Son of '76 and The Watchmen

Struggles, Love & Hope
by B.J. Huchtemann

Songs of struggle, love, hope and redemption swell the tracks of Letters from Shangri-La, the third CD from Son of 76 & The Watchmen. Frontman Josh Hoyer is also an occasional contributor to The Reader. On the final track, “Tiny Broken Hearts” Hoyer sings “all these tiny broken hearts they grow so full / Sometimes I feel like it’s all coming together / All these crooked roads could have been the right ones I suppose.”

That snippet from the final song on the disc gives you a sense of the heart within Hoyer’s music. His songwriting ranges from character stories that would be at home in the repertoires of James McMurtry or Dave Alvin, to more intimate songs of searching and hope that echo the themes of Jon Dee Graham.

With a wealth of influences from low-fi band Morphine to Tom Waits and Graham, along with classic R&B and New Orleans’ blues and jazz, particularly the great Dr. John, Hoyer’s new music is excellent. It’s sometimes feverish and troubled, but always passionate, beautiful and searching. He’s not afraid of social commentary, but he also wants the listener to dance and celebrate.

Hoyer’s strong soul voice puts him among the top vocalists in the metro. His band is an expert group of players who put the right stuff into every song. The band members are Werner Althaus on various guitars, Luke Sticka on rhythm and acoustic guitar, Justin G.
Jones on drums, Brian Morrow on bass and Nick Semrad on keys. Add Hoyer’s ever-maturing songwriting to the mix and Son of 76 & The Watchmen remains one of the top bands in the Omaha-Lincoln area in this writer’s opinion. From ferocious rocking grooves to sweet, tender ballads, they’re as good as many national acts and better than quite a few bands out on the road these days. The band stepped up the production work for this disc. Althaus recorded most of the tracks in his home studio, but mixing was done by
veteran A.J. Mogis (A.R.C. Studios); mastering by Doug Van Sloan at Focus Mastering.

Hear some sample tracks from the new disc at myspace.com/sonof76. Hear the real deal this Friday, June 11, 8 p.m. at Lincoln’s Bourbon Theatre, 1415 O St. The CD release show begins at 8 p.m. and features the band’s friends the Tijuana Gigolos, Omaha’s Brad Hoshaw & The Seven Deadlies and The Killigans. Note, The Killigans play the final slot, so don’t come too late or you’ll miss Son of 76. Admission is a bargain $6 for the 18+ show. Those under 18 can be admitted if accompanied by a parent.

If you miss this Friday’s CD release, you can catch them in the 11:30 a.m. slot at the Celebrate Lincoln Festival June 18. Hoyer has an Omaha release party planned for Thursday, July 1, at The Waiting Room, and the band also gigs July 3, at Harrah’s.
- The Reader

Last Friday, Son of '76 and the Watchmen hit the Zoo Bar stage for an FAC gig. Rather than play its usual set, the band started with "Wash Over Me," the first song on its new CD.

Seventy-two minutes later, Josh Hoyer thrust his right arm up and down with the rhythm and threw himself into the vocals, wrapping up the majestic "Tiny Broken Hearts." The band had played the entirety of "Letters from Shangri-La."

That would be enough for most musicians. Not Hoyer.

Fifteen minutes after playing the album, the band came back for another, shorter set. Then Hoyer packed up and headed to Meadowlark Coffee, where he played upright piano and sang for awhile. Then it was back to the Zoo to play piano with Magic Slim.

"When he's got a good band and gets to the right place, it's something special, man," Hoyer said.

A player's player, Hoyer also handles saxophone duties for the Tijuana Gigolos, plays in the Zoo's Open Mic Band with Kris Lager and Levi William, and works with Lil' Slim, Magic Slim's bluesman son.

"I make a living playing music in town, except for three days a week bartending," Hoyer said. "So it's possible to do it."

These days, Son of '76 and the Watchmen is Hoyer's primary interest, especially because he used much of his savings to record and press "Letters from Shangri-La."

The disc is crammed full of 75 minutes of music (as much as a CD can hold) and features a wide range of songs: ones that sound like Tom Waits, an Irish tune, some blues, a couple cuts that with a little rearrangement could be country songs, the New Orleans-saturated title cut and piano-drenched Americana rock that brings to mind the best of Bruce Hornsby.

Hoyer said the eclectic roots mixture comes from the sounds in his head. Guitarist Werner Althaus, who co-produced the album with Hoyer, views the combination of styles a little differently.

"What style do you play? You're concentrating on creating something and the style is irrelevant," Althaus said. "What makes it special is always there, no matter what the style of music is. It's not a variety band. It's done for the reason to create a moment."

