GENE RYDER
''LAST CIGARETTE AND A BLINDFOLD''
OCTOBER 17 1990
38:36
**********
01 - Willy 03:11
02 - Hyenas 03:59
03 - Pretty Red Dress 05:00
04 - Just Like A Vision 03:14
05 - Higher Ground 04:42
06 - Feels Like A Gun 03:06
07 - Hero #99 03:07
08 - It's Only Thunder 04:37
09 - Shake Up The Night 03:41
10 - Everyway The Wind Blows 03:56
All Tracks By Gene Ryder
**********
Bobby Bandiera/Guitar
Jeff Boaz/Drums On 06
Peter Bonta/Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Susie Carr/Backing Vocals On 04, 05
Tom Dowd/Engineer, Producer
Pete Fields/Bass Guitar
J.D. Foster/Bass Guitar On 06
Joe Galdo/Drums On 03
Paul Harris/Keyboards On 03
John Jennings/Guitar On 01, 10; Lead Guitar On 02
George "Chocolate" Perry/Bass Guitar On 03
Gene Ryder/Bass Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals, Backing Vocals
Chris Salamone/Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Stewart Smith/Lead Guitar On 03, 06
**********
ABOUT THE ALBUM
By Robin Ford on January 15, 2012
www.amazon.com
Gene Ryder & the Lifters were a D.C. band that won music awards in that region in the 1980's. This album is Gene Ryder's only official release and it's a fine effort of the type of Americana rock that exploded at the time. Think Springsteen, Petty, Mellencamp etc. What Ryder brings to the table, and only the tip of the iceberg is showing here, is his amazing songwriting skills, lyrically and musically, and a voice that can spiral into any emotion the lines demand. The recording was produced by the fabled Tom Dowd and, according to rumors, "didn't have legs" upon it's release. This means that it didn't take off on it's own so the label didn't give it any push--an attitude of major labels, some would say, that led to them missing the digital revolution when it took off and causing them to still be catching up today. A very worthwhile listen. For more Gene Ryder music in it's seminal form, i.e. acoustic, try 10thplanet.com, an Alaskan studio that's recorded Ryder in his travels north and posted some tracks online.
**********
MORE ABOUT
By Richard Harrington January 22, 1989
www.washingtonpost.com
In baseball, players call the major leagues the Show. It's what you aim for, what you dream about. It validates you as a player. In rock 'n' roll it's the league of majors, and it's a Show, too. Instead of at bats and innings pitched, it's stations added and records moved. Something to aim for, to dream about. Like Nuke Laloosh at the end of "Bull Durham," Gene Ryder is on the verge of the Show. His debut album, "Last Cigarette and a Blindfold," will be released Tuesday by Polygram. Last Thursday, dozens of representatives from the nation's biggest booking agencies joined label executives, radio personalities and record retailers at the Bayou to celebrate the album and, hopefully, jump-start it up the charts. "Last Cigarette" is the newest major-label shot for a Washington artist. In a city that has a reputation for fostering small, independent labels focused on eclectic music styles, Ryder's music is something of an anomaly: mainstream, commercial, fluid, with resounding guitars, melodic hooks and impassioned storytelling. It took three years of hard work, heartbreak, negotiation and commitment to come to this moment. "I believe a best foot has been put forward," says Ryder, 32. "I just hope that when people listen to the record, they know what I'm about." They're likely to suspect what Ryder's about musically: His voice and style invite comparisons to such roots rockers as Tom Petty and John Cougar Mellencamp. Truth is, unless they are startlingly original -- and that's a rarity -- all new artists suffer such critical attachments, and Ryder is not at all defensive about them. "If you want to just talk straight rock 'n' roll, certainly the Rolling Stones were important to me -- for attitude, especially -- as were Neil Young and Tom Petty," he says. "And of course it's hard for anybody to escape the influence of Bob Dylan -- he's draped over everything like Spanish moss. "But influences for me can be in nonmusical terms," he adds. "My song writing is influenced by my travels, even listening to my Grandpa's stories about the Shenandoah Valley, which is where all my people are from. And by certain writers -- Flannery O'Connor and John Steinbeck ..." This is not mere image-shaping. A shy, decidedly private man, Ryder seems less interested in talking about his past than he is in drawing upon it for his songs. He was born in Fairfax and he now lives in Falls Church, and while that may not seem like much of a move, "the points in between were on a grand scale," Ryder says with a laugh. "When you're young, you know there's a world out