Suit of Nettles

backcover

12 paintings each related to a song on the album ‘Suit of Nettles’ (Listen on Bandcamp at http://trailerstar.bandcamp.com) .

Drawing on American South Folk Art and contemporary ‘Modern Folk’ artists like Daniel Johnston and Margaret Kilgallen.

As the Professor from Derby said ” this is not naive art..this is knowingly done” ..it takes a lot of knowledge to paint this simply…although some didn’t agree…

“Liked most of the artwork except the Shaun Belcher works as I felt my 5 year old could do better paintings that that. I couldnt see the point in it.”
Anonymous comment on Lincoln show


linc.jpg

Released October 1st 2008
Listen to full album in player from bandcamp

[bandcamp width=350 height=470 album=2988597567 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false]

please email Trailerstar Records here

EMAIL

The actual CD was released as a limited edition Art Package of 100 at £5.00 GB pounds each (7 Euros) including packaging available from Trailerstar Records

suitad

Now available in luxurious Cassette Tape format only @ £5.00 7 euros plus P&P

cassette

 

The story of the songs…

Some of these songs were written in 1995 whilst I was living in Edinburgh and were typed out on an old typewriter…

1995.jpg

Title Page: Song Lyrics 1995

At the time I had no means of recording songs so this a bit of archival retrieval…

I distinctly remember playing Whiskey Road at a Edinburgh Songwriters Competition and being pissed off that they couldn’t see I was the new Steve Earle! Turned out competition was rigged later which no consolation…..It took me over ten years to be in a position to record them properly…

They were re-recorded in 2007 on to an 8-track TOA professional cassette recorder then transferred to minidisc and then PC. Then tidied up (mostly) in Audacity before converting to MP3.

Other songs are more recent e.g. Scarecrow Grave, Broke Down and Firework Factory.

Mostly written 2003-4 and recorded direct to TOA.

Here a review from May 2008 in Songs Illinois. (now no longer online)

Chuffed to bits to be included in Songs Illinois music blog ( one of the best in my opinion)

This is what they had to say…see full entry ( alongside Ron Sexsmith…one of my heroes how cool is that :-)

http://www.songsillinois.net

I’m always talking the talk about over-produced records and how something lofi is usually ultimately more satisfying. Well today we walk the walk with the new record from Trailer Star aka Shaun Belcher. This arrived unannounced in my inbox by way of England. Shaun Belcher is a singer songwriter along the lines of our own Jim White. That means he’s concerned with sin and salvation and creates folk music that has a southern gothic feel to it. To go along with the music Shaun creates original artwork that is clearly influenced by the folk art of the deep south. Here’s his song “Firework Factory” and the artwork that goes with it.Suit of Nettles is the new record and the limited edition cd can be purchased here.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.