Music
From 2009 until 2014, I played in a band (Columbia, Mo.-based Richard the Lionhearted) and booked shows, did PR and social media (fliers, interviews, radio, digital media, outreach) and produced and engineered albums for our band and others in the Columbia, Mo., St. Louis and Nashville areas. RTL put out one full-length LP and four EPs, two of which are available online. I produced and engineered the four EPs and helped produced the LP. Below are the digital versions, as well as a list of the shows I booked and/or played in, and some press write-ups about us.
RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED – TWO-BIT STRANGERS (EP) [2013]
Credits: Producer, Engineer, Mixing/Mastering, Keys, Vocals, Percussion
RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED – OUTLIERS (EP) [2012]
Credits: Producer, Engineer, Mixing/Mastering, Keys, Vocals, Guitar, Percussion
RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED – (SELF TITLED) (LP) [2010]
Credits: Producer, Keys, Vocals, Guitar, Percussion
DAYTROTTER SESSION — RELEASED MARCH 1, 2013
Our Daytrotter session is up. Four brand new songs from our next record for your listening and downloading pleasure. HERE.
Out Here in the Craziness of the Heartland
“In the middle of the Richard The Lionhearted song, “High Noon,” there’s a line about a summer sun scorching the land. It’s a drought. The drought’s on. The cattle herd is looking gaunt. The creek beds are dry and gray. You can jump across all of them, with ease.
The Columbia, Missouri, band creates this scorcher of an environment. They build this place that’s going to have to buckle down if it wants to survive. It’s this place without air conditioning, where you wake up sticking to your sheets, where there’s nothing you can do to possibly keep the houseplants alive. The dog’s whimpering and most every heart is fading, trying to conserve and work normally on a resting heart rate, just to make it through, just to survive.
These feel like the hallucinations of a Midwesterner, for sure, for the man who’s got hardly anything and who still doesn’t have much of a problem with it. Out here, where everything’s bone dry, where everyone’s hurting, there are so many cheap beers to choose from that it just doesn’t matter. You don’t have to scratch your eyes out with craziness. You can just keep going. You’re going to keep walking the sides of the roads, barely missing getting hit by oncoming traffic that’s whooshing by without regard for life.”
Words by Sean Moeller // Session Engineered by Mike Gentry // Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Recorded 1.20.13 // Released 3.1.13 // Daytrotter.com
PAST SHOWS:
6.22.13 – Boreal Hills, Rusty Maples, Moonrunner – The Blue Note – Columbia, Missouri
6.21.13 – Boreal Hills, Rusty Maples – The Heavy Anchor – St. Louis, Missouri
5.28.13 – Blank Range, Josh Farrow – The Stone Fox – Nashville, TN
5.26.13 – 3-hour set – The Wharf – Orange Beach, AL
5.25.13 – 3-hour night set – The Wharf – Orange Beach, AL
5.25.13 – 3-hour afternoon set – Flipper’s – Orange Beach, AL
5.11.13 – The ACB’s, Bald Eagle, Brett Gretzky, Curtain Co. – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
3.8.13 – Hair Hole Electric Funeral Fest w/ EVERYONE – The Hairhole – Columbia, Missouri
2.17.13 – Country Mice, ST Carrel and the Sad Bastards – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
2.2.13 – Boreal Hills, Blank Range – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
2.1.13 – Blank Range, Boreal Hills – The Heavy Anchor – St. Louis, Missouri
1.20.13 – Daytrotter – Rock Island, Illinois
1.19.13 – Boreal Hills, The Nevermores – The Way Out Club – St. Louis, Missouri
1.19.13 – In-Store at Euclid Records (3 pm) – St. Louis, Missouri
10.20.12 – Boreal Hills, The Woodsmiths – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
9.21.12 – Roots ‘n Blues Afterparty w/ Lord Huron, Believers – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
9.15.12 – Elbo Room – Chicago, IL
8.11.12 – Enemy Airship, Jowlz, GOLD – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
8.10.12 – Mornin’ Old Sport – Lalaland – Fayetteville, Arkansas
8.9.12 – Flipper’s – Orange Beach, Alabama
8.8.12 – Flipper’s – Orange Beach, Alabama
8.7.12 – Opiate Eyes, Good Vibes – Burro Bar – Jacksonville, Florida
8.6.12 – Ghost Lights, Bridge Under Fire – Smith’s Olde Bar – Atlanta, Georgia
8.5.12 – Boreal Hills, No Regrets Coyote, Blank Range – Springwater – Nashville, Tennessee
8.4.12 – Boreal Hills – Highlands Tap Room – Louisville, Kentucky
7.9.12 – Snake Island, 3 Moons, Max Garcia-Rubio – Hairhole – Columbia, Missouri