That moment is about the songs, which have literary lyrics about, among other topics: big box stores wiping away mom-and-pop community life, growing up a "Starkweather Son," leaving a female friend at her door when she wanted more than friendship, revisiting New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the Kris Kristofferson-esque "Outside Lookin' In" view of Whiteclay.

"On the album, there are songs that are personal experience and songs that are observational," Hoyer said. "The observational tunes are from my travels. I took Highway 61 down to New Orleans. Instead of taking a lot of pictures, I try to remember what I've seen and put it into a song and share it with other people. I've always liked songs that paint a picture in your mind, take you somewhere, let you feel what someone else is feeling."

Hoyer, a Lincoln native who has a journalism degree from UNL, put together Son of '76, named for his birth year, in 2005 after several years leading another band, Electric Soul Method.

"Luke Sticka (guitarist) stuck with me from that band and I started writing new stuff," Hoyer said. "Now I listen to that band and it sounds like elevator jazz."

Given his involvement with so many bands, musicians and venues, it's not surprising that Hoyer's been a key player in the Lincoln is a Music City effort, an idea he conjured up after the trip to New Orleans, where local musicians play multiple venues night after night and are strongly supported by the community.

"The Lincoln is a Music City thing, our group isn't deluded," he said. "We know Nashville, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Austin are music cities. It was a cart-before-the-horse thing. To bring people together, show that this is good and get people to know they might be missing something and come out."

Friday at the Bourbon Theatre, Son of '76 and the Watchmen will play "Letters from Shangri-La" again at a CD release party that fits with Hoyer's musical philosophy. He's invited three groups, the Tijuana Gigolos, Omaha's Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies and The Killigans, to share the stage that night.

"This is all about showcasing my favorite bands," Hoyer said. "We're one of them. I love my band. It's all about having a party."

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/KentWolgamott. - Lincoln Journal Star

Posted by Marq Manner on Thursday, July 1, 2010

Lincoln’s Son Of 76 and the Watchmen are having their Omaha CD release party this Thursday, July 1, at the Waiting Room Lounge. Son Of 76 is Josh Hoyer, Luke Sticka, Brian Morrow, Nick Semrad, Justin G. Jones and Werner Althous.

I mention their names because music fans that follow artists and projects involving extremely proficient musicians are more than likely familiar with some, if not all of these guys. Many of Son Of 76’s band members play in other projects and are Lincoln’s version of bands like Satchel Grande, Midwest Dilemma, Platte River Rain and It’s True. Son Of 76 doesn’t necessarily sound like those bands, but the comparison is because musicians these days can’t seem to keep their instruments in their cases, and many seem to have open marriages.

This band has been embraced by the Omaha and Lincoln blues crowds because, if any younger band epitomizes the future of that sound, it’s Son Of 76. This is not to say they are a blues band. I would throw out Tom Waits, Van Morrison and some old-school soul music as references way before I would a pure blues band. Americana, soul, blues, a little bit o’ jazz, some crooner, and a dash of many other things come out in the mix on their newest album, Letters From Shangri La. It’s all pure in its delivery, and that is what music fans are attaching themselves to with this band and this album.

It’s not just blues fans, either. Vocalist Hoyer has been a force in the promotion of Lincoln’s entire music scene, a scene that is known for its eclectic taste in music both new and classic. So around Lincoln they are getting support from many places and ages. The band’s CD release party in Lincoln at the Bourbon Theater a few weeks ago, with support from Brad Hoshaw & The Seven Deadlies, was a busy affair with a reported 300-plus in attendance.

Hoyer’s blue-eyed soul vocals also need to be pointed out. There are few in town that can match him. He is not the only game in that style in the area, but he has a unique throaty and gritty yet very smooth style that can only be replicated by a few afore mentioned legends. This is a Lincoln band that Omaha should really take a look at. The band will be performing with a solid opening card of the Kris Lager Band and the Matt Cox Band. Should be one of the finer nights of music in town in quite some time. - Shout Omaha

Artist: Son of ’76 & the Watchmen
Title: Letters from Shangri-La
Writer: Rick Galusha
Rating: 7

“Letters from Shangri-La” is the latest release from the Nebraska based roots rock band, ‘Son of ’76 & the Watchmen.’ Debut albums often tend to be a “kitchen sink” affair where the band throws in years of songwriting creating an album of mixed styles, multiple themes and influences. That this is the third album from the band only adds to their genre defying mystic. Unfocused albums require more interactive listening and since an uncommitted fan is, at best, a passive listener, this album does not unfold itself easily to the ear.

