wampus multimedia releases johnny j blair CD

Wampus Multimedia announces the release of Treadmarks, the new CD from Pennsylvania-based "singer at large" Johnny J Blair. Blair creates pop music hailing from sources as diverse as Motown, Tin Pan Alley and the British Invasion. An adept multi-instrumentalist, he writes adventurous songs that get under the skin while speaking to issues larger than romantic love and loss. His recordings reflect a spectrum of styles and traditions, drawing on influences as disparate as the Beach Boys, Sam Cooke, and the Velvet Underground. Through this virtual clinic of composition and performance rings a note of missionary passion.

Treadmarks distills his influences into a finely cut slice of acoustic pop. With touchstones ranging from the Beatles, Kinks, and Roxy Music to Al Green and James Brown, Treadmarks is mainstream music with a bold edge, accessible pop bent on originality. Building on the success of Fire (2000), Exotic Animals & Beaches of Pennsylvania (2001), Snapshots (2003), and his contribution ("Sunday Morning") to After Hours: a Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed (2003), Blair mines his strongest material, old and new, to create a heady mix of thought and soul that speaks unerringly to the present. Displaying an affection for composers from Stravinsky to Gershwin to Boyce and Hart, he recasts his influences, making them his own.

While Blair's work can evoke Ray Davies, Brian Wilson, or Smokey Robinson, it ultimately is more diverse, and closer in sensibility to the explorations of David Bowie or Elvis Costello. An accomplished arranger and producer (e.g., Davy Jones of the Monkees), he employs a colorful palette on his landscapes, where genres happily co-exist.

Produced at Wampus Sound Studio, Treadmarks is part of the Wampus Multimedia Sessions series, featuring literate singer-songwriters captured in the studio over the course of a single day. The focus falls on the intimacy of performance, evoking the mood of a live show in the context of the studio.

Treadmarks is available at Amazon, CD Baby, Tower Records, iTunes, and other fine stores.

http://cdbaby.com/johnnyjblair

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Zevon Tribute Disc Charts at CD Baby

Hurry Home Early: the Songs of Warren Zevon held the #2 position at CD Baby for six straight days earlier this month. Featuring 13 Zevon classics interpreted by emerging artists from the U.S. and England, Hurry Home Early focuses on Zevon's contribution to literate, modern songcraft, and tracks his 35-year journey as acerbic troubadour and cynical romantic.

Hurry Home Early traces Zevon's career from the late 1960s until his untimely death from mesothelioma, an inoperable lung cancer, in 2003. From Phil Cody's "Splendid Isolation" to Robb Johnson's "Suzie Lightning," the CD tells the story of an artist torn between hopeful and dark impulses, locked in a struggle between heart and mind. From Tom Flannery's "Boom Boom Mancini" to Neil Luckett's "Mutineer," it explores the emotional interior of a composer who has been called the Hunter S. Thompson of audio journalism.

Wampus Multimedia started the Zevon project in 2001, after it released its first tribute CD, If I Were a Richman: a Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman, and was working on its second, After Hours: a Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed.

Hurry Home Early includes a previously unheard Warren Zevon song, "Warm Rain," discovered in Zevon's personal tape collection and interpreted by his son, Jordan Zevon, with singer Simone Stevens.

Contributors include: Phil Cody, who toured with Zevon; Matt Cartsonis (Zevon, Van Dyke Parks, Peter Himmelman), guitar on "Splendid Isolation"; Rami Jaffee (Wallflowers), organ on "Splendid Isolation"; Chris Butler (Waitresses), bass on "Reconsider Me"; Last Train Home, appearing in August on CBS-TV's Late Late Show; Neil Luckett, now working with Nirvana producer Jack Endino; Gary Eaton (founding member, Continental Drifters), guitar on "Mr. Bad Example"; Robbie Rist (L.A. power-pop producer known in a past life as Cousin Oliver of The Brady Bunch); and Jordan Zevon, who just released a new EP.

Hurry Home Early portrays an uncompromising artist making accessible records, a surgically precise and perceptive writer conveying a vision through the lens of Hollywood.