5.15.12 – Kopecky Family Band – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
3.24.12 – Johnny Crawdad’s Birthday Bash – The Musty Funker- Nashville, Tennessee
3.23.12 – Quichenight, Blank Range, Seashell Radio, Calicocat – The End – Nashville, Tennessee
3.15.12 – Nature Boys, Swearin’, The Spit – The Hairhole – Columbia, Missouri
3.1 – 3.14.12 – Busking at True/False Film Festival – Columbia, Missouri
2.18.12 – Fullbloods, Millions of Boys, Jared Tomasino – The Brick – Kansas City, Missouri
2.18.12 – True/False Volunteer Summit – Columbia, Missouri
12.9.11 – Enemy Airship, Cabin Sessions – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
12.3.11 – Boreal Hills, Penny Marvel – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
10.6.11 – Quailskin, Guillermo Sexo – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
9.31.11 – Boreal Hills – Trailerspace Records – Austin, Texas
9.30.11 – Boreal Hills – Spill’s on Sixth – Austin, Texas
9.29.11 – Boreal Hills – Blinn College – Brenham, Texas
9.16.11 – Youth Lagoon, Kid Counselor – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
7.5.11 – Jessica Lea Mayfield, Ferraby Lionheart – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
6.19.11 – Red Line Tap – Chicago, Illinois
6.18.11 – Apollo Heights, Metric Gnomes – K&M – Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
6.17.11 – Party Xpo – Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York
6.16.11 – Dastardly – Rough Draft Records (26 Poland St.) – Portland, Maine
6.13.11 – All Asia – Cambridge, Massachusetts
6.12.11 – Fat Baby – Lower East Side, NYC
6.3.11 – Other Lives – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
5.20.11 – Jerusalem and the Starbaskets last show of tour, Believers – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
3.18.11 – Believers – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
3.12.11 – 35 Conferette Showcase w/ O’Death, Western Skies, Danny Rush & the DD’s – The Labb – Denton, Texas
3.11.11 – Paperstain 35 Conferette Day Show #1 – 503 W Sycamore – Denton, Texas
3.4 / 3.5 / 3.6.11 – True/False Film Festival – Ragtag Cinema – Columbia, Missouri
2.23.11 – Tapes n’ Tapes, Oberhofer – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
2.22.11 – Wakarusa Winter Classic – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
2.5.11 – Cover band benefit [as The Doors] – The Blue Note – Columbia, Missouri
1.29.11 – Boreal Hills, Scooter Libido – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
12.17.10 – Album release party with Jerusalem and the Starbaskets, Boreal Hills – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
12.4.10 – Scott Lucas and the Married Men – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
11.2.10 – KCOU 88.1 FM Presents: Joan of Arc, Nonreturner – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
10.23.10 – Jerusalem and the Starbaskets, Boreal Hills – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
8.26.10 – Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Jerusalem and the Starbaskets, Motobeacon – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
7.10.10 – Eli the Ice Man, Andre and the Giants – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
6.5.10 – Cantalouper, The Passion, Honest Engines, Paulie – The Blue Note – Columbia, Missouri
4.29.10 – MoonRunner, Al Holliday and the Lucky Stars, Derek Nelson and the Musicians – The Blue Note – Columbia, Missouri
4.10.10 – Malone, The Cotton Mollies – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
3.17.10 – The Loneliest Monk, Nonreturner – The Blue Fugue – Columbia, Missouri
3.6.10 – Boreal Hills, Le Monster Delicate – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
2.16.10 – Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
1.22.10 – Boreal Hills, Scooter Libido – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
11.7.09 – The Foundry Field Recordings, Chris Canipe (of Malone) – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
11.3.09 – The Allgorithms – Mangia Italiano – St. Louis, Missouri
10.30.09 – The Allgorithms – The Bank – Hermann, Missouri
10.23.09 – Cheezmatron – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
10.15.09 – The Shaky Hands, Cantalouper – Mojo’s – Columbia, Missouri
9.18.09 – Boreal Hills, The Leafy Greens – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
8.8.09 – Malone, Mitya – Eastside Tavern – Columbia, Missouri
8.1.09 – Jerusalem and the Starbaskets, Jeffrey James and the Haul – Café Berlin – Columbia, Missouri
PRESS:
Richard the Lionhearted Continues its Art-Rock Crusade With Fine EP
By Aarik Danielsen, originally published 9 August 2012 by the Columbia Daily Tribune.
