willis fireball
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willis fireball

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"Music that's all over the map"

Getting robbed at gunpoint by peasants on a bus in Mexico. Visiting statues of Stalin in Gori, Georgia, guided by a taxi driver who only listens to Bob Marley.

Man, don't you just love to travel?

Willis Fireball does. And he covets his surreal traveler anecdotes.

He may be a smarty-pants physics geek. He may "thee" and "thou" as an amateur Shakespearean actor. But it's through his songs that he chronicles his travel "ah-has" and "uh-ohs," which have led him through a couple dozen nations.

"I prefer to travel in places where the lifestyle is completely different," said Fireball, 36. "It should give me a better perspective on things, if I'm paying attention."

Fireball will play his first shows outside the Fairbanks area this week, performing four concerts with John Keech Wednesday through Saturday in the Valley and Girdwood.

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Born with the last name Ferenbaugh, he grew up in New Mexico and moved to Fairbanks in 1994 to chip away at his doctorate in physics. As someone who dabbled in guitar, he fell in with the city's arty crowd. He started acting for the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre and got serious about playing music and songwriting.

On his latest disc, "Secret Grey City," Fireball makes schizophrenic genre dashes from the acoustic punk of the Violent Femmes to mandolin-and-harmonica infused alt-country to a modern folk tune sung entirely in falsetto. Watch out, Tiny Tim.

More than half of the disc's songs are deeply rooted in either a place or the act of traveling.

Titles include "Everything in Kartuli," a song about not needing to know the Georgian language to appreciate the place's history and culture. The melancholy lyrics of "Passing Through Roswell" inspired the CD's title: "Where I come from/ the government's got a secret grey city/ and I know that's where you spend your final days."

"Most of (the places sung about) I've been to, but I wouldn't put it past me to try and write something about a place I haven't been," Fireball said.

He sings one of these traveler anthems in Spanish. "Michelada" is the name of a deadly strong Mexican cocktail that, in this song, doubles as a beautiful woman's name. As the flamenco-influenced plea for more michelada goes on, Fireball's vocals become increasingly, humorously drunken sounding, until he's practically yodeling.

"Nobody that speaks Spanish has told me it's as clever as I think it is."

---Sarah Henning
October 26, 2006
http://www.adn.com/445/story/36770.html - Anchorage Daily News


"Heating it Up"

The crowd milled and talked as Willis Fireball began an unobtrusive acoustic melody on the stage at his CD release party, Friday, January 27, at The Marlin. They paid a little more attention as Leighton Nunez picked up his mandolin, and Luke Bechtel began to strum his electric guitar. The conversations sputtered and died as Brady Anderson sat down behind the drums. John Keech's catchy bass line snared the final stragglers in the room. By the time Fireball started singing, the crowd was whistling and cheering. Nobody in the room would've guessed that The Secretkeepers had practiced only three times.

Is it possible to avoid a pun about Fireball keeping The Marlin warm while thermometers elsewhere in Fairbanks hit -51 Fahrenheit? Those who braved the cold for Fireball's CD release party were treated to a diverse concert from the folk singer-songwriter. Not only was Fireball backed by two different versions of The Secretkeepers - the electric version, and an acoustic ensemble that assisted him earlier in the night - but he also brought his own low-rent gospel choir, The Crumbling Church Choir O' Fire.

“It's hard when you consider yourself a folk person,� Fireball said, when “most folk music is so boring.� Fireball approaches folk the same way The Sex Pistols and The Ramones approached rock and roll - tear out the bits you like, pump up the intensity, and leave the genre's corpse to rot. On his “solo� album, Secret Grey City, Fireball performs alone on just one of the 17 songs.

The Marlin show was the start of a local “tour� for Fireball - he's throwing CD release parties at each of his frequent venues. His College Coffeeshop show will be a lower-key, acoustic affair. His performance in the UAF Pub will be more academic, Fireball joked, and may involve spreadsheets and a PowerPoint presentation.
--- Brandon Seifert
February 8, 2006
http://208.109.242.142/archives/archives-2006/strobelightvol15ed5.html
- The Anchorage Press


""Secret Grey City" review"

Want to take a wacky, spiritual journey out west but are to poor to make the quest? Well then, here’s a treat! Just make the small journey down to the record store and pick up Willis Fireball’s latest album, Secret Grey City with the money that should be put into savings for a real trip out west and live vicariously through what sounds like a good, old fashioned American road trip.