It was mastered by Eamon Loftus at C&C Studios (www.candcstudios.net) in Sterling, Virginia.

Wampus Multimedia is donating one dollar from the sale of each copy of Hurry Home Early to the American Cancer Society.

Track list:

Hurry Home Early is available at Amazon, CD Baby, Tower Records, iTunes, and other fine stores.

http://wampus.com/warren.html

http://cdbaby.com/hurryhome

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Wampus Preps Fall Releases

Alice Despard / Vessel

Armed with a rich voice and open eyes, D.C. indie Alice Despard delivers her most emotionally bare record to date, augmented by the excellent Alice Despard Group -- Philip D'Ambrosio (bass), Evan Pollack (drums), and Bobby Birdsong (lap steel). Release date: September 23.

tvfordogs / Roller

Following 2003's acclaimed Heavy Denver, London's tvfordogs return to crunchy, melodic rock with Roller. Densely layered guitars and soaring vocals guide this sophomore effort, which features Nirvana producer Jack Endino's mix of the title track. Release date: October.

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Your Alternate Universe: Releases from Wampus

http://localmusicstore.com

Prefer downloads to CDs? Wampus titles are now available from Buy.com, iTunes, MusicMatch, and many others!

Johnny J Blair / Treadmarks

Imagine if Raymond Chandler and Sam Cooke were street musicians busking with David Bowie's beat-up 12-string guitar.

Various Artists / Hurry Home Early: the Songs of Warren Zevon

Emerging artists interpret the literate, modern songcraft of the "poet of Gower Avenue."

Arms of Kismet / Cutting Room Rug

Brooding and poppy, funny and foreboding, it's toe-tapping, tragicomic rock 'n' roll.

Casey Abrams / Like a Mirror

Reflecting folk, jazz, and the American songbook, it takes Paul Simon and Don McLean back to their roots.

Cafebar 401

Brimming with darkly sweet pop hooks, it calls to mind Coldplay, Radiohead, and Queens of the Stone Age.

Arms of Kismet / Eponymous

Literate and insidiously catchy, it's postmodern pop for the savvy, ironic streetcrawler.

Various Artists / After Hours: a Tribute to the Music of Lou Reed

Emerging artists tell the story of an artist unencumbered by popular expectations, yet... popular.

Various Artists / If I Were a Richman: a Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman

A wildly entertaining ride through the repertoire of one of rock's most original and eclectic songwriters.

tvfordogs / Heavy Denver

Definitive modern rock from London-based trio.

Kowtow Popof / Kowtow Drops the Pop Off

Powerfully nuanced postmodern rave-ups that set the car radio ablaze. "Preternaturally surrealist post-pop." --Eve Zibart, The Washington Post

Amateur God / Near Life Experience

Dark gothic-semi-vocal-ambient music in the tradition of Mylene Farmer, Art of Noise, and Voivod.

Mitch Renault & Arms of Kismet / Ted's 12: Original Soundtrack

Snappy songs and snippets from the film.

Various Artists / Glass Flesh 2: a Tribute to Robyn Hitchcock

Twenty-one great ways to skin Robyn Hitchcock's cat.

Wampeters / Murder Your Darlings

It's the end of the line... until the line starts again. "A great narrative album. The last great mainstream release that exemplifies this method of development of style and sound is Wilco's Summer Teeth." --Heidi Drockelman, IndieMusic.com

Mark Doyon / Bonneville Stories

Crisp fiction from Arms of Kismet's Mark Doyon that's as dark as optimism gets. "A brilliant collection of beautifully written stories that made me cringe, grimace, and laugh, while sometimes moving me to great pity.... There just aren't any flaws here, and I can't possibly do this book justice in a review. No one could, really...." --Laurie Edwards, CultureDose.net

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1929763093/qid=1034199246/sr=8-7/ref=sr_8_7/102-8551637-2399362?v=glance&n=507846

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Coming in 2005-07

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Wampus Multimedia values you as a supporter of independent music and will never share your contact information with anyone.  Contact us anytime at mail4@wampus.com.