The moment when you hear a band beginning to set itself apart is a special one. Richard the Lionhearted is on the cusp of such a breakthrough. The Columbia quintet’s collective star is rising, having warmed audiences waiting for nationally known acts such as Tapes ‘N Tapes, Other Lives and Jessica Lea Mayfield and releasing quality tracks that showcase the band’s progress as artists. The group’s current jaunt is meant to bolster the EP, “Outliers,” that it released earlier this year.
The six songs found on this basement recording are intricate yet intimate, angular but also acutely human, expanding and contracting, slowing and speeding up in a way that mimics the very rhythms of living and breathing. In a sense, the band’s sound was born before its members were, drawing deep from wells of psychedelic rock and cosmic-minded country sounds that were dug in the 1970s. Yet these local heirs to the throne of all things mod, moody and melodic deftly pass their retro-fied sonic penchants through the eye of a modern-rock needle.
The record’s bookends, “Miss Smith” and “Leaving,” are snapshots, albeit sprawling ones, of what the band does well. The former is dark and dreamy, with just a hint of the ominous. The band mixes ambient soundscapes with foretastes of funk in a way that is positively Floyd-ian. The latter is a jangly art-rock boogie, its ambling rhythms and purring bass guitar thinly masking the longing that’s all tangled up in the lyrics and vocal line.
The four tracks that make up the EP’s middle add shades of soul and exhibit the band’s range. “The Ballad of Bobby and Suzilee” is marked by its highs and lows, which come in the form of chiming instrumental melodies and a nimble, pulsing bass line that binds the shuffling rhythms and sleepy-eyed yet sonorous vocals between. “Your Dress” is a sublime, stoner country chantey reminiscent of The Roadside Graves or a less precise version of Lambchop.
“St. Petersburg” is a winding, ethereal ballad written at the place where The National and My Morning Jacket intersect, and “The Last Outlaw” is fuzzy, buzzy, noisy and muddy in all the right ways. The promise of bigger things is inherent in Richard the Lionhearted’s sound, yet it seems wise to enjoy this moment as the band begins making its name known and its voice heard.
These Local Bands are Poised to Enjoy a Big 2012
Originally published 5 January 2012 by the Columbia Daily Tribune.
“In her story today on page 3, contributor Emily Adams identified some of the qualities that make Columbia singer-songwriter Rae Fitzgerald an artist to keep an eye on in 2012. Fitzgerald isn’t the only local act poised to have a strong year. These artists aren’t merely on the horizon — they’re already here, ready to deliver the goods.
Richard the Lionhearted: This quintet is only billowing art-rock fires it already has started, building on a 2011 that saw the band play with the likes of Tapes ’N Tapes, Other Lives, Jessica Lea Mayfield and Jerusalem and the Starbaskets as well as add sonic verve to the True/False Film Fest. The group’s self-appointed labels are all unconventional, forward-thinking compound terms, as if the band is playing a style of music that hasn’t actually been invented yet — the group is, by turns, “Space Country,” “HyperPsych,” “Rocket Blues” and “Future Folk.” According to the band’s Facebook page, its members have written almost an entire album’s worth of new material, which they’ve been releasing into the atmosphere in two-song blocks via the band’s website at richardthelionhearted.bandcamp.com. Initial tracks reveal melodic, moody guitars, British Invasion-era backbeats, creative time changes and surprisingly soulful crooning.”
Local powerhouse triad come together at Mojo’s
Originally published 19 May 2011 by the Columbia Daily Tribune.
“It’s a fortuitous season to be a music lover in Columbia. The soil of the local scene seems to be offering up some unabashedly original music for those who want to pluck it up, and tomorrow’s show at Mojo’s is one juicy batch of produce. Three bands — Jerusalem and the Starbaskets, Richard the Lionhearted, and Believers — will take their place on the Mojo’s stage.
Richard the Lionhearted has a dark-alt-rock-country-folk sound — although that’s a classification born out of the inability to pigeonhole the band. Perhaps it could be described as rockabilly-meets-Pink Floyd. Moody but full of texture and distortion,
the dirty, chugging rhythms are offset by strong, Southern-tinged vocals and other faintly eerie harmonies. Richard the Lionhearted
formed in 2009, issuing its first full-length album of the same name in late 2010 — after two EPs, no less — and hitting the local tour circuit hard with more than 30 shows to its name. The effort is clearly paying off for the six-member [sic] outfit.”
