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Jay Farrar will offer up his second solo release, ThirdShiftGrottoSlack, on August 13th. The five-track EP includes a re-working of "Damn Shame," a song from his solo debut -- last year's Sebastopol -- and four other songs from the same sessions.
"I was gonna put them all [on Sebastopol], but it would have been eighteen songs with vocals and three instrumentals," Farrar says. "Through conversations I had with the A&R guy, he convinced me to break it up, and that allowed the EP to come out. It was more songs than I had written before or attempted to record. It was something of a new concept for me."
The EP's unwieldy title was pulled from the logistics of the Sebastopol recording sessions. "Third shift is sort of a reference to the fact that we recorded the songs from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.," he says. "Grotto: It was always dark and the studio was kind of a cave. It was quiet and calm at that hour. And the slack key is the reference to alternate tunings that we used."
Those sessions were Farrar's first without Son Volt, after recording three albums (1995's Trace, 1997's Straightaways and 1998's Wide Swing Tremolo) with the band. Flaming Lips keyboardist Steve Drozd, Bottle Rockets bassist Tom Ray and Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster are among those called in to play on the album.
As for the tweaked "Damn Shame," Farrar tapped the talents of producer Tom Rothrock for the new "Memphis Mix." "We had been in contact before I started recording Sebastopol," Farrar says. "Eventually, his name came up again. I've admired some of the stuff he'd done in the past with R.L. Burnside and Beck. I was kind of looking to take 'Damn Shame' in a different direction."
As for his next project, Farrar, a new father, isn't in a big rush. "I've been writing songs," he says. "I'll probably will think about recording some ideas and have a clearer idea about it over the summer." As for Son Volt, he says there are "no immediate plans" to record with the band, but that, "the types of songs I've been writing kind of point in that direction. Some of it sounds sort of like Son Volt."
Track listing for ThirdShiftGrottoSlack:
Greenwich Time
Damn Shame (Memphis Mix)
Station to Station
Kind of Madness
Dues
ANDREW DANSBY
(May 10, 2002)