Led by Josh Hoyer’s rootsy barenecked vocals, the album includes songs with a hint of New Orleans (Katrina Revisited), a harkening of Ireland (Annie’s Heart), Roy Orbinson (The Moon) and an Americana base that transcends defined categories; think of Tom Waits fronting the Outlaws singing Dave Alvin material from the ‘Blackjack David’ period. Because of the length, 15 songs, the album can easily lose the listener as it jumps from style to style. This is an album that will challenge the listener’s commitment to wait, listen and find the beauty that lies within.

Hoyer uses the album to sing about two of the region’s darkest themes.

On his 1982 release, ‘Nebraska’ Bruce Springsteen sang of a mass murder spree in 1958 that spread across Nebraska and into Wyoming. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Charlie Starkweather and accomplice Caril Ann Fugate spread fear across the state as they murdered her family and others. While Springsteen sang from Starkweather’s perspective, Hoyer sings from the perspective of the fictional son of Starkweather. It is a harkening to the dust bowl song theme of criminals and hero’s. On '
Outside Looking In' Hoyer sings of Nebraska’s shame today: Whiteclay is an unincorporated village of 14 residents with four package stores that peddle 3 to 4 million cans of beer per year to the dry Native American Pine Ridge Indian Reservation's 38,000 residents. Much like the track 'Place I Know,’ from Indigenous, Hoyer sings of the alienation and hopelessness of living amid a Reservation community where alcoholism rates exceed 60% of the adult population.

Devoid of overt catchy pop-tracks, “Shangri-La” leans heavily on the piano tracks of Nicholas Semrad to hold the band’s sound together by moving smoothly behind the lead instruments adding depth and texture.

At its core this is a very good but complex album that does not easily unfold. Anyone willing to invest the effort to experience the immense depth of this record will become acquainted with a true artistic expression that sets aside any pretext towards commercialism. A glance at today’s sonic landscape puts ‘The Watchmen’ in a vein of developing along a line of contemporary music that haunts dingy taverns and make-shift venues aspiring towards an appearance on Austin City Limits. For the true music connoisseur this record will become a precious gem but recognized as such by only a few. The songs are well composed and the musicians bring the songs to life. After numerous listenings the album rises above well above 'regional release quality' to become a solid foundation for national aspiration. Time and again we see maturing artist focus their sound to capture a wider audience. While this tact can build an audience, it is often done at the expense of art.

Being a recovered independent retailer I appreciate the bands, ‘Big Box Store’ track bemoaning the homogenization of America’s small towns and retail landscape. More accomplished radio hosts might focus in on ‘She’s the Kind of Woman’ or the beautiful uptempo ‘Avalee,’ where Hoyer sings to instill hope in a daughter and that she has “got to believe” something better awaits in her future. Should ‘Son of ’76 & the Watchmen ‘ cast aside the comforts of home and hit the road something better may await their future: this is an act with promise and worthy of keeping an eye on. - Pacific Street Blues and Americana

Son of 76 and the Watchmen celebrates Shangri-La.

Lincoln’s Son of 76 and The Watchmen is not a blues band, not that there’s anything wrong with playing the blues.

The Son of 76 himself, Josh Hoyer, sees some advantages to being aligned with the genre. “If you’re called a blues band, blues fans will come out to see you even if you don’t play the blues,” he said.

Conversely, there are those who go out of their way to avoid blues bands, having been burned too many times by the army of Blues Hammer (i.e., “blues rock”) acts that have eroded the genre to something that just barely crosses the line from being a cover band. Hoyer quoted a friend who summed it up this way: ”What went wrong with the blues world is that a bunch of old white guys with day jobs put on bowling shirts and began playing the same Stevie Ray Vaughn covers,” he said. “Blues is a pretty vast genre, but the majority of guys around here are stuck in that world.”

It was my own close-minded take on blues that almost kept me from discovering Hoyer’s band at last year’s Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards (OEAA) summer showcase. Someone had told me they were a straight-up blues act, and I nearly left before they hit the stage. Luckily, I didn’t.

While there are blues overtones to some of their music — thanks in part to Hoyer’s throaty, deep vocal delivery — Son of 76 has more in common with classic American rock acts like Warren Zevon and Springsteen. On their new album, Letters from Shangri-La, the band sways through a plethora of genres, from the piano-driven rock of “She’s the Kind of Woman,” to the Celtic-flavored ballad “Annie’s Heart,” to the NOLA style of the title track, to the doo-wap of “The Moon,” to, yeah, the blues grind of “‘Til She’s Lovin’ Someone Else.” It’s Hoyer’s voice — which lies somewhere between Tom Waits, Dr. John and Elvis — that ties the styles together into something uniquely cinematic, original and thoroughly authentic.

