sundown
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sundown

Columbus, Ohio, United States | INDIE

Columbus, Ohio, United States | INDIE
Band Rock Americana

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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"Homecoming: A rundown of local musical acts returning to the area"

Fall is prime time for homecomings from church bean suppers to football games and awkward high school dances.

Musicians seem to be hearing that call home too.

Friday, Huntington native Rick Huckaby headlined the Save Our Sign benefit over at the historic Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center.

And this weekend also has Hurricane High School grad Dustin White rolling through. White has long been on the music scene in Columbus, where he's hooked up with and traveled nationally running sound for Times New Viking.

White, who's been back through West Virginia with his former bands such as Devil and The Deep Blue Sea, is bringing his new "psych-folk" unit Sundown through for its first road trip.

Sundown, which just released its first album "Mansion Burning," and has shades of Wilco in its experimental rock mashed into Americana, played Charleston on Thursday, Huntington on Friday and Morgantown today.

White said it was a no-brainer to bring his new band for a home-state run.

"We've got a bunch of other stuff lined up after that, but I really like to go back to West Virginia with any new things that I do," White said. "It is a neutral place, but it has a weird BS detector that is not based on any acute hipness or any Brooklyn think-tank mindset. It's just either people hear it and go 'no or yes.' It's not 'those aren't the right pants.' So that makes an awesome place to try out stuff because of that."

If you missed one of the shows, no worries. Sundown will be back at The V Club, 741 6th Ave., Friday, Oct. 28, with The Demon Beat and local rockers Sly Roosevelt, which just put out their first EP.

White, who once physically pulled the plug on a band that was talking trash in the old YWCA at an all-ages concert, said Sundown all began when T.K. Webb moved to Columbus and the two began writing songs together.

"T.K. is kind of a classic Americana songwriter, but he's not afraid to experiment at times," White said. "It's kind of Suicide meets Springsteen, so it gets more and more interesting. It's not just four-on-the-floor songs. We kind of have that Jeff Tweedy attitude of taking a song and deconstructing it." - Huntington Herald-Dispatch


"Sensory Overload: Independents’ Day"

Columbus did Columbus proud Saturday. Our city is now home to innumerable festivals combining local music, art and food. Once again, Independents’ Day was the best.
That’s not to say Saturday’s fourth annual installment was perfect. Delays on almost every stage made it impossible to know when bands would perform, and if I was playing I wouldn’t be happy about so little supervision for my instruments behind the Athens Business Remixed Stage. (Also: Athens Business Remixed Stage?)
Such administrative gripes seem minor stacked against a lineup this strong (and genuinely diverse!), an agreeable Downtown venue and beer service so efficient that I never had to wait.

Sundown, which is former New York singer-songwriter TK Webb backed by a Columbus psych-rock all-star team, validated the hype. Imagine a rustic Dinosaur Jr. channeling Crazy Horse’s ragged glory and you’re close. Bonus points for actually playing while the sun was setting. - Columbus Alive


"Five questions with Dustin White of Sundown"

HARLESTON, W.Va. -- On Thursday night, the Columbus-based "psych-folk" rock band Sundown plays The Empty Glass. In advance of the show, the gazz caught up with guitarist and Charleston-area native Dustin White to learn more about the band, its recently released debut album and his thoughts on hailing from the Mountain State.



Q: Sundown just released its debut LP, "Mansion Burning." What's the response been like, and how excited are you for people to hear it?

A:"'Mansion Burning' is basically a document of us figuring out what it is we do. We hadn't played live yet. It was really intended just to be a demo, that's why we released it on cassette, as a nod to that. We just released it on [Friday, Sept. 16], so I have no idea what the public response is yet, but what little feedback I have had has been frighteningly positive."


Q: You're a Hurricane native, right? How excited are you to bring Sundown to the Empty Glass?

A:"I'm excited to play Charleston; I haven't played there since [I was with] Apart From The Projector in 2000. I've played some of the weirdest and some of the most life-changing shows in Charleston -- in karate studios, flea markets, churches, trailers, living rooms, VFW halls, coffee shops, stairwells and everywhere in between.

"The all-ages scene that I was lucky enough to participate in growing up here was monstrous -- 100-plus kids at a storefront in Nitro every weekend. It seems ludicrously impossible.

"I'm excited to play the Glass. I've always loved the place. When I was underage, I snuck in there to see Hasil Adkins, Jesco White and Mojo Nixon!

"I've never tried to hide the fact that I'm from West Virginia. A lot of people try to hide their history with whatever character they've invented when they move to the 'big city' but that has never really interested me.

"When we were on tour in Europe, I was constantly drunkenly rambling about Appalachia. People would want to talk about New York City or Los Angeles. Those cities are amazing, but all mega cities are incredibly similar. There is no Boone County in France. That was what I was trying to stress to them is to go see those places.