Banjos, acoustic guitars and harmonicas? Hell yes! On top of that, it was recorded in the most bad-ass state in the nation; Alaska. Fireball and his choir are all about the traveling music, especially in the form of folk revival and country. There’s nothing life changing on this record but Fireball harbor’s excellent story telling skills, not unlike those of Bob Dylan. It’s just a shame that musically, he falls too close to the Dave Matthews tree throughout several tracks.

Expect to hear shreds of raw talent during the catchy and upbeat opener, “All Roads Lead to Butte, Montana” and “Gori.” These guys have freak flag they don’t fly high enough. Peer pressure to be mellow? I certainly hope so because there’s a sense of underlying anger and weirdness. The song, “Passing Through Roswell” paints a dark, yet free spirited portrait of chupacabras and aliens running amok in the famous little town, while “The Dying Embers” is an excellent little instrumental ditty that would actually be great to listen to by a dying fire, about to pass out from the twelve pack of PBR ingested within an hour after a poorly thought out bet.

Upon reaching the immensely entertaining, “Coffee Song,” where Fireball wails about his love for coffee in his highest voice possible, Secret Grey City reveals itself to be a record really made for a vinyl recording.

--- By: Dan Brian
October 9, 2006
- Wonkavision Magazine


Discography

la moravska morena (1999)
double 'n' tundra (1999)
double 'n' tundra - live (2001)
postcards from the aftermath (FAWM 2004)
little naked milestone (FAWM 2005)
SECRET GREY CITY (2006)
memories of horses (FAWM 2006)
outer orbits [10th planet outtakes (2003-2006)]
headwaters (FAWM 2007)
LIVE FROM CHENA with john keech (2007)
BRINGIN' IT (2008)
aniak trains (FAWM 2008)
the high road in hard times (FAWM 2009)
LITTLE ISLAND BIG SEA (2009)

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Bio

On the evening of January 27, 2006, the signs in Fairbanks, Alaska were reading "-51 F." It was the lowest temperature recorded thus far in this young millenium in this northern town, and the extreme winter chill froze many a car motor and kept many a soul home by a crackling warm fire. But for anyone coming in from the cold on College Road and descending the stairs to the locally legendary subterranean bar known as The Marlin, the atmosphere quickly heated up. Inside, a hardy crowd danced to the full onslaught of Fireball and the Secretkeepers, featuring the full force Choir O' Fire.
This deep freeze was an unscripted but perfect setting for the release of Willis Fireball's studio cd, Secret Grey City. Recorded in the warmer months of 2005, the album springs from years of songwriting, performing, and collaborating in and around Fairbanks. For this project, Fireball gathered 17 original tunes and 25 friends from the local music scene, including many local songsters as well as members of Sweating Honey, Lousiaska, Clusterfunk, The Thneeds, 3 Chord Ho!, Hoe Slinger, , and Yukon Ryder. The whole thing came together during many epic sessions with Pat Fitzgerald and Robin Dale Ford at their rustic 10th Planet Studios.
Other recordings (past and future) are stripped-down acoustic offerings more representative of the solo troubadour Fireball. Indeed, the SGC cd includes a few such tracks... but they are part of a swirling mixture of styles, arrangements, and musicians. There are full-band rock songs like "Driver 9" - a shout-out to those who let dirty hands take the wheel. There is the slow midwinter instrumental, "The Dying Embers" which divides the album into two 'sides.' There are quiet acoustic songs like "A Sleepy Tune" and "Paris Lullaby." There's even a south-of-the-border lament, in passable Spanish, for abandoned love and spirits drowned in "¡Michelada!" Various other muses and demons fill the remainder of the 78+ minutes. This is a collection of Fireball songs and Fairbanks voices with its epicenter right around the Marlin 2005 and its hope and wanderlust heading off in all directions. As such, it's a great memento of a particular time and place, for listeners
inside and outside the community.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willis Fireball grew up in northern New Mexico where he played a lot of soccer and spent a lot of time outdoors. A few years of college in California and Nevada yielded a degree in mathematics. He then moved north to Fairbanks in 1994 and ~ influenced by the homegrown music scene ~ began more serious songwriting and performing. He was a significant fraction of the duos Double 'n' Tundra in Fairbanks and La Moravska Morena in Sumperk (during two years living in the Czech Republic). Since 1998 he's been a regular on stages around the university, as well as occasional appearances elsewhere. Recently, his love of words and performance brought him to Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre, where he played in Julius Caesar, The Winters Tale, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles, and Henry V. With the release of SGC, he's looking to broaden his horizons with more performances in more new places and more new songs to be sung.