Rickolus' double LP, Troubadour, is out tomorrow on on Circle Into Square but you can stream both Troubadour Roads and Troubadour Towns now!
Inspired by a passage from Joseph Campbell's "The Power Of Myth", Rickolus' Troubadour is an album about love as the highest spiritual experience and specifically Richard Colado's (aka Rickolus) love for his wife. It is a recounting of a love that grew longer while the cigarettes grew shorter, while the four track recordings piled up.
At the beginning of the writing process forTroubadour, Colado had a hard time deciding whether to write metaphorically or literally about his marriage. It was a mess from the start, but in true Rickolus form he jumped in and learned how to swim. Lyrically, Colado decided to make an abstract collage of pictures of his wife that he keeps in his head, instead of trying to paint a portrait of them that was more easily recognizable. Upon finishing those songs however, he felt like they were too abstract to really represent their relationship fully.
Asking his muse what to do, she set herself to the task of listening to the mountain of demos he'd recorded. After a brief amount of listening, she returned with a list that had only a few songs marked off and said "you have two albums". The two of them split them up between acoustic and electric songs, thus making Troubadour a double album.
Rickolus still feels like the album is still kind of a mess but, that in itself, represents love better then a condensed ten song album ever could. Since when was love tight, concise and clear? We've all known it to be a complete, fucking beautiful mess!Troubadour is out October 29th, 2013 on Circle Into Square Records.
Rickolus was born in a sand dune and raised in the sparse pines of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. His father, an Army brat who lived in 22 states and 5 foreign countries before the age of 11, was the waiter at a beach side taco stand that was shaped like a sombrero when he met a dark haired Cajun Gypsy from the outskirts of New Orleans. Two weeks later they were married. Eight and half months later, Rickolus came out feet first into the world, almost dying in the process, saved by the life guard's quick thinking and quicker scapulae. He still wears the scar to remind him of the day he'd never forget, if it were a day he was old enough to remember.
The summer of his sophomore year, Rickolus wandered into the Pablo Nine Movie Theater and didn't wander out until the last sliver of silver screen was burned to ash and sent westward on an ocean breeze. He followed the ashes to another theater house, checked in and has yet to check out. Rickolus started scooping popcorn, moving quickly to a toy broom and butler. He found himself alone in a theater, sang along with the credits, reading each person's name in a chorus of half notes. Rickolus was the last film projectionist in Florida. When everything went digital, he broke down the last movie late on a Thursday night, then threw all the xenon bulbs off the roof and watched them explode against the pavement.
He married young, fathered a child and taught her to draw before he taught her to talk. He stashed over 1,000 illustrated conversations into a military foot locker, mostly about guinea pigs and doodles to pass the ketchup. His wife was a dark haired beauty, not unlike his mother. They met at a juice bar. They flirted in a King's courtyard. Fell in love in a hurricane. She sang quietly in traffic, danced with a broom. She argued over bottles of whiskey and made sure the coffee was brewed before the first knotty head fell off the pillow in the morning. She drew the families fortunes in charcoal flip books, painted portraits from photographs.
Rickolus had a guitar at age 7, learned every song in the Ritchie Valens catalog by age 8. He taught himself the piano, Bach and "Chopsticks" in D minor. He recorded an album a day for 13 years in a green shed, 4,748 albums. Most albums will never be heard.
He started a one man band, played run down bars with low ceilings. Played outdoor concerts. Went on tour and cleared the Bone Zone. He played empty fields, full cemeteries, and bleating petting zoos. He wrote songs on the spot, he dismantled guitars and deconstructed drum kits. He wrote "Youngster", an album from an old man about the youth he spent and wasted away on cigarettes and long drives."Coyote and Mule" was a return to the green shed's four track recording. His soon to be released "Troubadour" is a double-album ode to his wife and to his marriage.
Press for 2012's Rickolus release, Coyote and Mule:
"The sounds float on the surface of tongue-in-cheek playfulness and when that smiling moment of buoyancy passes, you sink deeper to the heart of the music and instantly begin to appreciate the arrangements of simple instrumentation, melody, and voice." The Owl Mag
"A smart, well-furnished batch of songs that thankfully sound unique from one another – Coyote And Mule deserves a space in your day." Sunset In The Rearview
"Richard Colado (a.k.a. Rickolus) sounds something like a cross between Guided By Voices, Grandaddy, and Sparklehorse. His jangly pop tunes some more like passionately executed sketches than carefully rendered musical ideas, but that's exactly the soil from which Rickolus' charm grows." Mixtape Muse
"Homemade, self-produced (he played everything) and full of sonic variety, Coyote And Mule fits right into the tradition of one-man-band visionaries like Sparklehorse and Badly Drawn Boy." When You Motor Away
"Keen songwriting and passionate instrumentation have always resulted in deliciousness, but Rickolus brings his own brand of seasoning to the table. A classic updated to perfection." SYFFAL
"Coyote & Mule continues Ricks tradition of writing fantastic shy, shuffly, indie rock that's bound to break big at some point. It has to. His ability to make the girls swoon and the guys jealous is a credit to his songwriting ability and his star power. Rickolus proves that nice guys can finish first and it's about time the rest of the world realized it to." Pop Stereo
No comments:
Post a Comment