I am your master.

Sealed for freshness.

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale.

Briscoe Gig #1
Saturday in Design 20/08/11
w/ Kate Gogarty and Ben Walsh

yes, i have a student melodica.

Kate (our pianologist) works for a company that puts on aesthetically pleasing events in unexpected places and gets excellent bands to play at them. Hence this sweet design exhibition at a carpet tile showroom featuring Briscoe.

This was, as far as I was concerned, the ideal first gig scenario for a few reasons.

Reason 1: It was a stripped down line-up - only me on acoustic, Jacob on electric and Dave on bass. Fewer instruments means less potential for gut-wrenching technical f*%k-ups, fewer gut-wrenching technical f*%k-ups means reduced risk of teary-eyed post-gig instrument incineration.

Reason 2: I got to sit down. I have never played a gig standing. I’ve either been drumming or keysing, always seated, so this was a welcome transitional opportunity. I am actually nervous about standing- i once strapped on a guitar in a Kid C rehearsal and Ray pissed himself laughing. "You only move from the waist up", he said, before launching into a withering (and dickish) imitation of me-as-inflatable car-yard noodle man. This shame was branded into the rump of my self-confidence that day and it's been festering there ever since. If Ray hadn’t done so much to build my confidence up in other ways i’d probably still be sore about this.

Reason 3: It was (kinda) anonymous. Aside from a few creepy Briscoe stalkers, no one there knew us from pile of carpet tiles. This was good because personally, I had no idea how shit or otherwise I was going to be at fronting a band. I still have no idea really, but i at least know now that i can get through 30 minutes of frontmanship without spewing everywhere and offending everyone. This was an important revelation for me.

Thanks to all the aforementioned stalker-types who made it despite my attempted cover-up job, in the end we were stoked that you managed to hack my email account to be there. We're playing in this format again in Canberra in September – the 24th at Phoenix. Dusker and Ranger Spacey will be playing too so DEF worth a road trip. Look at me! Promoting gigs like we are a real band!*

SETLIST 20/08/11:
The New Tragedy
Someone’s Wall
Triggers
Uh Oh. Mexico
Philadelphia Shangri-La
Break My Word
One Man Show feat. Student Melodica
Animal


*we are a real band.

Monday, May 30 2011... almost.

Briscoe. the album on compact disc, in all its pre-mp3ed glory

1.12am tracklist

The Mixing Process pt 2.

Luke Bertoz (left) of guitar sound on 'Animal':
"Sounds like angels pissing in my ears"

dave & kate listen in disgust to luke's simile

Sewell, music.

 

_

The Mixing Process.

Here is respected producer and engineer Luke Bertoz, sliding around on thai takeout menus to the tune of Briscoe song, B.O.T.S.

_

In memory of The Times.

_

The Times, or Be like Bruce.

Floundering/rocking.

On Monday night, I tried to record "The Times", the ninth and final song for the album. With Dave and Kate overseas, and the rest of the songs nearing mixedness, time is running out to get this one recorded. After clearing it with bandmates, I decided to play it all myself with the help of my friend and Ranger Spacey bandmate Karl, who offered his work's warehouse as a venue. This aligned nicely with my ongoing pursuit of ever-higher levels Bruce Springsteenissitude (Born in the USA was recorded in a converted factory called the Powerstation), so after work on Monday, i set up a makeshift studio there to record this last song.

I didn't realise, however, that Karl's unassuming IT warehouse in the back streets of Marrickville adjoins Boeing's Australiasian turbine testing plant on one side and CERN's southern hemisphere large hadron colliding facility on the other. These are assumptions i made based on my analysis of the loud droning sound that persisted all freakin night. This was fail #1.

Editing the turbine solo.

Fail #2 was that i had only demoed this song acoustically and hadn't really given a lot of thought to a drums/bass/guitar arrangement. There was a lot of tense floundering going on as i tried to write parts on the run... I was even considering changing the key of the song to accommodate the droning. It was becoming obvious that a more developed demo was the only thing we were going to get out of this session.

This is probably not how Bruce did it.

Realer than real.

Just a quick note in the interests of clarification: Jacob Sewell is a real person. Jacob, who can be seen here in the act of existing, plays guitar in Briscoe. Tales of his past may contain space/time inconsistencies and supernatural exaggeration but i assure you he exists.

Thank you.

Sleepwalking 1986

This review appeared in Rolling Rock, October 1986     

SLEEPWALKING 
Jacob and the Denizens 
Boz-Line Records 

Review by Hank Toupein 

Sleepwalking, the latest offering from the interminably prolific Jacob Sewell, sees him team up again with atmospheric Missouri acid jazz ensemble the Denizens. The almost universal criticism levelled at their last release, 1985’s By Night, was the under-utilisation of saxophonist Manny Blonheim. This cannot be said of Sleepwalking though as Manny’s soprano sax weaves a constant web around Jacob’s falsetto exhortations. Add to that the production of jazz rock maestro Boz Scaggs, and this album was always going to outstrip its predecessor. 

Although there are several poppier cuts here like Circling the Block, Cool Poison and The Night Arrived, this album’s strength lies in its sprawling sax-driven instrumentals. Taxi Driver which opens the record, takes you on a tour of the city’s seedy underbelly, your guide - the soprano saxophone, while Leave Me Where You Found Me has Jacob’s silky Stratocaster playing counterpoint to Blonheim’s unbearably smooth alto, set against a soundscape of mellow funk and inner city street atmos. 

However, as silly as this may sound, the real high point of the record is the only track without saxophone! Title track Sleepwalking recalls the slick minimal funk of Boz Scaggs’s Lowdown, and manages to impress despite its complete lack of woodwind. It has a high-hat heavy rhythm, scantily clad with intermittent guitar and electric piano and Jacob’s sparse falsetto telling the tale of a city in moral decline. Could this instant classic be a harbinger of an approaching saxless pop epoch? This reviewer seriously doubts it, but the glorious aberration that is this title track serves as testament to Jacob and his Denizens’ pop funk acid jazz acumen. 



7.5 Stars

See more of Jacob's back catalogue HERE