"Due to my pro-Appalachia rhetoric on that tour, our driver watched 'Harlan County, U.S.A.' and had his mind blown. He had no idea that existed and much less had been documented.

"I'm also just as excited to get a Dottie at Tudor's."



Q: You were described in a recent interview as a "talented weirdo." Are you cool with that?

A:"I am beyond cool with that. I should just make a business card that says that."



Q: What's the songwriting chemistry like with co-founder TK Webb, and what did working the soundboard with Columbus indie band Times New Viking bring to Sundown's sound?

A: "Initially I was going to help TK record some songs. Things changed completely though when TK and I actually got together. It just immediately made sense that this should be a band and not just another TK Webb-and-band scenario.

"The two of us have been at this a long time and share a lot of the same vocabulary. We both lived through late '90s indie rock firsthand and watched as the now dreaded 'e word' [emo] changed from something interesting and vital to the worst nonsense I have ever heard. To go from that point to where we both are now is really interesting, especially because we both are blessed with serious bulls--- detectors.

"In summation we work amazingly well together. When it ends up just the two of us cranking out something that sounds like Suicide and Springsteen jamming, it doesn't surprise or confuse either of us. Somehow it makes more sense to us than if we painted between the lines more.

"Working with Times New Viking, especially recording 'Dancer Equired,' has been amazing for me. I've been traveling around the world with some of my best friends who just happen to make amazing music. It happened, too, right as my last band kind of hit the pause button.

"The biggest thing I've taken from working with them to this is just a sense of immediacy. Good instincts will get more done than anything else, and theirs are spot on usually. I overthink things. I know this. So seeing them just constantly moving was something I picked up on."



Q: You've been in a lot of bands. What's it like being in a brand new one like Sundown?

A:"After my last project, Moons, went on hold, I haven't had a 'band.' Fortunately I started working with Times New Viking just as that happened, and there hasn't been a real lull in that.

"Times New Viking are taking a little time off the road for now, so I can pursue this without worry. I feel beyond excited about what we are doing. Everything has just lined up in this really amazing way for us.

"We are seriously brand new. As of right now we have played live five times, and two of those were yesterday! There are more songs being written than we can learn. It all just feels really good." - The Charleston Gazzette


"LOCAL ROUNDUP: Sundown "Mansion Burning""

Bands leave Columbus. It's inevitable.
Our city tends to nurture musicians at the tadpole stage and give them a home until they grow legs, at which point many hop to a bigger pond (see Mark Eitzel, Sinkane, RJD2, countless others). It usually doesn't happen the other way around.
But about a year and a half ago, our city gained a talented, already established musician in TK Webb, who got his start in Kansas City before migrating to Brooklyn in the '90s. Webb came to town with wife Yalan Papillons, who grew up here and co-owns the new Brewery District bar/music venue Double Happiness.
Webb started out channeling Leadbelly folk and the Delta blues, then took a rock 'n' roll detour billed as TK Webb and the Visions, which included former members of Love as Laughter and Blood on the Wall. Just last year, Webb released a self-titled LP on Mexican Summer (Kurt Vile, Andrew Graham) that was arguably his best solo effort to date, tending more toward the folk troubadour sound but retaining some of the psychedelia present in all of Webb's recordings.
Which brings us to Sundown, a band Webb formed in the spring with Dustin White, a veteran of Columbus acts such as Moons and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, as well as Times New Viking's touring collaborator. Webb and White honed the vision of Sundown, eventually bringing in Grant Driskell (TV Eye) on bass and Blake Pfister (Moon High, TV Eye) on drums. Last week saw the release of the band's debut EP, Mansion Burning, both digitally and on cassette.
Put to tape in a day by Adam Smith at Columbus Discount Recording, the six songs take Webb's gruff, virile singing and penchant for psych-folk and add even more layers of moaning, dirty guitars.
"Sleepy Song" has some of the most lonesome harmonica you'll hear all year, but just as eerie is White's feedback-laden, rumbling guitar beneath the surface.
Sundown's self-described "cosmic American music" feels like a perfect fit for Webb, whose world-weary tunes are rarely wearisome. The band would fit on a bill with everyone from Tim Easton to the War on Drugs.
Here's hoping Webb doesn't look for a new pond anytime soon.
Sundown's next Columbus show is Oct. 5 at Cafe Bourbon Street with Arbouretum and Eternal Tapestry. Mansion Burning cassette tapes are available at Lost Weekend Records, digital downloads at thisissundown.bandcamp.com. - The Other Paper


"Introducing SUNDOWN: Times New Viking’s Sounddude Dustin White Discusses TNV & His New Project With TK Webb"

Dustin White has had a presence in both Columbus and the National DIY picture for as long as I can recall.

