Category: news

Will’s first solo record in 8 years is available now! You can get it at your local record store or on-line.

Direct from Undertow
Download $6 // CD $9 // Vinyl $14

Amazon
CD // Vinyl // MP3

iTunes
USA // Canada // UK // Germany // Japan

* Scorpion is available worldwide on iTunes. Search for “Will Johnson Scorpion” in your country.

For this project, Johnson has decided to cut out the middleman and self-release the album direct to fans via Undertow Music Collective/Thirty Tigers. Scorpion was recorded in the wooded outskirts of Denton, Texas, at the studio of longtime bandmate, producer and engineer Matt Pence.  Also lending their skills to Scorpion are multi-instrumentalists Scott Danbom (Centro-matic, South San Gabriel, Sarah Jaffe), Howard Draper (Tre Orsi, Shearwater, Okkervil River) and Magnolia Electric Company’s Mikey Kapinus.

Unlike Centro-matic’s Candidate Waltz or Johnson’s last solo album Vultures Await (both of which were written well in advance and recorded using carefully conceived arrangements), Scorpion documents the genesis and germination of its songs. “A lot of them,” Johnson says, “Were written in the studio, right then and there, in the moment. I enjoy capturing those initial gut reactions in songwriting. It doesn’t always work, but when it does—you capture the song in such a raw, unique form.”

Johnson is hitting the road this fall in support of Scorpion, with his friend and New Multitudes collaborator, Anders Parker, playing a mix of traditional club shows and intimate acoustic living-room sets.

Tickets for Living Room Shows on sale now!

BUY LIVING ROOM TICKETS HERE

Tickets for venue shows are available from the venue websites.

THU Sept 13 – Mobile, AL @ IMC / Satori Coffee House
FRI Sept 14 – Waverly, AL @ Living Room Show
SAT Sept 15 – Birmingham, AL @ Living Room Show
SUN Sept 16 – Atlanta, GA @ Living Room Show – SOLD OUT
MON Sept 17 – Athens, GA @ Living Room Show
TUE Sept 18 - Saxapahaw, NC  @  Haw River Ballroom
WED Sept 19 – Baltimore, MD @ Living Room Show – SOLD OUT
FRI Sept 21 – Philadelphia @ Living Room Show
SAT Sept 22 - Rosendale, NY @ Market Market Cafe
SUN Sept 23 – NYC @ Mercury Lounge
MON Sept 24 – Boston, MA @ Living Room Show – SOLD OUT
TUE Sept 25 – Montpelier VT @ Living Room Show
WED Sept 26 – Buffalo, NY @ Living Room Show
THU Sept 27 – Cleveland, OH @ Living Room Show
FRI Sept 28 – Chicago, IL @ Schuba’s
Sat Sept 29 – Saint Louis @ Off Broadway
Tue Oct 2 – Dallas, TX @ Texas Theatre
Wed Oct 3 – Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s
Thu Oct 4 – Austin, TX @ Cactus Cafe

Check out this fun and informative interview with our very own Matt Pence thanks to Darci Ratliff and Lisa Beth Johnson at the Me Three Podcast.

http://methreepod.com/2012/08/23/episode-12-matt-pence/

Will Johnson and Anders Parker will be on tour together in September. It’ll be a mix of all acoustic Living Room Shows and a few club shows along the way. We have a few Living Room shows already lined up in Waverly, Birmingham, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland.

We need your help! We are looking for people to host Living Room Shows in a few more towns on the dates listed below…

MON Sept 17 – Athens, GA
TUE Sept 18 – North Carolina area
FRI Sept 21 – Philadelphia, PA
SAT Sept 22 – Brooklyn, NY
MON Sept 24 – Boston, MA
TUE Sept 25 – open to ideas between Boston and Buffalo.
WED Sept 26 – Buffalo, NY

Here’s how it works.

1. You have a house or loft space that can comfortably and safely host 35-45 people. A place with a big living room, finished basement or other indoor residential space would be ideal. There needs to be enough parking nearby and your neighbors should be cool. It would be a huge bummer if someone called the cops because of all the extra cars and people coming to your house. You probably should not do this if you live in a small apartment with a bunch of uptight neighbors or a cranky landlord.

2. The shows will not be open to the public and no tickets will be sold at the door. We will pre-sell a set number of tickets for each show on our website before the show. Be realistic on how many people your place can hold. We need to know how many tickets we can sell in advance. Ticket prices will be $20.

