Brian Wheat and Groggy Darlin'
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Brian Wheat and Groggy Darlin'

Band Folk Singer/Songwriter

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"It’s a geat album, period, and will likely find its way on my personal end-of-the-year best-of."

Where You Have Been, the debut full-length album from Buffalo’s Brian Wheat & Groggy Darlin’, is not just the finest album released so far in 2007 by a local artist. It’s a geat album, period, and will likely find its way on my personal end-of-the-year best-of. The album seems simple for the first few listens, until the subtly complex arrangements of songs like “If Memory Serves” and “The Days You Would Play” becomes more apparent. Wheat’s bio name-checks Iron and Wine, CCR, Neil Young, and Cake as sonically similar, but I couldn’t help but think of heralded-about Irishman Damien Rice. Wheat’s style is a bit different from Rice’s, showcasing more of a country-rock bent. Both artists rely on sublimely pretty musical textures, but Where You Have Been blows Rice’s latest release, 9, out of the water. Its stunning work so remember the name. Brian Wheat & Groggy Darlin’ clearly have the talent to be huge. - Buffalo Spree, Christopher Schobert 4/07


"Interview/Album Review"

"Wheat sings of the need for community, a sense of place, understanding of "home" and all the comfort and stability these things can offer. Yet, the seasoned, well-traveled troubadour cops to an insatiable wanderlust and a need for the open road in the same breath."

"There's plenty of that wistful, near-stoic acceptance of sadness in the grooves of "Where You Have Been", ..."

"Sparse in instrumentation, earthy in production, the record boasts much of the breathy intimacy displayed by the new vanguard in acoustic alternative music--Iron & Wine comes immediately to mind as a reference point. But in its detailed, subtly ornate arrangements, it avoids the sleepy, aloof, occasionally flat-out boring tendencies of some of the "nu-acoustic" artists. Part of the reason for this is the onion-like layering of the entire presentation--the songs themselves, the savvy production ethic, the striking, stark artwork and album packaging. Most markedly, that multilayering of meaning can be found in Wheat's lyric-writing, which is provocative and poetic without being too precious about it. Balancing such detailed, well-honed lyrics against musical arrangements that both support and elevate their sentiments is one of the great battles of record-making. Many a good record has one or the other. Only the great ones manage both."

"Certainly, "Where You Have Been" comes across as serious music, but there is a loose, unstudied, celebratory aspect to the record as well. Much of that must be attributed to Wheat's musical compatriots in Groggy Darlin', great players Peter Williams on bass, Mark Longolucco on percussion and Peter Gerace on Gutar/banjo) who consistently managed to help make the music interesting without getting in the way of the strong narrative quality ever-present in Wheat's writing."
- Buffalo News, Jeff Miers 3/2/07


"Web blog"

Brian Wheat and Groggy Darlin' are an upstate New York state band that has somehow befriended Chicagoan Rachel Ries. Rachel sings backup on the groups new disc. I'd like to say her involvement makes this a must have but the fact is it's a must have on it's very own merits. The band's debut, Where You Have Been, is being released on March 12. It's a very independent, diy release. In fact it'll be a limited edition run of 500 hand-assembled, hand numbered copies.

The title track, "Where You Have Been" features many of the stringed instruments you'd expect from a modern day blue/newgrass song including violin, banjo, mandolin, upright bass and drums. But thankfully there is this new category of music called "indie folk" where an artist can take the musical acoutremonts of the past and update them with modern lyrics and also more personal, emotional delivery. "On Underneath Your Breath" you get a more straight ahead new-folk number with acoustic guitar and harmonica plus backing vocals by the ever so lovely Rachel Ries."
- Songs: Illinois, Craig Bonnell 3/1/07


""Where You Have Been is the best record produced by Buffalo musicians in 2007""

Brian Wheat & Groggy Darlin’s Where You Have Been is the best record produced by Buffalo musicians in 2007, bar none, a plaintive, haunting record that evokes a simpler world, musically and spiritually. At its prettiest moments—“The Days You Would Play,” […] feels downright cinematic, like the soundtrack to some long-lost Terrence Malick dustbowl epic. The record received near-instant acclaim in Western New York, and Wheat was named best solo artist at Buffalo Spree’s Best of WNY awards. - Buffalo Spree, Christophert Schobert 2008


