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November 30, 2004: We're back in our own beds again after many days on the road. Thanks to everyone who made the tour a rousing good time for all of us. Stay tuned for news about a new EP, hints at a new full-length, and more shows in the near future. Or hop over to the message board and say hello. September 30, 2004: Read below the new confirmed TOUR DATES for the Shearwater US tour in October/November. During the first stretch of the tour we'll be accompanying our soon-to-be-best-friends Decibully; the last bit will find us working on our own. Other dates may be added or shifted, and we'll try to update it as we can, but be sure to check the Misra site (www.misrarecords.com) and its tour dates page for the best available information. Oct. 1 Austin TX Emo's w/ Mt. Eerie (Microphones), Sound Team, Julie Doiron Oct. 19 Oklahoma City OK Conservatory September 25, 2004: Hello, friends, after a long silence. We've been plenty busy since the beginning of the year and Winged Life's release, and we're looking forward to the future. Many of you saw us during the touring this spring with and without Okkervil River, after which Jonathan took a break to catch hawks in the Galapagos and Thor went back to building indestructible furniture. Look for new fall tourdates and news about a new EP soon. January 11, 2004: Happy new year to all. We're pleased to announce to everybody that March 2004 brings with it the release of our third record, Winged Life (on Misra in the US and Fargo in Europe). We're really happy with this record, it's the longest one we've done to date and marks a little bit of a stylistic departure from our last two. We recorded it at Denton, TX's wondrous Echo Lab studio with Matt Pence of Centro-matic at the board, and it features performances by Centro's Scott Danbom and regular co-conspirator Travis weller of Cinders and the Imbroglio Quartet as well as the stylings of soon-to-be-new-member Howard Draper (of Little Grizzly). We'll be touring in support of it this spring with Okkervil River among others - keep an eye peeled for tourdates and more album info soon. August 10, 2003: We're happy to be part of the Preserve compilation, to which we've contributed an exclusive track entitled Remember the Tiger. The Decemberists, M Ward, the Jim Yoshii Pile-Up, and Denison Witmer among others also contributed. You can pre-order the CD here and find out more information about the Carnivore Preservation Trust here. April 28, 2003: Cedarland, the new record by Palaxy Tracks, is IN STORES NOW! We've carried our advance copies with us everywhere (tucked into the side pockets of our "Members Only" jackets) for months now, eagerly looking forward to the official release date of this wondrous pop gem and now it's finally upon us all. So let's all go check it out at the Peek-A-Boo records website: www.peekaboorecords.com. Featuring guest performances by Will on Piano and Jonathan on Absolutely Every Instrument He Could Get His Hands On. |
October 1, 2002:
We're pleased to announce that Everybody Makes Mistakes, the second Shearwater album, is currently available in stores across this great nation.
The Chronicle's Raoul Hernandez:
"There are few better places than Stubb's inside tavern to seek shelter from winter's frost, and even fewer double bills to absorb the chill. Though not likely to see the gray light of day in the immediate future, Jeff Klein's sophomore effort for fruitful local indie India Records, Everybody Loves a Winner, follows up his accomplished debut You'll Never Get to Heaven if You Break My Heart with more sober wordplay. Produced by a songwriter who inhabits such territory with bitter grit, Matthew Ryan, Winner hunkers down like Jeff Tweedy at his darkest and Jon Dee Graham at his raspiest. Will Sheff and Shearwater should be well up to the somber task of more dead-eyed truths. Recommended
July 6, 2001:
The Austin Chronicle's Raoul Hernandez sez:
"Long tall Canadians Dallas and Travis Good know how to wield them guitars. Whether it's a stinging surf squall or a Sergio Leone shootout, the Sadies' slinger siblings are on alt.twang indie Bloodshot Records for good reason: raunch & roll is in their blood. That's an apt description of the their third LP for the label, Tremendous Efforts, which follows the previous two in its saloon approach to great Americana. With the tumbleweed sounds of locals Li'l Cap'n Travis and folk pessimism of Shearwater, this bill's posted as 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" Recommended.