there and you have two choices: You can either stay put, dream about it and be comfortable with it, or you can go out and get some first-hand experiences. I'm the kind of person that dives in, and that's what I did. I didn't look back." He left home at 17 and, in "On the Road" fashion, "just started rambling around. I was a victim of National Geographic, a sponge trying to soak up what this place where I live is all about." Along the way, "to keep things going," Ryder added some odd jobs to his re'sume': construction work, apple picker in migrant camps, barbed-wire stringer, forest firefighter, house painter. He also spent two years in Alaska as a part of Uncle Ogstad's Traveling Medicine Show, a nostalgic revival of the old-fashioned medicine troupe, complete with string band, jugglers and a "doctor" offering his magic elixir. "It's something you can get carried away with," Ryder says of his vagabondage. "You can let it become an addiction. I think of what {songwriter} Joe Ely said one time when he called it 'colorful misery ...' That's what it metamorphoses into and you have to stop and do a spot check." He'd started out troubadour fashion, a solo folk singer working with an acoustic guitar -- "the music was always a thread through all these experiences" -- but sometimes Ryder would meld into a band, slip into rock 'n' roll. He worked with bands in Colorado, Alaska and California, but 18 months in Los Angeles -- "an awful experience" -- left him "depleted. So I came back here and didn't play for about a year. I put it down, which is the first time I'd ever done that." At that time four years ago, Ryder was painting houses to make ends meet. One of his jobs was to paint Mike Oberman's house. Oberman is a longtime fixture on the Washington music scene, who managed a number of bands in the '60s and early '70s. "When I first met Gene, I didn't even know he was a musician," says Oberman. After they became friends the truth came out, and by mid-1985, Oberman headed to California with a three-song demo. "I got really good responses from 10 labels, which was very unusual. They were all excited, but Gene didn't have a band together." That became an instant priority, and back in Washington Ryder drew on the pool of local talent and came up with the Lifters. A few months later, the group headed back to Los Angeles for a showcase concert that drew talent scouts from every major label, as well as publishers, agents and musicians. "It went over very well," Oberman says, "and six of the labels wanted to come here to see Gene play on his home turf." A week before that show, tragedy struck: The band's drummer, Alan Cornett, was involved in a terrible car accident that left him paralyzed (he has since recovered much of his mobility). Pressured by expectations, Ryder and the band went ahead with the showcase, but the emotional trauma of Cornett's accident and, to a much lesser extent, having to work at the last minute with a substitute drummer had a dampening effect. "Looking back, we probably shouldn't have done it," Oberman concedes. The next year was occupied with personnel changes in the band, making more demos, trying to sustain the labels' interest. Some observers thought Ryder was slipping into the quicksand that has swallowed the hopes of so many Washington-based rockers, particularly those with such commercial ambitions. Still, Ryder says he was never bothered by Washington's bad record. "I've heard that talk and there's been frustrations at times for me, but I just decided to put the blinders on and whip the reins. I didn't think about anything else than focusing on what I was trying to accomplish." "I just try to write the best songs I can and put them across in the best way that I can. I don't particularly think of rock 'n' roll in a rebellious way. Maybe at one point it was, but for me it's a surrender: You write a song, and if you believe in it, you surrender to it and in so doing it seems like people can grasp it a little better rather than when they're beat over the head with it." Things started coming together 18 months ago when Polygram Vice President Jim Lewis flew down to hear the band at Quincy's; after 3 1/2 months of negotiations, Ryder signed with the label and a year ago went into Miami's fabled Criteria Studio with veteran producer Tom Dowd (though "Feels Like a Gun," the album's first single, was recorded in Austin with producer Jeff Glixman). The next problem was getting -- and keeping -- a band together. The lineup on the album is different from that in Ryder's new band, which includes Indiana guitarist Marc Rogers, keyboard player Patti Clements (who is from this area and has spent much of the