"Top Ten Bands in Buffalo"

"A consummate storyteller and writer, Wheat creates absorbing songs that have an old-timey feel. He's equally charismatic on record as he is in a live setting"
- WBFO 88.7 FM's Alison Zero on the top ten bands in Buffalo 2008


Discography

2005- Half Little Hold EP (Out of print)
2007- Where You Have Been (Full Length)

official website: www.brianwheatmusic.com
official myspace: www.myspace.com/brianwheat

Photos

Bio

2008 Top Ten Bands in Buffalo - WBFO 88.7 FM's Alison Zero

2007 Best Solo Artist- Best of Western New York; Buffalo Spree Magazine

2007 Nominated Best Acoustic Artist- Artvoice

Having recorded their debut album "Where You Have Been" in a rustic barn converted sound studio, Brian Wheat & Groggy Darlin' speak volumes about progress in juxtaposition to history and how one defines a sense of place in an ever expanding and quickening culture. Rooted in the once prosperous city of Buffalo, Brian Wheat and the boys know a thing or two about appreciation for the past, as well as drive for constant improvement and exploration. The graceful nature with which these colossal and seemingly polarized notions are handled by Brian Wheat and Groggy Darlin' is a force that exudes from their subtly transcendent music.

In casual conversation, Brian Wheat is a man who pauses occasionally, carefully pondering each
exchanged word before responding. Similarly, his songwriting demonstrates fascinating detail that
surpasses simple storytelling, and delves into patient studies of the emotional context surrounding a
moment. It is clear that the strong sense of community that exists in Buffalo, NY, his current roost,
has manifested itself in the themes of home and human connection that pervade his work.

In his youngest years Wheat spent his childhood in a small Upstate New York town where he yearned
for a broader scope and greater diversity, but also developed a deep admiration for the tradition and
intimacy of a close-knit community. However, despite learning the virtue of being rooted, Brian has
not been one to stand still. Somewhere in between he has performed at Moroccan festivals, busked in
Spain, played for room and board at Australian hostels, shared folk songs with Fijian natives, earned
degrees in biology and education, and perfected the art of the falafel as a short-order cook. Wheat’s
desire to combine mobility and exploration, and a need for intimate connection, rings clear throughout
his current and continually growing body of work.

Fortified with a dynamic, evocative voice and songs that float with both a secular religion of home and
the architecture of ghostly pasts, Wheat blends the immediately tangible with an elusive sense of the
enduring. Being influenced by the distinctive songwriting of groups like Cake, Creedence Clearwater
Revival, Iron and Wine, and Neil Young, there is a refreshing reality to Wheat’s music; revealing
layered continuums of experience, rather than clean, simplified absolutes. You can expect to be
carefully ushered through a place suspended somewhere between modernity and bygone eras,
without the risk of being trapped in either of the two.
Wheat has also developed an extraordinary ability to combine his impressive
guitar, banjo, and harmonica chops with a keen knowledge of how and
when (and when not) to employ them in service of a song.

Accompanying this subtle phrasing is his band Groggy Darlin’, an all-star cast of Western
New York music veterans. Bassist Peter Williams, multi-instrumentalist
Peter Gerace, and drummer Mark Longolucco map out the peaks and
valleys that define the music’s weathered landscapes and consistently
complement Wheat’s rare ability to bring a crowded room to an attentive
silence. Together, they create music that is at once earthy, refined, organic,
melodic, and perfectly suited for the time-honored format and progressive
delivery that is characteristic of Wheat’s songwriting.

The band’s moving live performances, as well as Wheat’s solo works,
have garnered him a diverse and expansive fan base, as well as support
positions for some of today’s most exciting national and international
artists, including Band of Horses (Sub Pop), Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters/Sun Kil
Moon), Hamell on Trial (Righteous Babe Records), David Dondero (Team
Love), Olde Tyme Relijun (K Records), Rachel Ries (Waterbug), Robert Blake
(Same Room Records), and Ember Swift (Few’ll Ignite).