We could take it back to his post-rock band Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Or we could talk South Campus punk houses like Compton and the Legion of Doom. But someone could probably
one-up that and go prior to those turn of the millenium movements.

So let me skip ahead and just say Dusty is a talented weirdo that knows the ends and outs of most musical instruments and recordings. Makes sense that he co-produced the latest Times New Viking record Dancer Equired with TNV and also acts as their soundman on the road.

Being TNV’s sounddude is somewhat like being a white noise, dub-master.

Oh yeah, and there are these MP3's I posted above of his new project that is fronted by revered MO-BK transplant TK Webb, Sundown.

So via the emails I caught up with Dusty right as a West Coast leg of a TNV tour ended. He discussed working with them and Sundown.

How was the Times New Viking tour?

This tour has been going great. Hit some weirdness in some places, but all in all it has gone better than the last full US tour by a good amount.

What’s your role as a live sound dude for a band like them?

My role is way different than most live sound situations because I do a lot more to the sound than just make it loud. It’s more like Martin Swope in Mission of Burma, because I’m manipulating and treating what they do on stage. Sometimes to make it sound more like the lofi records, sometimes to make the guitar hurt your ears, sometimes just to make it sound fucking cool, and sometimes I am just trying to make it loud and clear. It’s actually a creative role as opposed to the typical clinician role that most live sound is which appeals to me a lot more. I also love the challenge that is trying to get interesting results in different places with different equipment and a different set of rules every night.

Any funny stories that are repeatable?

There are but its hard to verbalize them sometimes. I blacked out in Iowa City when we we doing a GBV show then fell down, broke my glasses, and turned into a raging drunken asshole. Going from 3 person gay bar karaoke to a basement rave. Being trapped somewhere because your cell phone has died and therefore you don’t have a map home. This list doesn’t sound funny at all. Just find me and I’ll tell you stories, as it’s far better as part of the oral tradition.

What is your take on the overall exeperience with the band?

My overall experience with them has been beyond fantastic. We were all good friends well before this employer/employee situation but I am treated much more like the 4th member than an employee/etc. Working with them on the new LP was also an amazing experience and one of the most creative studio experiences I have been a part of. All in all its been a great thing to be a part of.

What approach did you take when working on Times New Viking’s kindler and gentler sound?

My first thought was “how can we make what they do more in focus BUT not loose ANY of what makes them special” because what they do IS special BUT its not the lofi thing that makes them special its the fact that they write great songs and have an actual attitude and vibe in ages where attitude and vibe are totally forgotten about. Everybody these days is too worried about being professional that they are scared to be human and there is no vibe or attitude or anything real. But with them its the opposite there is so much personality there that its impossible to lose it because it’s just inherent in them as a band. So we cut demos on the 4 track but we used some of my gear and I engineered it mostly so it wasn’t they way they had recorded prior exactly. Those demos sounded great and are the stuff thats on the “Stop Digging Yourself” CDEP. After we did that we headed into CDR and used basically the gear and techniques that rock records until about the mid 70s. It was a very natural and simple process actually. Adam Smith and I just did what seemed natural to us both and it just worked.

How open to suggestions were they?

We were all down to try anything within reason. Jared played a chair, but it’s not in the final mix. There is a song on Rumours “Second Hand News” that Mr. Buckingham played a chair on which led us to try it. Didn’t work, but we would try anything. There is some drone synth pad stuff I did and all I said was “let me try something” and walked out to the studio and just did it. If we didn’t want to use it in the final mix we didn’t have to but it was there if we did. We worked really quickly but any idea we would try. I can’t remember an idea that got shot done without at least an attempt at it.

Whats your new project?

Sundown, which is a band that plays rock music.

How did you meet TK Webb?

Hanging out at a bar, like almost everybody I know in the entire world.

He said you bonded over some vintage equiptment intially?

Yeah I don’t even remember how our conversation turned into some sort of nerdery, but somehow we ended up comparing notes on some antiquated electronic bullshit and discussing both of us having spent our youth on the vegan chilli circuit. Just the sort of drunken shop talk than often happens amongst men of a certain age.

Who are the other guys and what have they done?

Blake and Grant. They were both in TV Eye with Vug (of Vug and Mainstreet Gospel semi-fame). Blake also plays in Moon High and fills in for all sort of various gentlemen, mostly of the folk persuasion.

What can you tell me about these Sundown songs that I posted?

We recorded a grand total of 7 songs at CDR with Adam Smith on 1? 16 track in one lovely day. Dumped them all into the world of digital and I mixed them in the TNV van when I could for the first few weeks of this tour which was a bit of a challenge because the AC was busted so the windows were down 24/7 aka it was LOUD in the van. All 7 songs should be on the tape when it sees the light of day. These two songs were chosen to be the first two placed online simply because they do a good job of illustrating the left and right of what we feel we are doing at the moment.

