will johnson just to know what youve been dreaming chord

Photo by John Anderson

Past his own business relationship, Will Johnson plays drums similar a frustrated guitarist.

Keeping shell for the Monsters of Folk at a sold-out Stubb's on a November night, Johnson throws his back into every motion with a determined abandonment, bouncing forcefully off his stool with every correct-handed cymbal crash. You know he'southward going to be sore the next morning.

Dressed for either a wedding ceremony or a funeral, the Monsters – My Morning Jacket's Jim James, Conor Oberst of Vivid Eyes, M. Ward, and Saddle Creek Records utility human being extraordinaire Mike Mogis – trade selections from their indie folk songbook, venturing from romantic ruminations to existential wanderlust. For this last nighttime of the North American bout, the illustrious commonage radiates a dial-drunk esprit of one-time friends, each in service of the vocal.

Johnson's barely visible behind the front end line, but his raspy harmonies ascent above the fray. More than than halfway into the three-hour, 36-song marathon, and after a stunning duet on "Bermuda Highway," James yields center stage to his "favorite son" by handing Johnson his acoustic guitar. Bathed in white spotlight, Johnson delivers "Just To Know What Y'all've Been Dreaming," the stark silencer from his 2005 solo album, Vultures Await.

I would walk a thousand miles

Just to know that yous've been dreaming

And I would steal a thousand smiles

Merely to know that you've been laughing

Only when you're not effectually

Yous know zippo makes a sound

While non counted equally an official fellow member of the supergroup, Johnson unknowingly illustrates why he could be Neil Immature to the Monsters' Crosby Stills & Nash, an instinctual and prolific songwriter of profound personal insight. Leader of longstanding Texan cells Centro-matic and South San Gabriel, he'due south clustered a trunk of work offering contemplative shades of My Morn Jacket's At Dawn, the AM radio Americana of M. Ward, and Oberst's emotive narratives.

I would tell a m tales

Just to know that you've been thinking

And I would swim the seven seas

Just to crawl along your beaches

Johnson's desperation deepens with every poesy. James steps in to harmonize as if trying to shoulder some of the burden.

But when yous're not around

You know zippo makes a sound

In the silence where I drown

Patience for the Ride

With a wire-bound scorecard tucked nether his left arm at the Dell Diamond, Johnson could easily be mistaken for a baseball game scout. The lanky 39-year-old songwriter wears a wool-fitted cap bearing the logo for the Asheville Tourists, an obscure Single-A team from North Carolina, shading emerald eyes and a lumberjack beard you could strike a friction match on. Yous almost expect him to accept a mitt.

"It's notwithstanding packed away in the shed," he chuckles, seated in the dwelling run balcony for the Round Rock Limited' Aug. 22 bout against the Oklahoma City Redhawks.

The hypnotic repetition of balls and strikes, baked in the glow of the belatedly afternoon, makes a perfect backdrop for conversation with the polite and unassuming Johnson. His career parallels that of a journeyman minor leaguer with an all-star batting boilerplate. Over the last decade, he's served as a touring fellow member of Son Volt and Varnaline, provided groundwork vocals for the Drive-past Truckers' 2008 LP Brighter Than Creation'southward Dark, and produced works for local songwriters Austin Collins and Collin Herring.

This summer, Johnson traveled abroad for a one-off alive functioning with the Barcelona psych-folk act Animic, which was filmed for an upcoming documentary. He'southward fifty-fifty jammed with cult experimentalist Jandek. Small-scale wonder his collaboration with Magnolia Electric Co.'s Jason Molina final year was alternately dubbed the Phantoms of Folk.

"I refuse to hang too much on certain milestones," shrugs Johnson, who moved to Austin from Denton in 2003. "Information technology's all about trying to see things from as many angles as possible."