3. We will provide you with a detailed list of everyone who will be coming to the show. This way the host won’t have to deal with money and will only need to check people off the list as they arrive.

4. The host gets 5 free tickets for the show. If you have other friends who want to come to the show you can direct them to the link to buy tickets on-line.

5. The shows usually start at around 8pm. We’ll ask people to arrive around 7:30pm. It should be over by around 10:00pm. We’ll make it clear to everyone that they should be out of your house by 10:30pm.

7. You don’t need to provide any sort of sound system. All you need is a couple of chairs for Will and Anders to sit on while playing and some kind of ambient lighting like a floor lamp.

8. Your home address will not be published on the web and only given to those people who purchase tickets.

9. The shows will not be promoted or advertised anywhere except our websites.

After reading all of this and you are interested please send an e-mail to: bob@undertowmusic.com and adam@undertowmusic.com

Please include a photo of the space where you would like to have the show and put “Johnson / Parker House Show” and the city where you live in the subject line of the e-mail.

We’ll review all requests. Once we have a routing figured out we’ll be in touch with people in the towns we are able to work into the schedule.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Bob

Team Love RavenHouse Gallery in New Paltz, NY will present an exhibition of paintings by artist Will Johnson, entitled Every Player is a Star.  The exhibition opens June 23rd and continues through September 7th.  A reception will be held at the gallery on June 23rd from 4-6 pm.

Team Love RavenHouse Gallery eagerly anticipates a special show of paintings by Texas-based artist and musician Will Johnson. Johnson combines text and imagery in his work, gracing his compositionally bold portraits with hand-lettered stories of astonishing, often under-the-radar players and well-loved but now defunct places (his Dead Stadiums series).  Subjects featured in this show include Willie Wells, Salty Parker, Debs Garms, Dizzy Trout, Ruth “Tex” Lessing, Marie “Red” Mahoney, Alva Jo Fischer, Bill Buckner, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Burnett Field, Old Arlington Stadium, and Kokernot Field, among others.  The works are acrylic on medium density fiberboard, averaging 10”x24”.  Signed limited edition prints (with a run of 100) of a selection of his works will also be available for sale.

Johnson is a multifaceted artistic talent, who found his way to visual art through his love of baseball and his reverence for the game’s unsung hero. As a self-taught painter and musician, he is a wise and subtle storyteller, spotlighting details and turning the seemingly banal into the most powerful hook. He has participated in multiple group art exhibitions, with this being his third solo show.  He has worked on a farm, in maintenance, in comic book distribution, in a record store, in restaurants, as a teacher, delivering cars, transporting equipment, renting out tuxedos, making sandwiches, and cleaning up radioactive and mercury-contaminated waste.  He played pony league from the ages of six to twelve, and his earliest baseball memories center around the 1976 World Series.

Johnson’s career as a musician includes founding the bands Centro-matic and South San Gabriel. He has recorded and/or performed with Monsters of Folk, Son Volt, Jay Bennett, The New Year, The Drive-By Truckers and Jandek.  His most recent project is “New Multitudes,” a Woody Guthrie archival project that include Jim James, Jay Farrar and Anders Parker.

Subjects ranging from the well-known …to the virtually unknown… help Johnson curate the ultimate card collection in a larger, singular scale, while he shares a unique insight on the game that is often verbalized among fans, but rarely intimated in such fashion.
-Chad Huffman, Modern American

About the gallery: 
Team Love RavenHouse gallery, located in the Village of New Paltz, opened in April 2011.  It is the joint effort of Team Love Records and RavenHouse management company, and was founded to provide a physical space for art and music, in an increasingly cyber world.

We have eight brand new limited edition Will Johnson baseball prints in stock!

You can buy individual prints for $12 each or a complete set of all eight prints for $85.

Only 100 of each print was made. Each print is signed and numbered by Will Johnson.

SHOP NOW!

Will Johnson will embark on a short run of living room shows in May. This will be a totally acoustic tour (no sound system) hosted by fans in their homes. Limited to only 30-40 tickets per show. Please help us spread the word.

May 9 – Houston, TX – SOLD OUT
May 11 – Springfield, MO
May 12 – Saint Louis, MO
May 13 – Chicago, IL – SOLD OUT
May 14 – Milwaukee, WI
May 15 – Madison, WI
May 16 – Minneapolis, MN
May 17 – Sioux Falls, SD
May 19 – Kansas City, MO
May 20 – Fayetteville, AR

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!! GO HERE

Happy Opening Day.  The cycle begins anew.  In stride with the blooming of new Spring life and the shedding of our winter layers, we have a new baseball season upon us.  A re-birth of sorts.  We will celebrate by heading to points Southeast, starting tomorrow night in Birmingham with our longtime friends and Brethren In Rock, Drive-By Truckers.  Due to a handful of other projects and releases we’re involved in, Centro-matic touring will be pretty limited this year, so come on out if you can.

