take on an electric Irish jig (Pogues and Horslips fans, take note), replete with a wah-wah solo and what gets, for my money at least, the award for Best Use Of A Melodica In A Psychedelic Irish Raveup.
Evidence Room
- It’s a lighter look at a serious subject News 13 has been covering for more than a year. The investigation into missing guns, money and drugs in the Asheville Police Department’s evidence room. Local teacher and musician Jr. James takes the drama and turns it to song. It took Jr. James about an hour to write the lyrics but a bit longer to put the words to music and then shoot the video. He calls it a folk song that in the tradition of folk music features a topical event. Jr. says sometimes using humor can draw more attention to serious issues. He used the news stories about the evidence room to help build his own story through song. Jr. was influenced by musicians Gil Scott Heron, Woody Guthrie and The Clash who he says are all so different musically but were all commenting on what was in the headlines.
a-tone music 