Spotlight: Rick Shaffer

Music Promotion via MusicSubmit.com

Webpage: http://www.TarockMusic.com
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Description: Rick Shaffer’s album, “Hidden Charms,” continues, expands, and nicely follows-up the feel of his first solo album, “Necessary Illusion,” released March of 2010.
Biography: Rick Shaffer is the founding member of the Philadelphia, PA band, The Reds™, whose first album on A&M, entitled "The Reds," is a combination of textures dense with electronic chaos brought to the edge of madness, then resolved into piercing clarity. The album, produced by David Kershenbaum, showed the band's impressive sound . . . a blend of Rick Shaffer's guitar and Bruce Cohen's keyboards into an interestingly textured drone, short guitar and keyboard figures, rising then disappearing back into the drone, while Shaffer's voice provides the punch and definition for their overall sound. The album was supported with live appearances with such diverse acts as The Police, Joe Jackson, Blondie, The Ramones, The Psychedelic Furs, and Public Image. "The Reds" was followed by an A&M EP, featuring The Doors song, "Break On Through," which suggests some of the band's roots. After leaving A&M, The Reds went forward with two independent albums, "Stronger Silence" and "Fatal Slide" (Stony Plain/RCA), that continued The Reds™ sound, receiving critical acclaim internationally. They next recorded a tense and powerful album for Sire/WB entitled, "Shake Appeal," produced by Mike Thorne (Blur, Soft Cell, Wire). This forcible record led the band to work with director/producer, Michael Mann. Mann incorporated numerous Reds songs into episodes of Miami Vice, and was so impressed with the impact of the songs he hired Shaffer and Cohen to write songs and score for two motion pictures, "Band Of The Hand" (Tri-Star) and "Manhunter" (De Laurentiis), based on the novel "Red Dragon." Soundtrack albums from both films were released on MCA, and a “Manhunter” CD (with an added Reds track, “Jogger’s Stakeout”), was released by Intrada Records, March 2010. Some solo projects for Shaffer at this time included recording guitar tracks on a Marianne Faithfull album (Island); Hilly Kristal's, "Mad Mordechai" (Stereo Society); Peter Murphy's, "Holy Smoke" (Beggars Banquet/BMG); and Marc Almond's, "Fantastic Star" (Some Bizarre/Mercury). And, in 2004, Rick was recruited by director, Michael Mann, to write and record, "Looking For Right," for the film, "Collateral." The Reds™ next album, "Cry Tomorrow" (Tarock) reunited them with British producer Mike Thorne. It captures the driving intensity of earlier albums and the ambient, atmospheric feel from their film scores, resulting in a stark, surreal album, with a sense of mood and mystery. The pulsing opening track, "Terror In My Heart," was featured in the film, "Nightmare On Elm Street 2" (New Line), directed by Jack Shoulder. Along with the bone crushing title track, "Cry Tomorrow," a searing non-stop groove of the Stones' "Gimme Shelter," the introduction of various percussive elements, and a diversity of background vocals, all create an experimental and manic energy that reaches inside your head and won't let go. In 2007, the critically acclaimed album, "Fugitives From The Laughing House" (Tarock) was released. Written and produced by The Reds™, the ride starts with the street fighting "Wild" and "Little Cisco," through the hypnotic stroll of "Ringing The Bell" and "Dum Dum Dice," and does not let up until the end with the grinding Dub laced "Gunn's Suicide," and slow death burn of "Can't Bring You Back Again," which feels like a dying man's last breath. "Fugitives From The Laughing House" is a straight forward raw nerve reflection of life in America. In 2008, "Lethal Dose" (track #10) inspired British director, Peter McAdam, to shoot an independent film short, also entitled, Lethal Dose. The Reds™ February 2009 release, "Early Nothing" (Tarock), was also written and produced by Shaffer and Cohen. The album has a hypnotic quality, that leaves the listener free to let their subconscious play itself out, no matter where it goes, while maintaining the simplicity of the moment. With the release of Early Nothing, The Reds™, shamans of dark, brooding, loud rock continue to explore and define their sound. This album inspired McAdam to create a film short of "So Long." Rick Shaffer’s first solo album, “Necessary Illusion” (Tarock 2010) is a ten song neo-sixties, garage blues excursion, with a Joe Meek and Excello Records production style. The album’s sonic signature is a raw, swirl of distorted guitar, atmospheric percussion, stark droning hill country blues, in a mix of “Excello Records” style reverb. Shaffer’s second solo venture, “Hidden Charms” (Tarock 2011), continues, expands, and nicely follows-up the feel of “Necessary Illusion.” The idea is to have the album sound new and old simultaneously, allowing it to find it’s place in a radio mix from 1965 and beyond. The sonic blueprint is a proto–garage rock/blues, distorted guitar, with melodies buried beneath a mash-up of unadulterated garage vibe. Inspired by Link Wray’s Swan Singles Collection, early Stones, and heavy doses of Mississippi Hill Country Blues Bop. The basic track sound is a simple, but steady primitive hypnotic beat and percussion, ultra distorted guitar, and aggressive raw vocals with intense personal lyric content. Shaffer is currently in the studio writing and recording material for his third solo venture, scheduled for release Spring 2012. Visit TarockMusic.com for lots of additional info and album reviews.
