Davenport (band)
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| DavenportWITHHOLDING | |
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| Image:DavenportWITHHOLDING48146.jpg DavenportWITHHOLDING
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Madison, Wisconsin, USA |
| Genre(s) | Free Country |
| Years active | 2001 – present |
| Label(s) | 23 Productions, others |
| Members | |
| Clay Ruby and whomever (see article) | |
Davenport (also referred to as The Davenport Family)is a musical collective from Madison, Wisconsin. The project was initiated and is shepherded by Clay Ruby. Their musical style, difficult to categorize, owes more to freeform jazz, psychedelic rock, and experimental avant-garde music than to traditional folk music, and may be loosely attributed to such genres as free folk, psych folk, freak-folk, acid folk, wyrd folk or New Weird America.
The recordings and performances usually include varying combinations of acoustic instruments, hand-held percussion, cheap electronics, vocals, and what have you. Ranging from mildly sedative to tribal and bombastic. Live the music is almost always improvised, but even in the studio the recordings sometimes sound as if some stranger with a recording device had just happened upon an arcane and obscure ritual.
The group is noted for shunning the recording studio, preferring field recording in locations such as barns, caves, or pastures. Consequently, environmental sounds such as dogs barking, birds singing, and other ambient noise may be heard on record. Though most early materials are recordings of improvised rituals, a few early releases do include composed pieces recorded in the studio.
The group was unusually prolific in terms of number of titles released in the first years of their career, but most (though not all) of their records were pressed in small runs of limited availability on CDR's lathe cut records and cassettes. Many of these titles were recordings of live actions or intimate recordings of family rituals. In 2005 "Free Country" CD was released by Last Visible Dog marking their first official studio album.
"Free Country" was soon followed by the infamously cursed self titled vinyl LP featuring half studio and half live workings. Just preceding "Free Country" was an unusual recording experiment that Clay Ruby conducted alone on a handheld recording device that had no erase head. This meant Ruby could overdub continuously onto what he had previously recorded but he was unable to monitor anything while actually recording. This resulting cassette, filled with fractured folk songs and mutant environmental psychedelia became "Rabbits Foot Propellor" CD on Three Lobed Recordings. Their very last jam with mask of the davenport clan on their faces, free-form improvisational folk performed on walpurgis, clay rubys birthday by clay ruby, t endless, woodman, johnny d, billy lee, nico kain, Aaron Laurant, Tyler Olson was released by Meudiademorte in October 2006 on a one sided C70 cassette called "At The Foot Of Zodiac Mountain.
Clay Ruby is present on all of the recordings with a revolving lineup of members including Nico Kain, Tony Endless, John Gould, db Pederson, Dan Woodman, Nic Stage, Tyler Olson, Theresa Behnen, iam Lee, and many others. Though most all early releases list them simply as Davenport, because of their shifting personnel and connections to members and other bands throughout rural Wisconsin and beyond, the project also now goes by name the Davenport Family.
Contents |
[edit] Discography
[edit] Davenport / The Davenport Family
(Earliest to most recent)
- Davenport — self titled CDR limited to 20 copies (23 Productions, catalog #23CD0122))
- Springtime on Saturnalia — 3" CDR (Pseudo Arcana)
- Live 12.11.03 — self titled cassette limited to 23 copies (23 Productions)
- Little Howling Jubilee — 3" CDR (267-Lattajjaa)
- Loki's War 4.6.04 — CDR limited to 18 copiesΨ (23 Productions, catalog #23CS600212)
- Free Country — CDR limited to 93 copies (Foxglove)
- Sun Your Open Mouth 5.18.04 — CDR limited to 41 copiesΨ (23 Productions, catalog #23CD0220)
- Davenport / Maths Balance Volumes (split) — CDR limited to 50 copiesΨ (23 Productions, catalog #23CD0302)
- Davenport / Son of Earth (split) — CDRΨ (23 Productions, catalog #23CD0305)
- O, Too High Ditty for My Simple Rhyme — CDR (Time Lag)
- Owl Movement 8.11.04 — CDR limited to 50 copiesΨ (23 Productions, catalog #23CD0304)
- Davenport / Seen Through (split) — CDR (Haamumaa)
- The Weakest Link Can Pull the Heavy Load Out of the Blues and Onto the Road — CDR limited to 100 copiesΨ (23 Productions, catalog #23CD0309)
- Camp Bliss (The Davenport Family split between Davenport, Jesus Balls, the Lamb Called Light, and Clay's Festering Lungs) — cassette (Polyamory)
- Push 'em Back — CDR limited to 100 copiesΨ (23 Productions, catalog #23CD0314)
- Davenport / Leannan Sith (split) — cassette limited to 50 copies (23 Productions, catalog #23CS400317)
- Davenport / Mumber Toes (split) — cassette limited to 22 copies (23 Productions, catalog #3CS600316 / Backbacon Records)
- Marble Seed — CDR (Jyrk)
- Tongue of Bear CDR limited to 100 copies — (Nature Tape Limb / 23 Productions, catalog #23CD0313)
- Bucolic Pigtics — CDR (Imvated)
- Starry connection of diminishing returns — CDR (Audiobot)
- Split w/ James Blackshaw — CDR (Static Records)
- Maho Hanging Greyface — CDR limited to 50 copies (Paha Porvari)
- Field Tales (The Davenport Family) — 2 x CDR limited to 123 copies (Haamumaa / 23 Productions, catalog #23CD0321)
- Wulfcult Rising — cassetteΨ edition of 50 (777 was 666)
- The Davenport Family Boxset — 5 x 3" CDR limited to 101 copies (23 Productions, catalog# 23CD0403)
- Heavy Weather / Pistol Whipped Blues — 7" lathe limited to 5 copies (Life is Rough)
- The Hands of Worm Heaven — CDR limited edition of 217 (Time Lag)
- Rabbit's Foot Propeller — CD (Three Lobed Records)
- Free Country — CD (Last Visible Dog)
- self titled — 12" LP (vinyl editions: 323 red, 50 black, 100+ defective pink/orange mix)(Not Not Fun)
- Davenport Family — At the Foot of Zodiac Mountain one sided c70 cassette limited to 230 copies ( Meudiademorte, catalog mddm#22))
Ψ = later reissued on cassette
[edit] Clay Ruby solo releases
- "the Uneven Path" self released cdr demo
- For Lyx Ish (Clay Ruby / Nic Stage split) — cassette limited to 1 copy (23 Productions, catalog #23CS300208) (N.B.: current location of this cassette is unknown.)
- Wake for the Wakest cassette limited to 23 copies (23 Productions, catalog #23CS250218)
- "Hymn Alone" on V/A - "new skin for the old ceremony" CDR (Polyamory)
[edit] Compilations
- "harm in case" on Klang Spectrum 2: A Madison Underground Compilation — CDR (23 Productions)
- excerpt from "O, too high ditty..." on Pasture Music Festival and Jubilee compilation — 2 x CDR (23 Productions)
- "Can i fib Ian?" and "Can i fib Ian again?" on Animal Power Magic (Nature Tape Limb)
- "the long walk towards the gateless gate" on Sounds Surrounds Us Volume 2 — 2 x CDR (musicyourmindwillloveyou)