What’s the future for Sundown?

First up is releasing a tape of the demos we just cut with Adam(Smith), expect that about the end of July. After that comes more shows, more songs, more recording, etc. The usual cycle of a band. We should have a very busy 4th quarter, y’alllz. - DoneWaiting


"Band To Watch: SUNDOWN"

His new band Sundown is on the rise, but acclaimed psych-folkie TK Webb didn't exactly hit the ground running when he touched down in his wife's native Columbus two years back.
"I just kind of hibernated and made a bunch of recordings for a year, and that got super lonely and weird," Webb said.
Eventually, Webb was bound to meet some kindred spirits. It happened last summer, when his wife, concert promoter Yalan Papillons, introduced him to Dustin White, a veteran of countless Columbus bands and soundman for Times New Viking. In locked-doors after-hours sessions at Cafe Bourbon Street, Webb and White geeked out about records, vintage equipment and memories from basement punk shows of the late '90s.
"We both totally grew up in the same world and had never crossed paths," White said.
By springtime, White had become a collaborator and a conduit for Webb, using his extensive knowledge of Columbus music to recruit the ideal rhythm section for the new band that was brewing. They brought in TV Eye/Moon High drummer Blake Pfister for a gig at Circus under Webb's name. Not long after that, they invited Pfister's old TV Eye bandmate Grant Driskell to play bass.
The chemistry was instant, a phenomenon the band attributed in large part to overlapping record collections.
"Where classic country meets folk stuff meets anything psych to ultra-heavy stuff - there's a vein that runs through all of that," Webb said.
All of those sounds are swirling in the monstrous tracks Sundown bashed out at Columbus Discount Recording - seven songs in a day - before White left for Times New Viking's spring tour. Now that he's back, they're prepping those recordings for a cassette release (yes, cassette) and ramping up the performance schedule, including a gig Friday at Ruby Tuesday, part of Lost Weekend Records' two-night Super Summer Spectacular. - Columbus Alive


Discography

Mansion Burning LP
CD101 on 102.5 currently playing "life's too long"

Photos

Bio

Sundown – Just as the name suggests their music is a smoldering psychedelic blues toying with a far-off horizon with a slow-burning and soft-buzzing underbelly that could be likened to sawdust shoegaze theatrics. Still the songs of TK Webb – what drive Sundown -- seem too natural, to comfortable, to merely chalk them up to roadhouse saloons with Swervedriver on the jukebox.
TK Webb knows his way around a stage, around a tub-thump, around a floor-stomp, around a journeyman’s cadence. You’d think he was born with a beer bottle in his crib and a pocket full of sorrow. You’d think by now, after gigging in various acts in New York City, be it with the Visions, Phantom Parade, or as a solo artist, he could migrate to Columbus, Ohio and act in the role of jaded huckster, the snake-oil salesman, but instead he dug his nails into the bar again and adjusted himself to the local color. The hues of Columbus are as varied as they come, but Webb gravitated towards a motley bunch, namely dudes who pride themselves on an encyclopedic knowledge of Krautrock, Lomax folk and well-worn copies of Tape-Op.
With a rhythm section of Grant Driskell on bass and Blake Pfister on drums respectively, the core of Sundown needs no fine tuning. That leaves veteran psych-wizard Dusty White (who’s logged countless hours in numerous bands of the past) to speckle Webb’s loner musings with pure cosmic vibes, be they slung with guitar or metered out on the organ. Whether it’s the experience brought through Webb’s songs or the telepathic connection had the first time Sundown plugged in to jam, there’s a dynamic here rarely heard in bands this fresh and green.
Barely together for a 6 months and Sundown have already accumulated a wealth of tunes, each standing epic in their own way as if ready to score those “dawn of man” scenes in Kubrick’s 2001. “If I Go Down” is Webb’s trademark snarl n’ lament. It’s a crunchy, rough, Americana. Scratch that, this is American Experience music and should hew nowhere close to the Son Volts and Jayhawks that tend to romanticize the genre. For Sundown, that genre is shot and spent -- the borders are blurry between a number of regions, accents, and astral planes. “Sleepy Song” makes the endless horizon a mirage – a road song with no destination. “Forever This Far” is the next morning, a semi-spiritual awakening found in a blanket of organ. “Fog” tends to give off heavy arena-rock reverberations, were there only a select few standing in the center of the floor to witness the earnest spectacle. When all is said and done the music of Sundown is faithfully rural, with visions of canyons and plateaus, meadows and dense forest, but intercepted by paranormal interference, wobbly psych-submersion, seismic celestial communications, and above all an itch to get back to the city to show the world what they found out deep in the ether.