Vine(yl) Club #4 - Joseph Arthur "Vacancy"

I can’t believe that we actually have this piece of vinyl in our possession! This is something that I have dreamed of for years, but never had the vehicle to drive it to reality, so to speak...until now! Our amazing VINE(YL) Club has allowed me to reach out to artists, friends, and music labels and to request new albums, out of print albums, and a few that have never seen vinyl.  This release is one of the latter! Folks, let me introduce you to my all-time favorite singer-songwriter, Joseph Arthur, and his incredible LP titled “Vacancy”.

Journey back a bit with me here. In the mid 90’s, I was listening to EVERYTHING, thanks to my incredible group of musician friends in Seattle. My buddy Scott Smith introduced me to a few titles off of Peter Gabriel’s label Real World Records. Peter was scouring the globe looking for interesting and groundbreaking musicians from every corner of the earth. Make yourself familiar with the label, especially some of my favorite titles like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s “Night Song” (an incredible collaboration with Michael Brook…it’s mesmerizing), and also Geoffrey Oryema’s “Beat the Border”, amongst others. But I digress, we’re talking about Joseph Arthur here… Peter Gabriel discovered Joe by way of a friend in Atlanta who sent a tape of Joe’s to the Real World offices. Peter heard the tape, called the phone number that was on the tape, and left Joe a message on his answering machine. The rest, we say, is history. Joe signed with Real World, and released Big City Secrets, one of my top 5 all-time favorite albums. During the recording process for his follow up album, “Come To Where I’m From”, Joe was fervently writing, and in the Fall of 1998, some of those songs were brought to the infamous Sound City Studio in LA (see the music documentary called Sound City, it is amazing) with T-Bone Burnett at the helms as the recording engineer. Joe had SO MUCH material, that he peeled off some songs to release “Vacancy” before “Come To Where I’m From” (that came out in 2000).   

The album takes a decidedly left turn from the polished and layered Big City Secrets (Peter had a ton of talent that he put together to accompany Joe for that album). Vacancy, on the other hand, is a stripped down, echo-y, raw version of Joe’s incredible songwriting and lyrics, laid bare for all to hear and feel. Joe plays most of the instruments on the album with the exception of accomplished drummer Carla Azar (Jack White, John Doe, John Frusciante, and so much more), and we get a guest appearance from Joan Osborne on guitar for the song “Crying on Sunday”. The album is not overproduced, and in many ways sounds like it could have been recorded in Joe’s living room. Especially the closing track “Toxic Angel”. It is just pure magic. Close your eyes, listen to that gorgeous guitar, his poetic lyrics, and the most haunting harmonica….pure magic. It was built for a cold and rainy day.

AND, as a bonus, I taped a 45 minute Zoom call with Joe to talk about the album, his history before Real World Records, and music philosophy in general! You can watch/listen to this zoom call by clicking on this link which leads to a dropbox file with the video! I got to fanboy a bit with Joe and it was such a rush for me to chat with him! Enjoy the interview! (around 10:25 into the interview, he drops out for about 30 seconds so stick with it!)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nos76lvbjkpz206/video1149590953.mp4?dl=0

Sincerely, 

Trey