Richard the Lionhearted – Richard the Lionhearted (LP)
Originally published April 2011 by antimusic.com
“This band hails from the heartland of America but much of their music has shadings of the west coast or the desert southwest. They’re not exactly cowboys on acid but a generous amount of psychedelia informs their music, like on “My My My” where a hazy sound puts Richard the Lionhearted on the same path that the Meat Puppets never tire of exploring, or on “Ain’t Been Straight,” a folk-rocker that channels the cosmic Americana first brought to life by the Grateful Dead on albums like American Beauty andWorkingman’s Dead. “Badlands” borrows the galloping rhythm of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and lopes madly through the hills with it like they’re late for a meeting with Crazy Horse (the band, not the warrior chief) and “Son House,” appropriately enough, is a slow Delta boogie with an eerie aura, like it’s floating in from a distant radio station that you’re lucky enough to catch for a few miles as you ramble down some forlorn highway. And really that’s the deal with this whole album; it doesn’t take too much scrutiny to realize there’s something special going on here. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Kyle Wayne Stewart clearly has a fondness for the full range of earthy sounds that make up the Americana genre and a bent towards the new psychedelic folk movement, all of which results in music that, likened to talking to a favored old friend, is both full of warmth and intellectually stimulating.”
TRUE TALENT: Buskers, bands bring real-life resonance to True/False Film Fest
Originally published March 2011 by the Columbia Daily Tribune
“Secret weapons. That’s what the True/False Film Fest labels the buskers and bands that adorn and amplify the weekend-long documentary-viewing experience it has provided Columbians each of the last eight years. Anyone who has born witness to the splendid spectacle knows these musicians do not merely exist as palette-cleansers between films — they truly bring another dimension, intimately, joyfully and artistically, to the festival…
So, below are five bands whose sounds should have you keeping your eyes peeled throughout the weekend….
Richard the Lionhearted: Members of Columbia outfit Richard the Lionhearted have sublimely submerged themselves in various musical pools — alt-country, shoegaze, gray-sky Brit-rock, psychedelia — and emerged with a strong, visionary sound. The band rightly dubbed its approach “textured and moody,” putting listeners on notice with a sequence of solid demos— that sold out within months — and a proper, self-titled December 2010 release. Within its first 18 months as a band, Richard the Lionhearted has opened for Tapes ‘n Tapes, Scott Lucas and the Married Men and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, further reinforcing the band’s ability to fit within a variety of rock and alternative contexts while maintaining a sound it has cemented in a relatively short time.”
Richard the Lionhearted Live at Forrest Rose Park
Originally published September 2010 by Livin’ Life in the Midwest
“Richard The Lionhearted was the second opener for Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin at Forrest Rose Park. I had never even heard of the band, much less the music, so I didn’t know what to expect. They hit the stage with two guitars, bass, key boards, drums, and an extra percussionist that played things like a washboard and another tom from what I could see. All and all they played a solid set and were tight as a band, which does not always happen with the “local” opening bands. At the time of the show the most interesting part of their show were the vocals. While they did appear to have a lead singer, he almost always had at least one person in the band harmonizing with him, which resulted in a rather interesting sonic vibe. When the songs had a faster tempo the harmony gave the song more of a campfire sing along feel, which is very noticeable in the songs My, My, My, You’ve Heard That One Before, and O’ California. The slower tempo songs actually had a very monkish feel to my ears most notable on songs like Ain’t Been Straight, Son House, and Adieu. I am not sure if the change in vocal style varied depending on who was singing lead, I was back by the soundboard and it was hard to see who was leading the vocals on each song, or if the lead singer just changes his style more than most based on the tempo of the song. Even after mixing I still don’t know, but I do like the variety; and I like the fact that the harmony builds up the lyrics, but doesn’t make them sweet.
So now I have to try and describe the sound of Richard the Lionhearted. They say they are Rock/Folk/Country, and I definitely hear all of these components in the music. I would say they have a good Rock Country sound on some tracks that hearkens to, say, a CCR, but the majority of the music has a moody and textured darkness that is more 120 minutes and less Country Brunch…what you do get are well crafted songs full of dark harmonies and bit of country flair that is well worth sitting down and digesting.”