last three years with Porter Wagoner's band), drummer Chris Salamone and bassist Brian Goddard, the lone holdover from the original Lifters. "I'm real happy now," says Ryder. "We're all hungry, and all hungry in the same way, which is very important. It's been difficult in the past because people have their own unique needs in their lives and sometimes those needs change, and what can you do? Seems everybody's trying to keep the phone company off their back, keep their girlfriend happy and put a little change in their pocket. Sometimes you can't even provide that for somebody because rock 'n' roll is a crapshoot and always has been and probably always will be ... "So for now, getting the band into gear is everything, getting the music feeling right ..." The new lineup gave its first performance last weekend in Fredericksburg -- the rock 'n' roll equivalent to opening out of town, but not too far out of town -- and was well received. "Part of the problem for me before was not working enough," says Ryder. "We just didn't have our legs and half of me was always behind, trying to make sure things were right ... I don't consider myself a great singer, I'm not a great guitar player, I'm not a great dancer, and my looks won't stop a train, but you'd be hard put to outwork me. Anybody would -- that's what was instilled in me at an earlier age, and that kind of dogged determination is what I've tried to apply to whatever I do. And you've got to have a heart like a hammer in this business." Now the hammer's ready to fall. Just as it's being shipped, "Feels Like a Gun," has been picked as a potential hit by both FM Quarterback and Album Network, two influential radio tip sheets; out of the 125 or so singles released each week, they pick only four or five, so it's a good sign. Now the test comes with radio's willingness to play a new artist, even one with such a solid radio presence as Ryder. Depending on how the single, and subsequently the album, do, there will be a tour, either on the club level or as an opening act for an established star. Polygram is already preparing tour support, another good sign in this era of tight promotional budgeting. Gene Ryder's ready, but he doesn't seem anxious. "Everybody's got their own taste, and you can spend your whole life doubling back on yourself and trying to figure out what you're doing wrong here or right there," says Ryder. "I can't go that way. I just put my boots on and start walking and see where it leads me. If it's the right road, so be it. If it's not, I hope at some point to get off." But probably just for a little research and recreation.
**********
TO THE TOP
********************
''LAST CIGARETTE AND A BLINDFOLD''
OCTOBER 17 1990
38:36
**********
01 - Willy 03:11
02 - Hyenas 03:59
03 - Pretty Red Dress 05:00
04 - Just Like A Vision 03:14
05 - Higher Ground 04:42
06 - Feels Like A Gun 03:06
07 - Hero #99 03:07
08 - It's Only Thunder 04:37
09 - Shake Up The Night 03:41
10 - Everyway The Wind Blows 03:56
All Tracks By Gene Ryder
**********
Bobby Bandiera/Guitar
Jeff Boaz/Drums On 06
Peter Bonta/Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Susie Carr/Backing Vocals On 04, 05
Tom Dowd/Engineer, Producer
Pete Fields/Bass Guitar
J.D. Foster/Bass Guitar On 06
Joe Galdo/Drums On 03
Paul Harris/Keyboards On 03
John Jennings/Guitar On 01, 10; Lead Guitar On 02
George "Chocolate" Perry/Bass Guitar On 03
Gene Ryder/Bass Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals, Backing Vocals
Chris Salamone/Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Stewart Smith/Lead Guitar On 03, 06
**********
ABOUT THE ALBUM
By Robin Ford on January 15, 2012
www.amazon.com
Gene Ryder & the Lifters were a D.C. band that won music awards in that region in the 1980's. This album is Gene Ryder's only official release and it's a fine effort of the type of Americana rock that exploded at the time. Think Springsteen, Petty, Mellencamp etc. What Ryder brings to the table, and only the tip of the iceberg is showing here, is his amazing songwriting skills, lyrically and musically, and a voice that can spiral into any emotion the lines demand. The recording was produced by the fabled Tom Dowd and, according to rumors, "didn't have legs" upon it's release. This means that it didn't take off on it's own so the label didn't give it any push--an attitude of major labels, some would say, that led to them missing the digital revolution when it took off and causing them to still be catching up today. A very worthwhile listen. For more Gene Ryder music in it's seminal form, i.e. acoustic, try 10thplanet.com, an Alaskan studio that's recorded Ryder in his travels north and posted some tracks online.
