1. Big Guns
2. Come To Find
3. Expanding Universe
4. TV With
5. Local Rock Show
6. Buddy Miller
7. Before I’ve Had 3
8. Except You
9. I Miss You
10. Something Important
11. Hadn’t Told Her So
12. Aliens
13. Missouri

14. In The Red (2010)
15. Here With Me (2000)
16. Night From Day (2006)
17. Don’t Go Away (2002)
18. Big Guns (2011)

If you’d like a copy, let me know.
Best,
-Joe

Seth Pendergrass (drums) is an old homeschool compadre & when he & his buddy Ben taught me some Cream in his folks’ basement in the mid ’90s it was the first time I’d played with anyone else. I wasn’t any good & they weren’t impressed. I can’t really go on about how he contributed a lot of sweat & blood to this record because for Seth a couple studio sessions of pop tunes was a piece of cake. But I’ve been meaning to borrow his skills for 15 years so I’m glad to check that off the bucket list.

Greg MacNair (violin) plays on all my records. He sounds really good but as an added bonus, he doesn’t need to practice. I play him the song & then hit record & he plays the song. It’s a joy to work with him because he does all the work & makes it look like play.

Maggie Clements (BGVs) has a super pro voice — she was perfect as Emmylou on my Buddy Miller tune. I really appreciate her sitting in & lending some harmony.

Tim Rakel (banjo) is a St Louis rockstar with a half dozen bands to his name, as well as his own radio show on KDHX. In addition to pursuing the fine crafts of songwriting & a half dozen instruments, the man has a sense of history, a rare thing indeed.

Sean Canan (guitar) is an honest working musician, which says a lot about his musicianship. His ace axe work carries & defines the two songs he played on.

Walter Wroughton (bass) is a fine woodsmith, especially when the wood is a bass guitar. Sometimes a keyboard bass just doesn’t cut it & you need the real thing. After years of seeing him play with the Ottomen it was a treat to welcome him to my living room.

Susannah Eisenbraun (BGVs): what a cool voice & what fun to have close company on this little adventure.

Best,
-Joe

Selected Short Works

Singer-songwriter Joe Eisenbraun re-mains a mostly unknown figure around town who plays a show only every month or two – even though the solid, varied LP Selected Short Works marks his fifteenth release since 2001. The dude clearly has Bob Pollard-esque depths to plumb, but his talent justifies this prodigious output. Eisenbraun writes sharp, catchy songs that display wit and heart in equal measure, as they vacillate between nervy power-pop and pensive folk-rock. “To See You Again” pulses with new-wave energy and sounds like a lost Knack song, and “History” crunches along with a few nods to Cheap Trick. “Soft Rock Radio” is a highlight among the stripped-down numbers, marked by a circular banjo pattern and light drums, as Eisenbraun ruminates on the long-gone simplicity of grade-school love.

Like Billy Bragg’s similarly minded Talking with the Taxman About Poetry, marriage is a focus of many of these tunes. Opener “Diamonds, Diapers & Property” considers the weight of family life and fiscal responsibility amid twangy guitar and wheezy organ chords. Things get darker (and funnier) with “The Day I Married Her,” which finds a beleaguered husband looking back on 30 years of domestic blisters. The chorus, which states “If I killed her the day I married her, I’d be out of jail by now,” is sure to be a favorite with fans of murder ballads and wry irony alike. A little too snarky for alt-country and a little too wistful for indie-rock, Eisenbraun finds a comfortable middle ground in between genres.

- Christian Schaeffer