Born and raised in the kicking heel of Kennett, Mo., Johnson committed to learning entire records as a teenager, including the Replacements' Allow It Be and Soul Asylum's Hang Time, from start to finish, on every musical instrument. Taking the proper noun from an antique piano accordion, Johnson took the same approach for the recording of his 1997 debut as Centro-matic, Redo the Stacks, a four-track collection of abrasive pop, every bit indebted to 1980s mail-punk and his tenure on drums for Dallas' scrappy Funland.

Shortly thereafter, the terminal lineup of Centro-matic solidified with guitarist Mark Hedman and drummer Matt Pence, both formerly of Adam's Farm, and Slobberbone's Scott Danbom, a sonic architect that handles bass, keyboards, and violin. The same core treads mellower waters under the guise of South San Gabriel, albeit with a rotating bandage of contributors.

"If we're ever behind in the studio, we can prepare stations in the studio and Volition can jump from one instrument to the next," reflects Pence, the producer behind both outfits and Johnson'south solo recordings. "He'southward fully capable of making amazing music without anyone'south assist, and yet he allows plenty of space for us to flourish and actually contribute. That's i of the reasons why we've lasted equally long every bit we have."

The difference between Centro-matic and South San Gabriel is that of Saturday night and Sun morning, a segmentation made evident as far back as 1999. That'southward when a 60-vocal recording session, helmed at Jay Farrar'due south Illinois studio, was divided between the noisy The Static vs. the Strings Vol. 1 and the oceanic lull of Navigational. Across more than 15 albums in the final decade, both projects have delivered modern roots rock with an unwavering standard of quality.

"Centro-matic is my favorite band," proclaims Patterson Hood of the Drive-by Truckers, who drafted Johnson and Danbom for his 2009 solo album, Murdering Oscar (And Other Honey Songs), and accompanying tour. "I was a huge fan long before I met them. I don't know if I tin can even put it into words. Every once in a while, something comes along that's just like nectar music. Information technology'due south got everything I like in 1 place, every bit if I've been hearing it all my life.

"Centro-matic ought to be one of the biggest bands of the globe. They're a fourpiece without an ounce of flab, and Will Johnson is just an ungodly great singer and player. I hope I've been influenced by him."

Flashes and Cables

In that location'southward an former Willie Mays' quote that Johnson'south peculiarly addicted of: "For all its gentility, its nearly leisurely pace, baseball game is violence under wraps."

The same sentiment could exist applied to Johnson's songwriting. There'due south a beautiful darkness to his lyricism that seeks out some lost American pastime, fever dream epiphanies encrypted with scholarly sophistication. Having studied literature at the University of North Texas in Denton, Johnson's versed in the Southern Gothic tradition, with the fractured density of William Faulkner and a sympathy for his characters that recalls Eudora Welty. Information technology's his visceral imagery, however, that's spinous wire.

In "The Fugitives Accept Won," from Centro-matic's 2006 album, Fort Recovery, he retreats backside bitter metaphors ("I could taste the salt from your dishwasher eyes") before landing the haymaker, "You with your beauty and I with my spleen, I'll hitchhike to your blaze in my adapt of gasoline."

And so there's his phonation, as distinct as Springsteen's or Dylan's but in no fashion similar. Information technology'southward worn even so endearing, equal parts devils and grit. In every style, he'due south a songwriter's songwriter. Merely ask effectually.

"He's one of the best writers I know," agrees Jon Dee Graham, who put Johnson in the hot seat for his Jon Dee & Friend residency at the Continental Guild Gallery last month. "He doesn't brownnose. At that place's this sense that he delivers really important messages, that he knows exactly what he'south proverb, only his word pick is merely and so unpredictable. There's nil directly-laced about it. His vocalism is so powerful, like an opera singer in a way. It's such a pure tone that comes from the centre."

"Will's a precious stone," adds Anders Parker, co-producer of Centro-matic's 2003 classic, Love You Simply the Same. "I honey him like a brother. He has a workman'due south attitude to the arts and crafts that I tin actually appreciate."

