David Ford strikes me as a man with better things to do.

Perhaps not at the moment I was talking to him. He was on the road in Idaho, en route to a show in Salt Lake City, when we battled our way through cell phone connectivity issues and spent a few moments discussing music and all the things that seem to come part and parcel with today’s music industry. But like I said, he’s got better things to do. Like, say, writing and performing music.

Ford’s been a working musician in Great Britain for more than a decade, and has even seen some measure of success as part of the band Easyworld. Since 2004, he’s been a solo artist, and has been steadily gaining fans in the United States, among them Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. He has toured with Ray LaMontagne, Suzanne Vega, Sara Bareilles (in April 2008) and Augustana (this month), and in June will be touring with Aimee Mann. (All of his summer tour dates are available in the OFTV events calendar.) His latest album, Songs For The Road, was released last year and is available for download on iTunes.

I first heard of Ford thanks to Kired over at Cursed Monkey Paw, and I was immediately struck by the honesty and sheer musicality of his songs. No pop songs, these, although they could easily do well in a better musical atmosphere than the current music industry. Therefore, I thought he’d be a perfect fit for our readership here — we’re all tired of the current music industry, yes?

Here is the utterly enjoyable and admittedly most “pop” song from Ford’s Songs For The Road, “Decimate”. As Ford says, “It’s a positive song about inviting someone to lay all their problems on you, to take their hardships and lighten their load, wanting everything to be OK. It’s kind of like a love song.” The video, I think, is also the most “pop” of the videos I’ve seen.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

More representative of both Ford’s music and his videos is “State of the Union”. The video was shot live, in one take, with one camera. “It’s a challenging thing to keep it interesting without relying on clever editing and cuts,” he says. “There’s a sense of realness as well, you’re actually watching a moment in time that happens as you see it.”

The song uses what seems to be his trademark, his “sound looping” technique. Watch as he picks up each instrument, then puts it down — the sound keeps going on an infinite loop, the same sound, same chords, over and over again until he changes it. Ford tells me he has “no musical theory at all”, which is not uncommon among incredibly creative musicians. They don’t have The Rules holding them down, they work by instinct, and they end up creating the most incredible sounds and techniques. I do have the theory, however, so I will tell you that this is something like a modified drone, although one that is quite dependent on the technology now available.

One of the reasons Ford uses this technique is because he is a solo artist and it is convenient to use technology for this purpose. Also, “it’s visually interesting, and more challenging for me as well, using the machines live… challenging myself as a solo performer to get as much out of the performance as I can.” It’s the modern equivalent to the old one-man-band, but much, much cooler.

“State of the Union” on YouTube

So watching this, you start to wonder: how many instruments does this man play? Well, quite a few, but with many it’s only enough to get the sound he wants. “There’s a point in music where you get it enough to be able to pick most things up a bit,” says Ford. “I’m not a great banjo player actually, but I like to have a go and get involved. I quite like the fact that for me, everything’s like a little journey.”

As plenty of wise men (and women, of course) have said before, life is all about the journey. Ford’s journey seems to be never ending. When I asked what his plans were after this summer’s tour, he answered, “Vacation, and then another tour, and another tour, and another tour.” That’s the hallmark of a musician who is in it for the music, of course, always thinking ahead to the next opportunity to perform. And of course, vacation usually means time off the road to compose the next album.

What Ford does not spend a lot of time thinking about is his own promotion. “My job is being a musician, and I’m lucky enough to have people whose job it is to… promote what I do. I shouldn’t attempt to promote my own work; the promotion of your work should never influence the input of your work. I want to spend all my energies on creating the best music that I can.” In a time when it seems that there are millions of bands out there promoting themselves because they can’t get professional support, Ford is very lucky indeed to have the support of people who are web-savvy enough to be posting his videos on YouTube, maintaining a MySpace page and a Facebook group, and (thanks so much!) making it easy for blogs like OFTV to do an interview.

Of course, it’s all about the approach you take to the music. We spent several minutes discussing the state of music today, and how in pop music, “The music itself is the final element of a campaign, like launching a new brand of chocolate bar. You have your commercial, your project, your packaging, your demographic,” Ford explains. Then someone says, “‘I guess we need a song’ … and you write a piece of manufactured shit and that becomes your song.”

