Lonely Avenue press release

CT News, August 24, 2009: Rockabilly guitar-slinger, big band impresario, and all-around cool cat Brian Setzer takes a walk on the dark side with his film noir-inspired new album ‘ Songs From Lonely Avenue,’ out October 13th on Surfdog Records.

With a propulsive rhythm, an ominous minor key, wickedly good instrumental solos and the familiar character of the Devil up to his old tricks, opening track “Trouble Train” sets the mood for the whole album (with echoes of that other great song about Lucifer, Charlie Daniels’ “Devil Went Down to Georgia”). Throughout the rest of the album, thugs prowl the street, young couples dance the night away in New York, hearts are broken, and lives are taken, all over pitch-perfect melodies and arrangements.

Comprising ten vocal tracks and three instrumentals, ‘Songs from Lonely Avenue’ marks the first time Setzer has written every track on an album. With all the scope of a Raymond Chandler novel or an Orson Welles film, it’s his most ambitious project to date.

And as he did on 2007’s ‘Wolfgang’s Big Night Out,’ Setzer recruited 87-year-old Frank Comstock, one of the most important and inventive arrangers of instrumental music of the last century, to score the horn arrangements. Comstock wrote music for many of the era’s top artists, including Doris Day, Sonny Dunham, Benny Carter and Judy Garland (not to mention the “Rocky & Bullwinkle” theme!).

Furthermore, the “New King Of Jingle Bell Rock” (Billboard) Brian Setzer and his 18-piece big band will kick off their seventh Christmas Extravaganza 27-date tour on November 20th in Detroit. This fall, Surfdog Records will re-release Setzer’s hugely successful collection of yuletide music: ‘Christmas Rocks’ as well as the ‘Ultimate Christmas’ CD and DVD combination- songs that have become part of the holiday tradition for millions over the last several years.

From launching the rockabilly revolution with the Stray Cats to pioneering the swing revival with the Brian Setzer Orchestra, this Long Island-born innovator has earned his unique place in modern music by walking the line between conceptual discipline and balls-out rockin’. Setzer won three Grammy Awards (two for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for “Sleepwalk” from The Dirty Boogie in 1998 and “Caravan” from VaVoom in 2000, plus one for Best Pop Performance with “Jump, Jive an’ Wail,” also from The Dirty Boogie) by targeting that place where wild energy and visionary imagination intersect.

Also found the bonus track on the Xmas re-release is Santa Claus is coming to town.

Steve

More press release info from Setzer's MySpace page:

This movie opens in black and white …

It’s late one cold December night. The city sleeps, but legendary guitarist, singer and pioneering bandleader Brian Setzer has opened his eyes. Something of whatever he was dreaming lingers and leads him to get up, turn on an old Sears cassette recorder, pick up his guitar, lay down a few snippets of ideas, grab a pen, scratch some words on a piece of paper … and then fall back into bed.

As it was, Setzer was puzzled by the scene that greeted him the next morning. He didn’t remember scribbling those lines that stared up at him from his coffee table. But when he pushed Play and heard what he’d laid down on that midnight tape, the spark of invention, long dark, flashed back to life – and with that, his most ambitious and evocative project in years was underway. Those first notes, those shards of lyric, marked the birth of “Passion of the Night,” the first of the 13 original tracks he would write and lay down for Songs From Lonely Avenue. The rest followed quickly: “Dimes in the Jar,” “Love Partners in Crime,” “Kiss Me Deadly,” boom, boom, boom, each one bursting to life in spurts of lyric and riff at any and all hours of the day and night. Looking back, Setzer is still mystified by it all. “I can’t really explain it,” he insists. “Just when I think I might never write another song, the words and music come into my head and won’t stop. Once I have a focus, the songs start coming to me real easily. It’s as if the dam’s been broken and the ideas start flowing.”

But a theme wove through this stream-of-conscious creativity. The snaky beat and saloon croon of “King of the Whole Damn World,” the finger-snap jive of “Gimme Some Rhythm Daddy,” the smoky crawl and roadhouse guitar of “My Baby Don’t Love Me Blues,” the ear-opening flamenco-flavored virtuosity of “Elena,” the sly genre juggling of “Mr. Jazzer Goes Surfin’” and “Mr. Surfer Goes Jazzin’” – every moment of every track beams like a pinpoint spot into the darkness of a film noir classic, casting new shadows even as it brings Setzer’s extraordinary instrumental and vocal gifts into the light.

That light transforms this movie from black and white into spectacular splashes of color, illuminated by some of the most electrifying, sophisticated and yet emotionally raw horn charts being written anywhere today. As Setzer saw it, there was only one arranger up to the challenge of evoking the big-band scores of half a century ago in a language that would connect immediately with the contemporary listener – and that was Frank Comstock, with whom Brian had worked previously on his Wolfgang’s Big Night Out album.

“Frank is the only one left,” Setzer insists of his collaborator, whose credits include music for the TV series Adam 12, Dragnet and Rocky & Bullwinkle, along with big-band masterpieces by Les Brown, Benny Carter, Stan Kenton and other giants of the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. “He helped invent this sound and, at 87 years old, he’s still got it.”

And so does the widening world of Setzer fans, from those who slammed to the Stray Cats in British clubs years ago to families who flocked last Christmas to the BSO’s annual holiday shows. All of these diverse audiences meet on Lonely Avenue – a place that, thanks to Setzer, is lonely no more.

Sounds like this is going to be one killer album....

Can't wait til the release date!