June 8, 2001:
The Austin Chronicle's Michael Chamy sez:
"Even as Okkervil River readies their first national release on Indiana's Jagjaguwar label, frontman Will Sheff has been cultivating a second band, Shearwater, whose excellent debut The Dissolving Room is out on Palaxy Tracks' Grey Flat label. Sheff and co-singer Jonathan Meiburg's vivid tales of innocence and Americana get the royal treatment at the Ritz on this evening, as local improvisatory chamber trio Cinders flesh out Shearwater's spare acoustic grace after an extemporaneous set of their own." Recommended.
June 1, 2001:
We are working on our new record. Read about it here.
July 1:
New Grey Flat Records site up: www.greyflat.com.
April 10, 2001:
Check out the web-exclusive mp3 from a Shearwater radio performance. On the sounds page.
March 27, 2001:
Lotsa new reviews on the press page.
February 20, 2001:
The Dissolving Room is out now in stores everywhere. Proceed to your local independent music store and buy/demand it. Or, if you don't want to leave the chair from which you read this, buy it online at cd.now, amazon.com, or especially the fantastic insound.com.
What’s that you say? They don’t have it at your neighborhood CD store? Tell the clerk to order it from any of the following distributors: Revolver, Surefire, Carrot Top, Darla, Southern, Nail, AEC One-stop, SW Wholesale, Choke, Scratch, Sonic Unyon, FAB or directly from Secretly Canadian. If they still claim they can’t order it, they’re lying: choke, scratch, and nail them, or shoot them in the carrot top with a surefire revolver. Figuratively speaking, of course.
Austin fans: On October 10 at the Mercury, Shearwater will be giving Everybody Makes Mistakes the full release-party shove-off, accompanied by Centro-matic’s Will Johnson, Lowery 66, and Cinders (who will also be joining Shearwater onstage during their set). Come on down to what promises to be a lovely evening. The next day Shearwater will be playing an instore for Everybody Makes Mistakes at 33 Degrees. Hope to see you there.
August 17, 2002:We're back in Texas again, after Jonathan and Kim's trip to England and Will's jaunt around the country, and getting ready for the national release of album two, Everybody Makes Mistakes, due out on October 1st in the US.
In other news:
Jonathan reports that his work on the striated caracara is going well, and he hopes to publish some articles in scientific journals this year. Kim is gearing up to start her first semester in graduate school as a playwright. Will has opened up a Kia dealership in Pomona, CA, and in his spare time enjoys lawn darts, philately, and trying to memorize the precise contours of various stains on bar tabletops so that he can recall them in photographic detail years later and halfway across the country, perhaps once the original bars in which they were located have long since been driven out of business by highly competitive super-franchised chain retailers. He frequently wonders what he looks like when so involved in some activity – say, a sale of a new Kia Sports Utility Vehicle, or the preparation and anticipation of a new meal from recipe – that he loses all self-consciousness, and suspects that at those times his mouth hangs open slackly and his eyes stare, absorbed, at some unspecified point in the far distance.
May 11, 2002:BIG news: Shearwater's Everybody Makes Mistakes has found a new home. Misra - the label of, among others, the Mendoza Line, Destroyer, Jenny Toomey, the Summer Hymns, Bablicon, the Marshmallow Coast, the Bruces - will be releasing our eminently sophomoric LP early this fall. Look for it in stores, and for us in your town, in the not-so-distant future.
Shearwater's rendition of Geeshie Wiley's "Last Kind Word Blues" is included on the upcoming "Local Live" CD for Austin's 91.7 KVRX. Other acts on the CD include The Sea and Cake, The New Year, Death Cab for Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Centro-matic, Uz Jsme Doma, Town and Country, and Calla.
