Cracker released their tenth studio effort, a double album entitled Berkeley To Bakersfield, on 429 Records yesterday. In addition, the band’s video for the first single, the Triple A radio hit “Waited My Whole Life,” premiered today on the Huffington Post. You can view that here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/the-apocaloptimist-chatti_b_6294870.html
Recorded by Drew Vandenberg, Berkeley to Bakersfield finds this uniquely American band traversing two different sides of the California landscape – the northern Bay area and further down-state in Bakersfield. With founding members David Lowery and Johnny Hickman anchoring the project, they’ve brought in a host of musicians to help out, including putting together the original Cracker lineup for the Berkeley side. Buzz has been building nicely with advance press and premieres in Rolling Stone Country, Popmatters, CMT Edge and Relix. Upcoming press includes features and reviews Mix, Elmore, Blurt, Huffington Post and more. Cracker is currently on tour. For confirmed dates visit: http://www.crackersoul.com.
Despite being less than a five-hour drive from city to city, musically, these two regions couldn’t be further apart from one another. In the late ’70s and ’80s a harder-edged style of rock music emerged from the Bay area, while Bakersfield is renowned for its own iconic twangy country music popularized, most famously, by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard in the ’60s and ’70s. Yet despite these differences, they are both elements that Cracker’s two cofounders, David Lowery and Johnny Hickman, have embraced to some degree on nearly every one of their studio albums over the last two decades.
As Lowery explains, “On the Berkeley disc the band is the original Cracker lineup – Davey Faragher, Michael Urbano, Johnny and myself. This is the first time this lineup has recorded together in almost 20 years. We began recording this album at East Bay Recorders in Berkeley, CA. For this reason we chose to stylistically focus this disc on the music we most associate with the East Bay: Punk and Garage with some funky undertones. To further match our sense of place we often took an overtly political tone in the lyrics.”
Says American Songwriter: “Having too much of the always intriguing David Lowery makes for a better world than not having enough.”
Order the new album at the below retailers.
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/CrackerAMZ
iTunes: http://smarturl.it/CrackeriTunes
Newbury Comics: http://smarturl.it/CrackerNewbury
Best Buy: http://smarturl.it/CrackerBestBuy
For more information visit:
http://www.429records.com
http://www.crackersoul.com
http://www.facebook.com/CrackerSoul
429 Records is a unit of The Savoy Label Group (SLG). SLG is the North American based division of Nippon Columbia the oldest music company in Japan. The Savoy Label Group has evolved into a Grammy Award winning and chart topping independent music company consistently outperforming competitors in key music categories as monitored by Billboard Magazine. The Savoy Label Group is led by Steve Vining and is based in Los Angeles, CA.
