City Beat June 27 - July 2, 1996 Local Scene SPILL IT By Mike Breen Over the Rhine and Down By The Ohio There's a kind of strange sense of irony - maybe even sweet justice - in the fact that Over the Rhine's latest CD is some of the their best work to date, even though it's release comes on the heels of the end of the group's relationship with I.R.S. Records. The songs on Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings were culled from the demos that were to serve as sketches for the band's aborted fourth record. The songwriting is absolutely sublime. Even the lower budget recording quality feeds the music well, giving the music a somewhat haunted vibe that's refreshing to hear without any studio tricks. OTR have proven that you don't need a big record label behind you to create valid beautiful art. The new, self-released disc will be available at the Over the Rhine's "almost free" show - a $2 voluntary donation will be taken at the gates - at Sawyer Point on Sunday night at 6 p.m. (Over the Rhine will take the stage at 8 p.m.) ****************************************************************************** *************** The Cincinnati Enquirer June 28, 1996 OTR plays Sawyer Point by Larry Nager No pepper gas or riot cops, but otherwise, Sunday's Over The Rhine concert at the P&G Pavilion at Sawyer Point promises to be everything the band's canceled Jammin' on Main set should have been. The biggest change since then is that OTR is no longer with I.R.S. Records. Leader Linford Detweiler says the band is taking advantage of its new freedom to release more new music than a major label would allow. "There's something about recording a song a few days after it's written...that brings a real purity to the performance," he says. The band will release its new CD, Good Dog Bad Dog, on Sunday. It's a collection of home recordings from Mr. Detweiler's bedroom, that the band expanded a few weeks ago. The disc ranges from the full band to Ric Hordinski's guitar solo "Willoughby," named after the Cleveland suburb where he grew up, to pieces featuring singer Karin Bergquist and a lone accompanist. "It's some of the most personal material we've ever written," Mr. Detweiler says. In a few months you can deck the halls with OTR. The band plans a Yule disc for early December. It will coincide with an expanded Christmas tour that will include the traditional Emery Theatre show. Those sessions begin in August. For now, OTR is ready for the show they've been waiting almost two months to play. The music will start around 6:30 p.m. with some band friends; OTR hits the stage around 8 p.m. Admission to the "almost free" show is a voluntary $2 donation to offset costs. Copies of Good Dog Bad Dog will be available at the concert. ****************************************************************************** ************** Everybody's News June 28 - July 4, 1996 CATCHING THE SPIRIT Over The Rhine releases an emotional fourth album by Amy McDonald The best laid plans often go awry. Or they get shelved in favor of a better plan. Three years into a promising six-album major label recording contract, one of Cincinnati's most-loved groups reached a crossroads. As a result, Over The Rhine, the quartet of college chums-cum-business partners, decided once again to pursue the trying career of an independent band. Consummate artists, the group's aesthetic folk-pop songs have won them a local following to kill for, but for the last year the group struggled with pressure from the corporate gods-that-be at I.R.S. the label the group had signed with. "I think about six months ago I really came to the conclusion that I wanted to get off of I.R.S., but part of the tension that continued to grow up to the very end was them sort of trying to guess maybe well, if we were this or we did that, we'd be more commercially viable." Linford Detweiler, the group's main songwriter continues, "I was becoming less and less interested in trying to guess what people might want to hear, and I just wanted to be Over The Rhine, whatever that might be." The band's frustration was due, in part, to the label rejecting several established producers the band attempted to contract for its next record. Says Detweiler, "I felt like we were getting the worst of both worlds, that they weren't really putting any kind of financial or marketing muscle behind the band, and yet we were no longer sort of an underground act that can pretty much creatively do whatever we want to do. So we didn't have the clout of a major label, and we didn't have the blank page of the unsigned or underground act - we were caught somewhere in the middle. So I either want to sort of go back to having our own label and making our own records, or I want to sign to a major label that's going to actually hire a real producer." The group had been preparing for a third album for I.R.S., but the label wouldn't "catch the spirit of what Over The Rhine was doing," says Detweiler. And just when it seemed negotiations over the band's new record were about to sour, the band's A&R representative left I.R.S. and in turn, released the band from its contract. So the group quickly decided to record songs that were intended to be demos for the record company and prospective producers, and give them a real home, the result being the band's new CD, Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings, which it releases this Sunday at an outdoor concert at Sawyer Point. Detweiler and singer Karin Bergquist had written the songs during an incredibly transient phase, but the group was able to quickly give birth to the new, "homespun" project. Detweiler recorded the vocals and basic guitar and keyboard parts in his apartment after only a few practices, the barebones of which were handed over to guitarist, Ric Hordinski to flesh out at his recording studio, Mersey Beat, in Walnut Hills, along with drummer Brian Kelley. "This record is really the first record where I've really been able to have the time to get the sounds that I liked. Our first record was so rushed. ...We were just making it up as we went along. The second record we did in a studio in Nashville in off-hours. ...And then on Eve, it was really the same kind of thing; there was a lot of pressure to get things done quickly. With this record, since I was home, I had more access to all my toys and trinkets, and could spend more time making the sound that I wanted," says Hordinski, who adds new textures to the songs by way of various guitars - electric, acoustic, lap steel, e-bow - and