Born in 1976 in Lincoln, Hoyer is a veteran of a number of bands including The Magnificent Seven and Electric Soul Method. While he lived most of his life in the Star City, the music on Shangri-La was inspired by travels throughout the South. “I took a trip down Highway 61 and went to Clarksdale, Mississippi, and a lot of small towns in Louisiana,” he said. “Instead of taking pictures, I remembered what I’d seen and put it into the songs and lyrics.”

But not all of his songs are based on his travels. With the lines, “Well that coward was never a man / Just a scared little boy, with a gun in his hand,” the elegiac “Starkweather Son” has obvious local origins.

“Everyone in Lincoln has a Starkweather story,” Hoyer said. “I thought no one could write about it better than Springsteen.”

But then one night at a party during another round of Starkweather tales, Hoyer heard one that was hard to top. “This kid said, ‘My great uncle was Starkweather. I’m a Starkweather.’ He shared what it was like to grow up with the name,” Hoyer said. “He’d said that many of his relatives had been driven away and how hard it was to grow up in Lincoln, but that he wasn’t going leaving. He hadn’t done anything wrong. I knew it was a story that would make a great song.”

One of the best tracks off the new album, the song burns with a grim intensity, thanks to Hoyer’s band of local pros that includes Brian Morrow, bass; Nick Semrad, piano; Luke Sticka, rhythm guitar; Justin Jones on drums, and guitarist Werner Althaus, who also co-produced and recorded the album in his basement studio.

Hoyer said he met Althaus at an open jam and realized he was “the missing piece of the puzzle,” but was too shy to ask him to play in his band. “I finally got the nerve up,” Hoyer said. “For me, he perfectly finishes the songs I write by how he approaches music. He seems locked in on my ideas.”

Althaus, who sounds like a Midwestern Arnold Schwarzenegger thanks to a slight German accent, said that while Hoyer writes most of the music, everyone in the band gets involved putting the songs together and offering ideas. “Josh used to be much more controlling,” Althaus said. “In his previous bands, he told people exactly what to play. So this was a new thing for him.”

He said he doesn’t understand where the band’s blues tag came from. “I can hear the influence, but I don’t hear the blues,” Althaus said. “When people say I’m a blues player, I tell them that I’m not. I play what I want to play. I don’t listen to it or study the old masters, but if a blues vocal line fits into a song, why not?”

He added that the band’s musicians have a broad background in a variety of musical styles. “If someone takes it somewhere, we draw on what we know,” Althaus said. “We all have the basic vocabulary.”

“They’re all stellar players, and they’ve trusted me,” Hoyer said. “There have been times when I’ve written something that they’ve said is weird, but they’ll try it anyway.”

With a band that consists mostly of seasoned veter - by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

LIZ STINSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Feb 01, 2008 - 12:34:59 am CST
Back in 2002, Josh Hoyer had $400 in his pocket, a car that worked and his dog by his side. The front man of local band Son of 76 and the Watchmen was itching to get out of Lincoln to see and hear something new, so he jumped in his car and blew out of Lincoln and headed south to scope out the home of the blues.

“I checked out Memphis, not for me. I checked out Austin, not for me. So I just decided to follow the Mississippi all the way down to New Orleans and lived in my car for three weeks,” he said.

Hoyer ended up spending six months in the Big Easy, where he frequented local venues and sucked up the musical atmosphere of the city.

New Orleans has spirit — that’s evident after the struggles it has endured the past few years. But even with the hardships, the city has always been regarded as the place to go to have a good time.

In the weeks leading up to Lent, the season of fasting and prayer, the music, food and atmosphere of New Orleans culminates in a celebration that has become one of the most famous carnivals in the world.

The State Theatre, 1415 O St., may be hundreds of miles away from the center of Mardi Gras, but Ben Churley, State Theatre manager, thinks there’s still cause for celebration in Lincoln.

Churley, along with Hoyer and others at the State Theatre, put together a Mardi Gras celebration that will feature four bands, beads and traditional Mardi Gras food that might give New Orleans a run for its money.

The festivities will center around the music, with Son of 76 and the Watchmen, Lucas Kellison and the Assembled Soul, The Wholes and the Kris Lager Band taking the stage to set an upbeat atmosphere.

