Notes
Singer Songwriter Sam Knutson kut his teeth in the skate parks and four-H buildins of rural Iowa playing Hard Core in the late eighties. Recorded scads of songs for a tape only label (Homespun)through the middle 90s and made his first real record in 1997: Mudfence Turnaround. Toured in the Midwest and Northwest and started work on Shame Train and the Devil's Square Quilt in 1999. The players on the recording (and in the band) harken from all styles and scads of known bands or other songwriters: Bassist Marty Christiansen toured europe with Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey, Bassist Wes Phillips played in Indi Super Rock Group Speed of Sauce, Keyboardist Accordianist Nathan Basinger currently plays in The Diplomats of Solid Sound, and plays on more jazz and blues records than could be mensioned and he's only 24, Guitarist Randall Davis has been playing rock and roll and classic country since the late eighties and came into his own on this disk, Drummer Jon Crawford has also played in a multitude of jazz and art rock groups. The conglomeration creates an unpeggable and great sound unlike any other and recognizeably important to alternative country music,and independent music everywhere. Indie Label MUDFENCE MUSIC released the disk to radio and press like a slow leak throughout late 2001 and 2002 after it's completion in July of 2001, and it has received airplay throughout the US Canada and Northern eaurope throughout this year (2002). See reviews in Sing Out Magazine, No Depression, Jim Musser's Column in the Daily Iowan, The Little Village, ICON... The list goes on and on. The record is loved for it's aproach to certain styles of music without becoming those styles. It rocks. It's a quiet accoustic live record in some places. It has straight up twang and drinkin' tunes. And things that could live comfortably amidst indi rock college radio bands greatest hits. It's all over and all around good.