Ford exists in a parallel universe to that approach. “I wouldn’t want to cross the line and start thinking about that. If you do have any kind of propensity for being an artist, you should make art. If no one likes it, then no one likes it. If they like it, they like it.” This is sort of the if you build it, they will come approach to music. The result is honesty in the music — honesty that attracts people who are looking for more from music than a good beat, and you can dance to it.

If you’re looking for more than superficial noise and a glossy package, there’s nothing more honest (or painful!) than “I Don’t Care What You Call Me”.

I, for one, am eager to follow David Ford on his musical journey.

Would you like a FREE copy of David Ford’s Songs for the Road CD? The first three readers to email Alicia at alicia@oneforthevault.com (with your complete mailing address) will win!

For those who like instant gratification, you can purchase Songs for the Road on iTunes using the link below.

Our first spotlight is on the band SPOONFUL JAMES based in Auburn, AL

After a journey that included three cds and opening gigs for the Allman Brothers Band,  Little Feat,  Gov’t Mule,  Buddy Miles, and The Jerry Garcia Band, unfortunate circumstances forced Spoonful James to make the tough decision to split up.  Lucky for us,  they found their way back to each other.  This is the story of how the current band came together. 

Wynn Christian, Taylor Hicks, Quinn Borland and Patrick Lunceford. Photo courtesy Elizabeth Borland.

 PART ONE:  The story of Spoonful James

Spoonful’s history from bass player Quinn Borland:

The band is myself, Wynn Christian (lead vocals/guitars), Eric Baath (piano/organ), and Patrick Lunceford (drums).  The band started back in 1996 with  Wynn Christian and me.  We were actually in a band in high school called  “March of the Fishers Wives”.  Terrible name, I know.  We had a real brainy guy in the band and he’d just read some Russian revolt story or something.  Anyways, we both ended up going to Auburn University and started playing acoustic for a while, until we had some original songs under our belt.  We formed Spoonful as a trio, adding Lee Vartanian on drums.  We cut our first album (self-titled), in 1997 and it is currently out of print and vaulted (for good reason).   All I can say is, it was a good stepping stone for us.

After this, we started touring around the southeast for a few years and this is about the time we met Taylor Hicks, Clay Connor, John Cook, Bill and Wes Williams and the whole crew you know and love today.   We all became friends fairly quickly and would stay up ’til the wee hours watching my collection of old concerts.  Rick’s Music in Macon had a HUGE archive of old footage, and for $20 you could get 120 minutes of any concert you wanted.  Needless to say, we spent everything we made every time we played in Macon.  This is where Taylor got to see Sam & Dave/Otis Redding for the first time live on video.  He still asks me for copies of that.

We started gaining popularity and cut our second album in Hueytown, AL, titled “Leave That Door Open”.  We had just opened for Buddy Miles of the Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys in Tallahassee, FL and during our set Buddy liked our music so much,  he made security keep his door open so he could listen, hence, “Leave That Door Open”.  Eventually we became great friends and got him on our next album, ”7 Mile Breakdown”.

We had met Patrick when he was with Taylor’s band, Passing Through.  At the time we had Jay Knorr on drums, who recorded on “Leave That Door Open”.  We parted ways with Jay after the album and picked up Patrick.  Lucky for us, Passing Through was dissolving at the same time, so it worked out for everybody.  I must say, Patrick is hands down the best drummer I have ever palyed with.  

At one point, we and some of Passing Through, Iratowns, and Highly Kind formed the supergroup known as “Fletch Lives”.  Taylor sang lead, of course, and at one point people started paying us outrageous amounts of money, even though combined we only knew about 8 songs.  With 8-10 members, we knew it couldn’t last too long, and due to previous band commitments we were only able to keep it together for a few months.  Our proudest moment came at the Florabama,  when the managers told us to stop playing or we would start a riot.  Good times!

After this we picked up a few different organ players and eventually got back in touch with Eric Baath.  I knew him from my freshman year at Auburn, where I was a member of his band, “Soul Patch”,  before Wynn and I started writing together.  This guy is awesome.  He actually flew back from Germany to do the opening gigs for Taylor’s last tour.  Total dedication, great guy.  Our music has been coined “Southern Fried,  hard driving, original rock & roll.  That kind of stuck and I like it!

Eric Baath. Photo courtesy Wes Williams.

Check out Spoonful James at www.Myspace.com/Spoonfuljames and at www.cdbaby.com

 Coming soon……Part 2 :  Interview with Quinn Borland

Photo Credits: Spoonful James and Taylor Hicks courtesy Elizabeth Borland; Eric Baath courtesy Wes Williams.