Fri. Apr 6 – Birmingham AL @ WORKPLAY THEATER w DBT’s
Sat. Apr 7 – Birmingham AL @ WORKPLAY THEATER w DBT’s
Mon. Apr 9 – Athens  GA @ GEORGIA THEATER  w David Barbe & the Quick Hooks/District Attorneys (No DBT’s on this show)
Tue. Apr 10 – Pensacola FL @ VINYL MUSIC HALL w DBT’s
Wed. Apr 11 – Gainesvllle FL @ FLORIDA THEATER  w DBT’s
Thu. Apr 12 – Tampa  FL @ THE RITZ YBOR  w DBT’s
Fri. Apr 13 – Orlando  FL @ THE BEACHAM  w DBT’s
Sat. Apr 14 – Charleston SC @ THE MUSIC FARM  w DBT’s

CENTRO-MATIC SPRING FESTIVAL SHOWS
We’ll be heading back over to Alabama soon to play Standard Deluxe’s Old 280 Boogie. I’ve wanted to take part in this fest for a few years now, and we’re all pleased that the invite was extended and the scheduling worked out.  We’ll also be at Homegrown Festival in Dallas in May, alongside Hays Carll, Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears, and a lot of other great folks.

Sat. Apr 21 – Waverly, AL @ STANDARD DELUXE – 280 BOOGIE

Sat. May 26 – Dallas, TX @ HOMEGROWN FESTIVAL

CENTER OF THE COUNTRY SOLO LIVING ROOM TOUR
I’m loading the car again for a short living room tour in May.  These tours have been a lot of fun over the last couple of years.  They lend some opportunity for shared stories, new songs, a little less volume on neutral turf, and tend to bust down many of the barriers sometimes encountered in standard public venues.  I’ll also have some new art prints in tow.  Here’s the trek:

Wed. May 9 – Houston, TX
Fri. May 11 – Springfield, MO
Sat. May 12 – St. Louis, MO
Sun. May 13 – Chicago, IL – SOLD OUT
Mon. May 14 – Milwaukee, WI
Tues. May 15 – Madison, WI
Wed. May 16 – Minneapolis, MN
Thurs. May 17 – Sioux Falls, SD
Sat. May 19 – Kansas City, MO
Sun. May 20 – Fayetteville, AR

Tickets are available at undertowtickets.com

Tucked in the middle of this tour is a solo show on Thursday May 10 at the Belmont Hotel in Dallas, TX.

CENTRO-MATIC – AGAINST THE LINE VIDEO
The next Centro-matic video is almost out of the oven and ready for the world.  Shot by the great Matt Pence and edited by our friend Mike Marshall, it is our humble tribute to those who endured the 2011 Bastrop County wild fires, and the positive and powerful rebuilding efforts that have followed.

NEW RECORDINGS
I plan to release a new solo full length later this year.  Scorpion is recorded by, mixed and mastered by Matt Pence, and it will hopefully see the light of day by year’s end with full US and European rounds of touring to follow.  Additionally, the next Centro-matic full length is also written, and we plan to break ground on those recordings before the year’s over.

For now, thanks for supporting our efforts, and take care.  -Will J

Check out the latest Super 8 Film for the Will Johnson song “To Copeland Lines” live at Frank in Austin, TX. This film was shot by Christopher Morse, Sean Schiavolin, Rachel Stuckey and John Williams. See more video, lots of cool photos and get all the audio tracks from this show over at Transistor Six

Will sang the National Anthem at the Rice University baseball game on Sunday, April 1.

Will Johnson will embark on a short run of living room shows in May. This will be a totally acoustic tour (no sound system) hosted by fans in their homes. Limited to only 30-40 tickets per show. Please help us spread the word.

May 9 – Houston, TX
May 11 – Springfield, MO
May 12 – Saint Louis, MO
May 13 – Chicago, IL
May 14 – Milwaukee, WI
May 15 – Madison, WI
May 16 – Minneapolis, MN
May 17 – Sioux Falls, SD
May 19 – Kansas City, MO
May 20 – Fayetteville, AR

TICKETS GO ON SALE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21 @ 3pm