**********
MORE ABOUT
By Richard Harrington January 22, 1989
www.washingtonpost.com
In baseball, players call the major leagues the Show. It's what you aim for, what you dream about. It validates you as a player. In rock 'n' roll it's the league of majors, and it's a Show, too. Instead of at bats and innings pitched, it's stations added and records moved. Something to aim for, to dream about. Like Nuke Laloosh at the end of "Bull Durham," Gene Ryder is on the verge of the Show. His debut album, "Last Cigarette and a Blindfold," will be released Tuesday by Polygram. Last Thursday, dozens of representatives from the nation's biggest booking agencies joined label executives, radio personalities and record retailers at the Bayou to celebrate the album and, hopefully, jump-start it up the charts. "Last Cigarette" is the newest major-label shot for a Washington artist. In a city that has a reputation for fostering small, independent labels focused on eclectic music styles, Ryder's music is something of an anomaly: mainstream, commercial, fluid, with resounding guitars, melodic hooks and impassioned storytelling. It took three years of hard work, heartbreak, negotiation and commitment to come to this moment. "I believe a best foot has been put forward," says Ryder, 32. "I just hope that when people listen to the record, they know what I'm about." They're likely to suspect what Ryder's about musically: His voice and style invite comparisons to such roots rockers as Tom Petty and John Cougar Mellencamp. Truth is, unless they are startlingly original -- and that's a rarity -- all new artists suffer such critical attachments, and Ryder is not at all defensive about them. "If you want to just talk straight rock 'n' roll, certainly the Rolling Stones were important to me -- for attitude, especially -- as were Neil Young and Tom Petty," he says. "And of course it's hard for anybody to escape the influence of Bob Dylan -- he's draped over everything like Spanish moss. "But influences for me can be in nonmusical terms," he adds. "My song writing is influenced by my travels, even listening to my Grandpa's stories about the Shenandoah Valley, which is where all my people are from. And by certain writers -- Flannery O'Connor and John Steinbeck ..." This is not mere image-shaping. A shy, decidedly private man, Ryder seems less interested in talking about his past than he is in drawing upon it for his songs. He was born in Fairfax and he now lives in Falls Church, and while that may not seem like much of a move, "the points in between were on a grand scale," Ryder says with a laugh. "When you're young, you know there's a world out there and you have two choices: You can either stay put, dream about it and be comfortable with it, or you can go out and get some first-hand experiences. I'm the kind of person that dives in, and that's what I did. I didn't look back." He left home at 17 and, in "On the Road" fashion, "just started rambling around. I was a victim of National Geographic, a sponge trying to soak up what this place where I live is all about." Along the way, "to keep things going," Ryder added some odd jobs to his re'sume': construction work, apple picker in migrant camps, barbed-wire stringer, forest firefighter, house painter. He also spent two years in Alaska as a part of Uncle Ogstad's Traveling Medicine Show, a nostalgic revival of the old-fashioned medicine troupe, complete with string band, jugglers and a "doctor" offering his magic elixir. "It's something you can get carried away with," Ryder says of his vagabondage. "You can let it become an addiction. I think of what {songwriter} Joe Ely said one time when he called it 'colorful misery ...' That's what it metamorphoses into and you have to stop and do a spot check." He'd started out troubadour fashion, a solo folk singer working with an acoustic guitar -- "the music was always a thread through all these experiences" -- but sometimes Ryder would meld into a band, slip into rock 'n' roll. He worked with bands in Colorado, Alaska and California, but 18 months in Los Angeles -- "an awful experience" -- left him "depleted. So I came back here and didn't play for about a year. I put it down, which is the first time I'd ever done that." At that time four years ago, Ryder was painting houses to make ends meet. One of his jobs was to paint Mike Oberman's house. Oberman is a longtime fixture on the Washington music scene, who managed a number of bands in the '60s and early '70s. "When I first met Gene, I didn't even know he was a musician," says Oberman. After they became friends the truth came out, and by mid-1985, Oberman headed to California with a three-song demo. "I got really good responses from 10 labels, which was very unusual. They were all excited, but Gene didn't have a band together." That became an instant priority, and back in Washington Ryder drew on the pool of local talent and came up with the Lifters. A few months later, the group headed back to Los Angeles for a