Walter Ehresman
Austin, Texas, United States | SELF
Music
Press
"Songs like 'Echo Down the Years' are well-written, poignantly penned compositions that stand out on the record......." [review of "Well.....Let's Look at Your Track Record, Shall We?", 2010]
- - --Matthew Warnock, , ReviewYou (Jan 31, 2011)
"......if he has gone "le cafard," we can all be glad he has taken us with him. Very intelligent and deeply personal (as are all his recordings), these 11 tracks range in style from southern-flavored rock to experimental electronica......'Spin It' is a funky bit of social commentary, then my favorite cut 'Rain Down Like Dr. Phibes'....man, what a song....a sort of Roky Erickson/B-52s red hot and creepy delight. Walter's special skills with world music come through on the Nigerian-sounding 'In My Master's House' and his fascination with experimental music is exercised on the long and wildly diverse 'I Must Be Doing Something Wrong (Or Something Right Backwards).' 'Club Moon'..shines very brightly and is my second-favorite cut.....(it) is outstanding." [review of "Le Cafard" solo album, 2001]
- - Local Flavor, Austin/Corpus Christi, Tx.
"Most of Walter's music ends up somewhere between Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa....this, however, is largely a songwriter recording. Richly textured lyrics shine with brilliance right through the dark, bleak, frustrated observations and social commentary......'I Know How the Anarchist Feels' positively aches! And, since Walter never does just one thing at a time, some of that toooo groovy worldbeat/experimental mostly instrumental stuff is here, too......(the CD) ends with two segments of Walter's long and fascinating spoken- word rants......There seems to be no way to adequately describe Walter's recordings in just a few words...But if the people in Hollywood who place music in movies ever learn of the marvelous compositions of Walter Ehresman, I won't need to wrestle with my dictionary any more." [review of "Handwedge From the Trap" solo album, 1999]
- - Local Flavor, Austin/Corpus Christi, Tx.
"....the album plays like a freeform station not held down to conservative programming restrictions. Ehresman is interested in creating....vocal and instrumental songs of substance The jazz number 'Echo Down The Years' is a beautifully performed piece....he sounds best when belting out the heartbreak numbers....[In 'Flood the Empty Quarter'] you can taste the bitterness and regret within his delivery....Equally poignant is 'May The Tone Be With You, Jon,' dedicated to the memory of a close friend and music gear repairman in Austin. (He) handles the mandolin, bouzouki, and mandola with...utmost professionalism and tenderness, making the song the most touching moment on the album. Walter’s latest full-length offers something for everyone, but the genre hopping may not be appreciated by all of its listeners. However, if you don’t mind psychedelic and progrock moments sitting alongside world music and smoky jazz numbers, this release just might fulfill every color of your sonic palet
- (writing about "Well....Let's Look at Your Track Record, Shall We?", 2010) - Jason Randall Smith , Ariel (Feb 16, 2011)
"Multi-instrumentalist Walter Ehresman is the quintessential Austin DIY musical artist following his own eccentric muse. He released his 10th solo album on April 21 with a show at the Irie Bean Coffee Bar on South Lamar. Much has happened in the political landscape of the nation and the personal landscape of Ehresman in the three-year stretch since his last CD, including the loss of two relationships, the most recent through death late last year, and the resulting emotions of outrage, sadness, love, humor, and happiness find expression in his new work. Ehresman has released several CDs under his band project Snipe Hunt, but his solo albums are almost all one-man projects with minimal outside accompaniment. He mixes sampled and real instruments, changes genres from one tune to the next with ease, and writes lyrics from his highly personal world view. With caustic wit, he spars with the forces that would limit individual freedoms, be they governmental or corporate."
- - Charlie Martin, Around the Town Sounds (Apr 26, 2007)
Discography
--solo albums: "Honor in the Swine?" ('89); "In the Path of the Cat Chasers" ('90); "Split Brain Theory" ('91); "The Blue Shoat Special" ('96); the spoken-word "The Rants" ('97); "Handwedge from the Trap" ('99); “Le Cafard“ (’01); "The Feral Rugby Team Must GO!" ('03); "No Unifying Theme" ('04); "March, Scream or Cry" ('07); "The ADG Project" ('07); "Monkey Paw Situation" ('09); "Well....Let's Look at Your Track Record, Shall We?" ('10); and "Life Outside the Tent" ('12).
--with Snipe Hunt: "We'll Be Right Back!" ('99); "Dirty Ditties and Cover Tunes" ('00); and "I Saw the Future (But the Damn Train Hit Me Just the Same)" ('02).
