tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41732622974530442312024-03-14T00:03:47.090-07:00Eleanor RooseveltArchives and updates from a mid-90's St. Louis folk-rock band that still sometimes records and performs. We emerged from an earlier band called <a href="http://enormousrichard.blogspot.com">Enormous Richard.</a>Enormous Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739753906907240094noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173262297453044231.post-10943303695568438442012-12-05T08:06:00.001-08:002012-12-13T11:57:21.724-08:00Some words on this new record<br />
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Eleanor Roosevelt singer/intiator Chris King says things about the new record over here:<br />
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<a href="http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/2012/12/water-bread-beer-served-in-digits.html">http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/2012/12/water-bread-beer-served-in-digits.html</a>Minkoughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04552823930229039683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173262297453044231.post-73851264103648211262012-11-19T18:33:00.004-08:002012-11-19T18:34:56.294-08:00Water Bread and Beer (new record, coming soon)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Here's the record cover.</div>
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<br />Minkoughhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04552823930229039683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173262297453044231.post-8338883294361096862012-10-07T07:40:00.002-07:002012-11-02T19:46:45.585-07:00----Note new rescheduled date!!!--- Eleanor Roosevelt to release new record, reunite for gigs.<strike></strike><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
1990s St. Louis folk rock band Eleanor Roosevelt will have a reunion weekend
and release a new record, <i>Water Bread & Beer</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">, with gigs on both
sides of the Mississippi River, December 7 and 8. Hear a couple <i>Water Bread and Beer</i> songs using that thing in the upper right of this blog. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
record release party proper will be a house concert Friday, December 7<i> </i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">in
Olivette, MO with Fred Friction opening. The $10 admission includes a copy of the
new CD <i>Water Bread & Beer</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">. Doors are at 7 p.m. and the music at 8
p.m.; bring your own drinks. <b>Seating is limited. For reservations and
directions, contact David Melson via email: <a href="mailto:melsond@gmail.com">melsond@gmail.com</a>.</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">Then
Eleanor Roosevelt performs 10 p.m. Saturday, December 8</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 19px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 19px;">at Jacobsmeyers, a
musician-owned brewpub-to-be in Granite City, IL, with Dana Michael Anderson
closing the night. This show is free. Jacobsmeyers Tavern (618-876-8219) is
located at 2401 Edwards Street in Granite City, Illinois, within sight of the
scenic working steel mills. Eleanor Roosevelt will start right at 10 p.m., with
Dana following at 11:30 p.m. and going as long as it feels good.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
band Eleanor Roosevelt evolved from Enormous Richard, which along with Uncle
Tupelo, Chicken Truck and others pioneered St. Louis’ alternative country scene
in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Enormous Richard toured the country with a
manic, goofy stage show; when the band began to focus more on songwriting and
less on stage antics, they changed band names to reflect that, keeping the
“E.R.” acronym.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">As
Eleanor Roosevelt, the band had it widest national exposure on recordings, with
songs on early volumes of Bloodshot Records’ <i>Hellbent </i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">series and East Side
Digital’s <i>Lyrics by Ernest Noyes Brookings</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">. The band also relesed a 7”, <i>Head
in a Hummingbird’s Nest</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">, on Faye Records and scored a feature film, Dan
Mirvish’s <i>Omaha: The Movie</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">. “Head in a Hummingbird’s Nest” later
appeared on Snow Globe Record’s compilation of lost bands from the ‘90s, <i>Tiny
Idols</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">.
The band recorded two albums of material in the 1990s before effectively
disbanding, though they would not self-release them until the new century: <i>Walker
with his head down</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;"> (recorded 1993, releaed 2007) and <i>Crumbling in the rain</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;"> (recorded 1995,
released 2005). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
band’s next evolutions would be from Eleanor Roosevelt to Three Fried Men and
finally to Poetry Scores, a non-profit arts organization that translates poetry
into other media and has bases of operation in St. Louis, Los Angeles, Istanbul
and Hilo, Hawaii. <i>Water Bread & Beer </i>came together as the Poetry Scores model was emerging; it</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;"> was recorded in
many American states in the late 1990s while the musicians in the band were on
the road recording poets and setting poetry to music, which resulted in the
first Poetry Scores project<i>, Crossing America</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;"> by Leo Connellan
(2003).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;"><i>Water
Bread & Beer</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;"> does include several song settings of borrowed texts: a poem by
Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, a Jewish children’s song to summon rain
from Morocco, a Peruvian worker’s chant and a fragment from the Amos Tutuola
novel <i>My Life in the Bush of Ghosts</i></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">. But for most of the record, the band
returned to its roots of working with the lyrics of front man Chris King, who
sings about falling in love with a girl in a wheelchair, finding himself
surrounded by “strangers and dangers,” walking the mean streets of James Brown
Boulevard and nourishing himself with the traditional African cold remedy of
pepper soup and local honey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
band: Joe Esser (bass), Matt Fuller (drums, guitar, banjo), Chris King (vocals,
guitar), David Melson (bass), John Minkoff (guitars) and Elijah “Lij” Shaw
(banjo, fiddle, guitars), with guests including Geoffrey Seitz on fiddle and
Pat Sansone (now of Wilco) on keyboards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Enormous Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16739753906907240094noreply@blogger.com0