"He's the kind of songwriter, like Beak Callahan, that everyone should know," furthers swain 2010 Austin City Limits Music Festival performer David Bazan (Pedro the Lion/Headphones), who toured aslope Johnson four years ago in the Undertow Orchestra, a short-lived ensemble that included Mark Eitzel of American Music Club and the belatedly Vic Chesnutt. "What I learned about all of their songwriting – and in the negative about my own – is that they accept uncomplicated yet profound and evocative tunes.

"With Will information technology can be three chords over and over once more, but yous never go sick of hearing information technology or playing it."

Dual Hawks

Johnson vividly remembers the day the parcel arrived, four:30pm. Sent by Son Volt's Jay Farrar for a still-unnamed projection with Anders Parker and Jim James, the priority mailer was filled with photocopies of unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics – some handwritten, others typed out – in various states of unrest. A script in need of a soundtrack.

Spreading the contents out across the kitchen table, Johnson skimmed over the first few pages until the words to "Chorine My Sheba Queen" caught his heart. He began by tinkering with acoustic guitar progressions, juggling the melody with the rhythm of the verses. By iv:50pm, he'd recorded his first scratch version of the song, which will be included on the group's collaborative full-length, tentatively scheduled for release next year.

"To see these scraps of paper, with these incredible lyrics, and out in the margins are little math issues or coffee cup stains, was to get a glimpse of how full of life he was all the time," relates Johnson. "I got to come across the hard testify of his confidence. I was so inspired and enthused to be witness to that."

Such moments of clarity aren't unusual for Johnson. The concept backside South San Gabriel'south opus, The Carlton Chronicles: Not Until the Functioning's Through, struck him in the centre of the night while visiting his family, leading him to write "Predatory King Today" crouched in the cupboard of the guest bedroom.

"Information technology's kind of unpredictable and happens in spurts," acknowledges Johnson, a binge writer in the truest since. "Sometimes it strikes at incredibly inconvenient times, but that's part of the fun – seeing if y'all tin hang on to it or get it downwards on newspaper. You can't sleep on it. No matter how many times you promise yourself you'll wake upwardly and remember it, it won't be the same."

Back in 2005, Johnson estimated he had more 750 unreleased songs stashed away. He's since lost count, relieve for three almost completed albums: a new total-length for Centro-matic, for which he recently completed guitar overdubs; a follow-up to Vultures Wait, featuring stark, acoustic sketches of the more than eccentric figures he crossed paths with while living briefly in Bastrop; and a new collaboration with Bazan and the Kadane brothers of Trance Syndicate's slowcore champions Bedhead.

That's not even including Eros, the succinct appendix to last year'southward Dual Hawks, the double album separate between Centro-matic and South San Gabriel. Released digitally concluding month (shop.centro-matic.com), the 7-song EP blurs the lines betwixt the former's rusted glory and the latter'due south ambience introspection in the violin-plucked whisper of "Christmas '83," cinematic grandeur of "Water four Legs and Lungs," and the Americana reverb reverie "All Night Long." Every bit usual, Johnson'due south already turned that page.

He recently returned from a second leg of his living room bout with Parker and leaves later this month for a European run with Centro-matic. In December he's scheduled to produce Denton's Telegraph Canyon. The aforementioned contained streak runs through Monsters of Folk.

"Without question, we all change the scenery a skillful flake," reflects Johnson. "That's function of what brought Monsters together – a desire to only throw information technology out at that place and meet what happens. I've always felt like that's where good fine art comes from, the willingness to put yourself in a position to either actually pull something off or to totally fail. It's a frail pendulum from twenty-four hours to day, only I think we all find that very exciting and exhilarating."

It all balances out in the end. After all, John­son plays guitar similar a frustrated drummer.

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The Monsters of Folk aid headline the Austin City Limits Festival Sabbatum, October. ix, at the Austin Ventures stage, 6pm.

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Source: https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2010-10-08/the-sound-and-the-fury/

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