showcase concert that drew talent scouts from every major label, as well as publishers, agents and musicians. "It went over very well," Oberman says, "and six of the labels wanted to come here to see Gene play on his home turf." A week before that show, tragedy struck: The band's drummer, Alan Cornett, was involved in a terrible car accident that left him paralyzed (he has since recovered much of his mobility). Pressured by expectations, Ryder and the band went ahead with the showcase, but the emotional trauma of Cornett's accident and, to a much lesser extent, having to work at the last minute with a substitute drummer had a dampening effect. "Looking back, we probably shouldn't have done it," Oberman concedes. The next year was occupied with personnel changes in the band, making more demos, trying to sustain the labels' interest. Some observers thought Ryder was slipping into the quicksand that has swallowed the hopes of so many Washington-based rockers, particularly those with such commercial ambitions. Still, Ryder says he was never bothered by Washington's bad record. "I've heard that talk and there's been frustrations at times for me, but I just decided to put the blinders on and whip the reins. I didn't think about anything else than focusing on what I was trying to accomplish." "I just try to write the best songs I can and put them across in the best way that I can. I don't particularly think of rock 'n' roll in a rebellious way. Maybe at one point it was, but for me it's a surrender: You write a song, and if you believe in it, you surrender to it and in so doing it seems like people can grasp it a little better rather than when they're beat over the head with it." Things started coming together 18 months ago when Polygram Vice President Jim Lewis flew down to hear the band at Quincy's; after 3 1/2 months of negotiations, Ryder signed with the label and a year ago went into Miami's fabled Criteria Studio with veteran producer Tom Dowd (though "Feels Like a Gun," the album's first single, was recorded in Austin with producer Jeff Glixman). The next problem was getting -- and keeping -- a band together. The lineup on the album is different from that in Ryder's new band, which includes Indiana guitarist Marc Rogers, keyboard player Patti Clements (who is from this area and has spent much of the last three years with Porter Wagoner's band), drummer Chris Salamone and bassist Brian Goddard, the lone holdover from the original Lifters. "I'm real happy now," says Ryder. "We're all hungry, and all hungry in the same way, which is very important. It's been difficult in the past because people have their own unique needs in their lives and sometimes those needs change, and what can you do? Seems everybody's trying to keep the phone company off their back, keep their girlfriend happy and put a little change in their pocket. Sometimes you can't even provide that for somebody because rock 'n' roll is a crapshoot and always has been and probably always will be ... "So for now, getting the band into gear is everything, getting the music feeling right ..." The new lineup gave its first performance last weekend in Fredericksburg -- the rock 'n' roll equivalent to opening out of town, but not too far out of town -- and was well received. "Part of the problem for me before was not working enough," says Ryder. "We just didn't have our legs and half of me was always behind, trying to make sure things were right ... I don't consider myself a great singer, I'm not a great guitar player, I'm not a great dancer, and my looks won't stop a train, but you'd be hard put to outwork me. Anybody would -- that's what was instilled in me at an earlier age, and that kind of dogged determination is what I've tried to apply to whatever I do. And you've got to have a heart like a hammer in this business." Now the hammer's ready to fall. Just as it's being shipped, "Feels Like a Gun," has been picked as a potential hit by both FM Quarterback and Album Network, two influential radio tip sheets; out of the 125 or so singles released each week, they pick only four or five, so it's a good sign. Now the test comes with radio's willingness to play a new artist, even one with such a solid radio presence as Ryder. Depending on how the single, and subsequently the album, do, there will be a tour, either on the club level or as an opening act for an established star. Polygram is already preparing tour support, another good sign in this era of tight promotional budgeting. Gene Ryder's ready, but he doesn't seem anxious. "Everybody's got their own taste, and you can spend your whole life doubling back on yourself and trying to figure out what you're doing wrong here or right there," says Ryder. "I can't go that way. I just put my boots on and start walking and see where it leads me. If it's the right road, so be it. If it's not, I hope at some point to get off." But probably just for a little research and recreation.
**********
TO THE TOP
********************