As an aside: those of you who are fans of Jonathan's ornithological pursuits (hello, mom and dad) can catch him in action at this year's spring meeting of the Louisiana Ornithological Society here, where he is the featured speaker, on April 28th. He'll be presenting his famed lecture "Looking for Johnny Rook: Unraveling the Biogeographical Mystery of the Striated Caracara in the Falkland Islands".
Read Michael Chamy's Austin Chronicle review of Grey Flat's SXSW day party below:
Mercury Hall, Friday 15: For one afternoon, this small, historic chapel off South First was the most special place in the world. Rows of faces were lined up in folding chairs, absolutely enthralled by a middle-aged man with a guitar confessing his sins, lamenting his regrets, and trying his best to make sense of the very mixed-up stew of religion and reality. The man was Nashville's Tom House, whose slightly quirky folk style transcends his hometown and draws on the spirit of a more rustic, forgotten time of hard floors and hard living. "Jesus didn't die for faggots like you," sang House, telling a gay-bashing tale from the perspective of a guilty bystander who did nothing because, "I sure didn't want them thinking nothing crazy about me." His emotionally charged tales resonated throughout the rustic hall, wafting through the open doors and into the inviting spring air, serenading the folks who trickled in late to this poignant scene. The cheers were loud, and the claps came from the heart, as this late-blooming songwriter made converts out of the twenty- and thirtysomethings who came to see the ostensibly indie rock sounds of Centro-matic and Palaxy Tracks. Centro-matic's ever-busy Will Johnson played it mellow early that morning to an appreciative throng of coffee-drinkers, but even by the time Palaxy Tracks came on around 2pm, folks were still nursing hangovers and munching on the pastries from La Mexicana, courtesy of sponsor Grey Flat Records. Palaxy Tracks, prodigal Austinites on their first trip back home after leaving for Chicago one year ago, played a loose, delicate, slide-guitar-heavy set that emphasized the pure songwriting and deep, distinctive voice of frontman Brandon Durham. Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg joined them on wurlitzer for the last song, "The Awful Truth," shedding light on Palaxy Tracks' unlikely beginnings as a trad country cover band. Then Austin's Shearwater took the stage, backed by the local strings-and-piano chamber trio Cinders. Frontmen Meiburg and Will Sheff (both also of Okkervil River) played fleshed-out favorites off of 2001's The Dissolving Room, and even a cover of a Tom House song. They then yielded to Cinders, whose rich, emotive blend veered from sublime to cacophonous, adventurous and old-world at the same time. It was another timeless moment on a truly special afternoon that will remain a part of everybody who was lucky enough to be there.Pictures of this party, by the way, can be found at http://www.palaxytracks.com.
March 18, 2002:
Thanks all who came to see us or to play with us at SXSW, especially Tom House, who was amazing during the Grey Flat Records party at Mercury Hall, but also Matt Pond, Will Johnson of Centro-matic, Nad Navillus, Denison Witmer, and Cinders. A very special thanks to those who endured our showcase at the Hickory Street Bar and Grille, which was marred by some of the worst sound ever. No, seriously, ever. To you we are grateful.
February 27, 2002:
Shearwater will be playing twice at SXSW this year: our showcase will be Friday, March 15 at the Hickory Street Bar and Grille, at 10:00 P.M., but we'll also be playing a much more fun party at Mercury Hall in South Austin (on the corner of S. 1st and Cardinal) on Friday afternoon, with guests including Matt Pond PA, Centro-Matic, Nad Navillus, Palaxy Tracks, Shearwater with Cinders chamber trio, Denison Witmer, and more TBA.
January 22, 2002:
Check out Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See, the new Jagjaguwar release by Will and Jonathan's other band Okkervil River.
Shearwater was #2 on the Austin Chronicle's end-of-the-year list of Best "Locals You Probably Didn't Hear" (a dubious honor, that). Chronicle critic Michael Chamy also called us "Best New Local Act" and placed us at #5 on his Texas Top Ten. Below, read a recommendation of our Saturday show with Jeff Klein.