Press Release: “Hidden Charms” • Rick Shaffer (Tarock Music TM-CD6) Rick Shaffer’s album, “Hidden Charms,” continues, expands, and nicely follows-up the feel of his first solo album, “Necessary Illusion,” released March of 2010. The idea is to have the album sound new and old simultaneously, allowing it to find it’s place in a radio mix from 1965 and beyond. The sonic blueprint for “Hidden Charms” is a proto–garage rock/blues, heavenly distorted guitar, with melodies buried beneath a mash-up of unadulterated garage vibe. Inspired by Link Wray’s Swan Singles Collection, early Stones, and heavy doses of Mississippi Hill Country Blues Bop. The basic track sound is a simple, but steady primitive hypnotic beat and percussion, ultra distorted guitar, and aggressive raw vocals with intense personal lyric content. The opener ”No Big Thing” is a short and fast rocker in the mold of 1964-65 Stones’ r&b years, with some hyperactive fuzz-toned guitar, jangle tambourine, stroll-backbeat and a frantic pschobilly vocal, where the message is no matter what comes at you “ain’t no big thing.” “Buy and Sell” has a reverb soaked guitar hook, oversaturated riffs, driving Maureen Tucker drum beat, a subdued confessional lead vocal, with Leon & Les contributing some nice mid 60’s cool with their background vocals. This song has one of the more catchy hooks, and is a true candidate for a single. “Shadow Line” is a stripped-down smooth chugging rocker, with thick atmospherics that burn with a quiet intensity, exploding in the middle, then resolved in the end refrain. This track explores and defines much of the lyrical content of the album, one of standing up for bad luck, mistakes, wrong choices, and most importantly, living in the moment. Thank you Joseph Conrad. “Nobody Home” has some thick, heavy “Mojo Raunch” going on, with a bluesy delta tremolo riff, and gravelly vocal. Laid down straight up with tambourine, snare drum and guitar, a Hill Country stomp, with a bass and tremolo overdub. This track has a Jesse May Hemphill/Howlin’ Wolf vibe inside a wall of distortion. “Crime Of Love” is a great minor key R&B rocker in the vein of the Otis Rush hit, “Homework,” with a driving backbeat and jangle tambourines, “Premier Reverberation” guitar hook, combined with a soulful twisting vocal hook. The theme of this track . . . how much murder is the result of lying, cheating and jealously . . . “still be goin’ on.“ “Cruel World” was recorded in the Mississippi Hill Country, with the rhythm section of Leon Wingfield and Les Chishom, who also kicked in some vocals on this one. A slide number with deep-throated vocal delivery, about the ever present “killer on the highway,” set to a pumping, insistent riff (a nod to The Yardbirds and Mick Ronson), with a savage slide part, to have the song exist raw and pure in it’s form. “Breakin’ Down” has a slow, bluesy, loose, laidback groove set to a white noise boogie guitar background, with a two-step bass/drum hop, slinking slide guitar, a pleading, desperate vocal conjuring up visions of the freefall breakdown on many levels, and the unspoken “gentleman’s agreement” that allows it to exist . . . “politics, religion . . . only steal when they can.” On the track “Gonna Shout” the original menace arrives with feedback, banging drum and percussion, followed by a psychotic distorted guitar riff weaving it’s way throughout the song, with slashing guitar counter punches, and a hyped up vocal in a paranoid claustrophobic garage power pop song, accompanied by the most nasty “goonish” background vocals. “Tight Like That” is a classic Stonesy/Chuck Berry riff, against a caustic grinding sleazy groove guitar, with a loose, soulful vocal. A middle slide section, and sharp fuzzed out guitar, interplay on the breakdown that grabs and smashes you against the wall. It’s a fantastic driving song . . . imagine a convertible, wind blowing over you, an empty highway ahead and “Tight Like That” playing fucking loud. “The Stranger” has violent dreamlike Sergio Leone/Alejandro Jodorowsky imagery, married to a driving John Lee Hooker blood splattered groove, a primal howl with murderous lyrics that take it to it’s logical extreme. The track fades and sinks into your head with the closing line, “time ain’t on my side.” For your listening pleasure, the Guy Stevens Producer Manuel was used in full compliance in the making of this album . . . made loud to be played loud . . . turn it the hell up. Visit TarockMusic.com to read reviews of Hidden Charms.