Hoyer said he wanted to put together a bill that reflected the jazz and blues roots of New Orleans while making sure the music would get people in the mood to dance and be festive.

“We wanted to make it light and enjoyable,” he said. “The bands will be in that vein of ‘let’s have a good time.’ It’s really going to be a celebration type of atmosphere.”

Self-indulgence is the only rule once you enter the State Theatre, and with the Mardi Gras staples of food, booze, music and beads, there shouldn’t be any issues with making that happen.

Churley said fun is always encouraged — but so are clothes. People won’t have to engage in half-nude antics to collect beads. Instead, beads will be handed out as people come in, and Churley is also encouraging people to make their own.

Robin Marshall and her husband, Roland Lawes, who came to Lincoln from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, are making traditional New Orleans foods, including gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, corn bread and a shrimp boil, so concertgoers can truly embrace the meaning of Fat Tuesday.

“It’s not that Mardi Gras is such a big, important day for food,” Marshall said. “The important thing is you have to have something to absorb all that alcohol.”

Reach Liz Stinson at 473-7254 or estinson@journalstar.com.


- Lincoln Journal Star

Best Bets, 6/16
By L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / GZO
Friday, Jun 16, 2006 - 12:11:11 am CDT

If you like funky soul with touches of surf, blues and rock ’n’ roll, you’d better head on down to the Zoo Bar Thursday night.

That’s where Joshua Hoyer will release his new solo CD under his moniker, Son of 76.

The disc is called “Shake and Howl” and it’s one of those rich, varied, irresistible records that gets more captivating after each listen. I’ve only had it a couple of days and I’m more than just impressed.

While soul is the structure that holds everything together — in Hoyer’s vocals and in the feel of the songs — the music on “Shake and Howl” is an amalgamation of styles that really works.

Take the surf instrumental “Heavy Hearts in Leather Jackets.” It starts out with the twangy, skittering guitar associated with the genre, then midway through segues into horn-filled swing, then slips right back into the guitar work. Its followup is “Separation Nation,” another genre blender, combining rock with soul, then stretching out, while “Grace and Love” is pure blues with some great keyboard work.

The lyrics run from tales of trying to find the right place in the soulful opener, “Clean,” through a celebration of a “Whiskey Queen” to a funky, swampy evocation of a great club on the title cut.

The music isn’t exactly what you’d immediately expect from Hoyer, vocalist and sax player in Electric Soul Method. But he and his collaborators have made a superb record that’s another confirmation of the talent on the Lincoln music scene.

Joining Son of 76 on Thursday’s show will be The Thielgoods and Flamethrower.

- Lincoln Journal Star

by B.J. Huchtemann

Lincoln band Son of 76 & The Watchmen put out an amazing CD in March, Imaginary Man. The disc seems to capture the attention and the dancing feet of everyone who hears it, and it features 10 original tracks written by frontman and vocalist Josh Hoyer, with contributions from his excellent band. The current lineup features ace guitar work by Werner Althaus and Luke Sticka, with powerhouse players Nick Semrad on keys, Justin Jones on drums and Brian Morrow on bass.

Hoyer’s been developing this sound throughout his work with previous bands, The Magnificent 7 and Electric Soul Method. He’s a dynamic and soulful musician who can wail on the saxophone. Son of 76’s sound is a joyride through a sonic landscape that reflects influences from Tom Waits and Van Morrison to vintage soul to those kings of cool, low-fi R&B-rock — the defunct band Morphine. The driving, vibey mix is contemporary, eclectic and unique. Give a listen to last year’s release, Shake & Howl, which is more impressive when listened to in conjunction with the new disc. Imaginary Man was produced by Hoyer and Charlie Johnson of The Mezcal Brothers at Lincoln’s Fuse Studios (formerly the Mogis brothers’ Presto! studios and the home of Saddle Creek Records’ early recordings). Hear cuts at myspace.com/sonof76.

Hometown Lincoln critic L. Kent Wolgamott of the Lincoln Journal-Star called the CD “one of the best Lincoln recordings I’ve heard of late, a disc that gets better and better on repeat listenings.”

The band has played sparingly since the March release, so when it does, it’s an off-the-chain party. Live, Son of 76 & The Watchmen mix up fine original work with throw-downs of some great covers running the classic R&B gamut from Ray Charles to Marvin Gaye. On Friday, April 18, Son of 76 & The Watchmen play late at the Zoo with the mighty fine and internationally renowned Lincoln rockabilly hipsters The Mezcal Brothers opening the double after 9 p.m. Omaha fans can catch a full evening of Son of 76 at McKenna’s Friday, May 2. - The Reader