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Chris Harford And The Band of Changes (w/ Dean & Gene Ween) Live on WXPN 12/08!
We here at Chocodog Records are pleased to add Chris Harford to our little circle of friendship. People in the Northeast are probably already familiar with Chris as this is his 8th solo album and he was a member of legendary early 80's Boston band "Three Colors". Members of that band also included Hub Moore (who went on to release an amazing album for Slash Records in the late 90's) and Dana Colley, saxophonist in the legendary Boston band Morphine. Chris also recorded an album for Elektra Records released in 1992, "Be Headed" which included guest appearances by Richard Thompson, The Proclaimers, Toshi Reagon, and Ween among many others. The relationship with Elektra quickly went nowhere though and since then Chris has released 6 solo albums on his own label Soul Selects/Black Shepherd Records. All 5 members of Ween have been working with Chris since 1990 and it was through Chris that Ween ended up getting signed by Elektra in 1992, (although it took Ween's relationship 8 years with Elektra to go nowhere). So it makes perfect sense that our first "non-Ween" release on Chocodog would be the new Chris Harford album "Looking Out for Number 6". The record was recorded in New Hope, PA in August of 2005 and was produced by Mickey Melchiondo (a.k.a. Dean Ween). A successful painter and prolific songwriter, Chris has been performing legendary marathon concerts in the tri-state area with a constantly rotating stable of the area's finest musicians-the one constant is the name of the band, "The Band of Changes". It is fitting that the only guests on this album (outside of Dean and Gene Ween) are two musicians who Chris met on the day the songs were recorded (and hasn't heard from since.) The music is extremely moody and visual as Chris is also a gifted and successful painter. Chris has a massive and diverse back catalog of great songs, his concerts frequently run from 3 to 4 hours and are often performed with no setlist. Chris likes to keep things spontaneous and in the moment and that's pretty much the way this CD was recorded. The songs were all basically cut with Mickey playing drums and Chris playing guitar and singing live--bass and additional tracks were overdubbed later. Most of the songs were written either in the studio or in the immediate days before the sessions, giving the album a real sense of immediacy and vibe. It should also be noted that the record was recorded on TAPE, that's right TAPE and subsequently mixed by Andrew Weiss, longtime Ween producer and former member of the Rollins Band and Butthole Surfers. So here it is, the new Chris Harford album on Chocodog-you don't really need to know any more biographical info to enjoy this music, it sort of speaks for itself.
www.chrisharford.com
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"...the sort of songs that we would kill to be capable of writing when we're in that introspective, shut-away-the-world-and-mope mood."
— CMJ
"Chris Harford makes music that's so personal - and so universal - it's downright life-affirming."
— Creem
"He slurs, he snarls, he growls, he howls. And sometimes he just plain sings."
— Interview
"Breathless and wild-eyed, Harford aspires to nothing less than the white-heat passions of his ancestors."
— Spin
"An unabashed rocker, enthralled by the sound of the electric guitar, be it thick, distorted, deliberated chords or hard-charging, blues-rock leads. Harford is a versatile artist who's not afraid to cut loose."
— People
"Downright beautiful."
— After Dark
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