--with Los Platos: “Oh, No” EP (’08).
--with Delphi Rising: “For Granted” (‘10)
Ehresman's songs have appeared on three national samplers over the years: "Monkey Boy Sampler" ('01, '05); and "Several Famous Orchestras" ('03).
Photos
Bio
Called "The ultimate Austin DIY artist" by famed disc jockey Charlie Martin (host of KOOP's "Around the Town Sounds"), Walter Ehresman has been a consistent, eccentric presence in the Austin music scene since the mid-'80s. A prolific songwriter and recording artist, he is equally at home presenting a delicate acoustic ballad in an intimate club as he is busting out screaming lead guitar with a full rock band in front of festival crowds. However, he’s just as likely to be holed up in his Snipe Bog Studios, surrounded by gear and recording strange, unclassifiable experimental music at 4am with a big grin on his face. The consistent factor is a restless musical spirit, always looking for something new, coupled with fearlessly honest lyric-writing.
Ehresman's 13th solo album, "Well.....Let's Look at Your Track Record, Shall We?", was released in '10. It contains his usual wide variety of styles, from rock to jazz to experimental. Subtle electronica grooves underlie some songs and give them a modern undercurrent. This album marks Ehreman's first forray into writing love songs with lyrics, and they are a long way from the triteness that he fears which kept him largely away from writing such lyrics in the past. Heartfelt, and somehow timeless, they have a sad poignancy when you know that the girl he wrote them for abruptly dumped him in the middle of the recording sessions for this album. Songs written after that break-up have a very differnt tone, of course, with some being real weepers ("Flood the Empty Quarter") and some juxtapose the sad lyrics with uptempo rock and roll (check out the vintage Stones sound on "Knocked to My Hands & Knees"). There's also a song written in memoriam to Walt's friend and famous long-time Austin gear repairman Jon Bessent. According to Ehresman, "Jon's benediction whenever you left his shop was 'may the tone be with you,' so I called this song 'May the Tone Be With You, Jon.' He left us far, far too soon. He was really one of the good guys." The song features mandolins, bouzoukis, and mandola along with tasteful piano accompaniment. Overall, the album has a hint of the meloncholy to it, despite the presence of such a purposely light romp as the opening number "Summer Calls the Shots", which recalls the heady teenage excitement of beaches and girls and summer vacations without adult supervision.
Teaching himself to play electric guitar by playing along to Cream records, as a kid Ehresman experimented with home recording on his father’s reel-to-reel, sparking a life-long fascination with recording technology that continues to this day. A life-long admirer of Todd Rundgren and his one-man-band approach, Ehresman slowly but surely amassed the gear for his own Snipe Bog Studios. A series of full-length cassette releases followed, featuring covers drawn by Ehresman's friend, noted graphic artist and USA Today staff cartoonist Casey Shaw (see discography).
Political/social commentary is a common lyrical theme. "My life-long quest has been trying to figure out why people do what they do," Ehresman stated recently. "Politics seems to be just another manifestation of human psychology...How someone votes is a reflection of their character...Not all of my songs are about politics, but all of them are about the human condition." Later in the ‘90s, Ehresman formed the band Snipe Hunt, which released three CDs in various configurations between '98 and '02. 2001 saw the CD release of the solo album "Le Cafard," which Ehresman calls his "divorce" album. Songs of frustration and loss are intersperced with songs inspired by Ehresman's deep involvement in the annual Burning Man Festival in northwest Nevada. Last track Soul Called Desolation features Jon Bessent on pedal steel. The album title refers to an old vernacular term within the French Foreign Legion for when a soldier had been out in the desert too long and gone bat-shit crazy. Literally "the beetle," the metephor is a beetle eating into the brain of the legionairre. 2003 saw the release of the solo album "The Feral Rugby Team Must GO!," with the strongest one-two punch of opening tracks yet: "Jesus, That Blimp is Following Me!", followed by "That's a Fleshy Reality," which Ehresman jokes is his "attempt to do a Steely Dan type of thing without the jazz chops, knowledge of theory, or dynamite background singers." Snipe Hunt broke up in 2003 when Ehresman temporarily moved to San Francisco with intentions to marry a girl he'd met at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada the year before. Things didn't work out and, tail between his legs, Ehresman moved back to Austin in 2004. The time away had not been a total loss, however, because most of the tracks for the solo album "No Unifying Theme" were recorded on the West Coast, and the CD was released in 2004. An experimental "dark ambient" world music was later laid down in the studio for the "ADG Project" album in 2007 (composed and recorded for a major art installation at Burning Man, the Amb
Links
