The Old Soul Society
The Pinkerton Raid, Nicolas Johnson, Lost Lakes
Doors 7:00PM / Show 8:00PM
$10 ADV / $12 DOS
This is a seated show.
Old Soul Society is a Wisconsin-based act that is rooted in Americana with branches into Folk, Rock, Soul, Blues, Roots & more.
Old Soul Society’s focus is clearly on the craft of songwriting as displayed in the rich, textured musical layers they create to underscore their introspective, honest and heartfelt lyrics.
These details combine into a powerfully stirring live performance that has been winning over audiences everywhere
The Pinkerton Raid
Songwriter Jesse James DeConto recorded most of THE HIGHWAY MOVES THE WORLD as January turned to February 2020. He, along with bassist Jonathan DePue, drummer Scott McFarlane and guitarist Garrett Langebartels, had planned to celebrate the finished tracking with a full playthrough of the dozen songs at the intimate North Star Church of the Arts in their home-base of Durham, NC. They scheduled the first single release, “Dream the Sun,” for the same day, the last Friday of March. By the middle of the month, it became clear that the live show for a listening-room audience would not happen.
They released the single anyhow, along with seven more over the next two years. “Dream the Sun” is a paean to the pain of waiting, in honor of Jesse’s sister Katie’s tireless work of arts advocacy and the tattoo on her right shoulder, reminding her that there is a sun – a source of warmth and light -- even when all you feel and see is cold and dark: in the early days of a global pandemic, for example. In December, BTR TODAY called it “warm (and) tender … a perfect vibe to end 2020.” AMERICAN SONGWRITER called the track a “radiant … message of hope.”
Almost three years later, the post-pandemic renewal brings a rotating new lineup, but, as always, a gang of friends who complete the full band sound. 2021 and 2022 have seen them performing at festivals from Georgia to Ohio, sharing stages with Liz Cooper, The Bones of JR Jones and The Nude Party.
“Dream the Sun” is the penultimate track, but the posture of possibility permeates the record. It’s 12 songs, each inspired by a complicated human being who happens to be one of Jesse’s closest relations – spouse, kids, parents, siblings, a couple of friends who had the power to deliver great joy and wonder or profound betrayal and disappointment; in other words, these characters can stand in for the people beloved by any one of us. THE HIGHWAY MOVES THE WORLD begins two decades ago in the DeContos’ leaky basement rehearsal space, where Jesse learned The Beatles and started to examine his tribe’s own particular brand of woundedness as the 19-year-old eldest brother of five. “Basement Tapes” is a sparse, melodic remembrance of musical family origins.
Propelled by a tube-driven Rhodes electric piano recorded by producer David Wimbish and Jesse’s triplet arpeggios on reverberating guitar, the title track narrates how this big, close family with all of its love and conflict relocated en masse from New Hampshire to North Carolina, most of them with a brief detour to Florida. “You take the long way, ‘round about, geography’s a magic art//the highway brings us home to us, the highway moves the world,” Jesse sings in honor of his mother, the wandering matriarch. The outro erupts in a triumphant reuniting, a trumpet fanfare tracked by Charlie Humphrey (Holy Ghost Tent Revival).
The songs travel through forest legends and foreign lands, blackjack games and French bistros, photo albums and feminist awakenings, all serving as the scene-sets and props for human drama of the most genuine kind. By the end of the journey, the listener returns to “Merseybeat,” with its garden parties, echoes of “Eleanor Rigby,” and another Liverpool legend Gerry Marsden showing up in the lyrics with a simple message, “don’t walk alone.” SHINDIG! called it “a long-faded sound from a distant time and place … shimmering as if born anew.” Given Jesse’s origins playing The Beatles in that leaky basement, it’s a pretty good summary of a song, a new record & a career now five albums deep.
Nicolas Johnson
Kentucky-born and based in Cincinnati, Ohio, singer-songwriter Nicholas Johnson’s story is not a typical one, including moving to Milan, Italy and then getting kicked out of the country. Bringing it all back home on his fourth release, the seven-track album spanning twenty-six minutes, Shady Pines Vol. 2 (Ninja Jam Records), Johnson follows-up 2017’s Shady Pines Vol. 1 to complete the vision he originally had for the two-part project.
Shady Pines Vol. 1 (Ninja Jam Records) was the first half of the collaboration that found Johnson teaming up with acclaimed producer and engineer Patrick Himes (Ryan Adams, Ethan Johns, Lilly Hiatt) with the goal in mind to craft a recording that matched the intensity of his live shows. The result is a fiery brand of roots and rock that manages to sound both achingly familiar and fiercely original.
“I got kicked out of Italy in the early fall of 2016. Seriously. For context, I had an opportunity to move to Milan earlier in the year. Sold the car, the house, put most of my things in storage, packed up the dogs and moved into a tiny apartment in the center of the city. I loved it,” Johnson says of the experience. “However, there were huge errors with the filing of my visa - so on my birthday I was getting ready to fly to Munich for Oktoberfest and I got the call, ‘Happy Birthday, you can't go to Germany for Oktoberfest and you need to leave the country immediately while this is being resolved.’ I was told it could take anywhere from three weeks to three months.”
Continuing, he adds, “As I mentioned, the house and car were sold. I had to rent a car and crash at my friends - I split time between couches and spare rooms in Dayton and Louisville. I had these songs I wrote that were just hanging out that I played for friends and they really dug them. They were the ones who referred me to Patrick and his studio in Dayton - Reel Love Studios. Come to find out he had worked with Ethan Johns and was the engineer on one of my favorite albums, Ryan Adams’ classic Heartbreaker. Patrick had moved out of Nashville and started his own studio dedicated to recording and producing Ohio music. It was a match made in heaven. I loved working with him, but it was brief because by the time we got to work in the studio it was nearly time for me to go back to Italy. We knocked out five songs in a couple days [which would become 2017’s Shady Pines Vol. 1]. After that, I really wanted to come back and work with him again. Volume 2 was that opportunity.”
Building upon Vol. 1, Shady Pines Vol. 2 combines his Southern and Midwest roots into a sound that is best described as Southern roots meets Midwest rust-belt rock: Heartfelt, earnest, melodic, and true to the soil he was raised on. Paying homage to the likes of Tom Petty, Jeff Tweedy, and even Bruce Springsteen, Johnson creates a rock record that has as much grit as it does polish.
“I'm big on place and setting in my writing and especially my titles. Shady Pines refers to my address when I first moved to Ohio - just outside of Dayton,” Johnson says of the album title. “Every time I visualize Ohio, or the Midwest in general, I think back to that address. The name just puts me back there mentally and gives me an anchor point to build the themes, narratives, and visuals in the songs.”
Lost Lakes is a collaboration between Corey Mathew Hart and Paul Mitch, with a focus on well-crafted tunes and tight vocal harmonies.