even a Mellotron, giving the desired sound a genuine roundness and warmth. The group's sentiments about its recent struggles, both personal and business, are squarely planted in the new CD. The band's usually gleeful trips to its self-pronounced "imaginary apple orchard" have been replaced by a time of unmerciful harvesting. "Slow down. Hold still. It's not as if it's a matter of will. Someone's circling. Someone's moving a little lower than the angels and it's got nothing to do with me," Bergquist declared in one of the album's few up-tempo songs, "All I Need Is Everything," a denial which later unfolds to say, "Still, I clearly hear my name." "To me, I was saying, it's all sort of the same story we were gonna tell on the 'real' record, it's just a simpler version of the same story," explains Detweiler. "And that story, or the 'theme' of the record to me is just the fact that I think I've finally learned the reality of the fact that we all are very broken on a fundamental level as people. And I think, maybe in the back of my mind, I always thought, well, some people are broken and some people aren't and my job is sort of to seek out the people that aren't. And I think that's really a flawed approach to relationships or any kind of meaningful interaction with people. The reality is that we are all very fragile and broken already." The album's own fragility reflects Detweiler's realizations. Bergquist's delicate voice glides over beautifully melancholy ballads and languid string arrangements in "Latter Days" and "Etcetera Whatever." The group's usually ebullient pop numbers are replaced by instrumentals like Detweiler's guitar-and-cello "I Will Not Eat The Darkness" and Hordinski's lovely finger-picking "Willoughby," along with an old-fashioned Protestant hymn-like song, "Poughkeepsie." "I feel like it's the most personal stuff we've ever written," says Detweiler. "I mean, in the past, there's a few personal things that crept in, but mostly it was just a lot of poetic writing, lots of metaphors. Like a love song would be a metaphor for just finding your place in life. This stuff is pretty much like - it's what I'm really thinking about." "I'm becoming more interested in the art of songwriting," he later adds. "I guess my fantasy at this point would be much less connected with some sort of success in the music industry. What would be more of a fantasy would be just leaving behind a handful of songs that I felt were really good songs. And I think maybe a point of departure for that kind of writing is to really stay close to things that you know and just a real honesty - not trying to manufacture any kind of glamour or making life more exciting than it really is. I'm trying to be really real. ****************************************************************************** ******** The Cincinnati Post Thursday, June 27, 1996 TIME OUT What's new with Over the Rhine IN SEARCH OF A RECORD DEAL Over the Rhine happy to be a free agent by Rick Bird Most bands get invigorated when they sign a major-label record deal. Over the Rhine is taking satisfaction in moving in the opposite direction. The Cincinnati-based group seems rejuvenated since it no longer has a major-label record contract. OTR announced two weeks ago that it has been released from the recording contract it signed with IRS Records in 1993. "It became increasingly difficult to get excited about delivering a record to these guys," said Linford Detweiler, Over the Rhine's main songwriter. "I am really excited about opening a new chapter. It's time to move on. I was very relieved IRS let us go." OTR's new chapter as an "unsigned" band begins this Sunday with a concert at P&G Pavilion in Sawyer Point Park. Amazingly, the band has cranked out a new 13-cut CD just a month after it dissolved its recording contract. "Good Dog Bad Dog," will be released on the band's own label this week. The album is a collection of band demos and home recordings. "There was no intention of releasing this stuff at all," Detweiler said, "It was literally recorded in my bedroom for producers and the label so they could get an idea where we were going." "There's something real honest about the recordings. It's a very naked offering." Indeed, OTR fans will likely gush over the stripped-down sound. On many tracks lead singer Karin Bergquist is truly musically naked - recording the songs days after they were written, often with just piano and cello accompaniment and Ric Hordinski's understated, excellent guitar work. The group is rounded out by Brian Kelley on drums and new member Chris Dahlgren on bass. Detweiler is playing piano and acoustic guitar. Detweiler is clearly enjoying the freedom from label pressure: "We're not signed, and we can do whatever we want," he said with a laugh. "we can put out a five-minute-and-45-second song that has no drums." The stripped-down sound serves the band well, since Ms. Bergquist's gut-wrenching, sensual vocals have always been the soul of the group. It's more so than ever with this CD; here her singing borders on torch songs, '90's-style, often turning Detweiler's introspective lyrics into feminist anthems. The speed with which the band assembled this collection is astonishing. When the band was released from the IRS contract just a month ago, Detweiler said, he spent a week "fleshing out" some of the songs with other band members, a week mastering the songs and a week on artwork for the disc. The album will be available at Sunday's concert. Most of the songs were destined to be on the next IRS album, Detweiler said, and "I sensed whatever we delivered was going to get lost in the (IRS) reorganization," he said. Detweiler said the band's creative differences with the label were compounded by the fact that IRS is going through major corporate changes that may result in its getting swallowed up by a larger label. After negotiations initiated by the band, the label agreed to dissolve the contract even though the group owed four more albums. OTR has released three records since band members moved here in the late '80s from northeastern Ohio and took their name from the neighborhood they settled in. OTR still has a management contract with noted producer Peter Asher, who is shopping the band's music to major labels. OTR may not remain an unsigned band for long. For now, though, Over the Rhine seems to be a band at peace with its own sound and image. "We aren't going to be part hard-rock band, part folk-rock band, part pop, part alternative. We just want to be Over the Rhine." Sunday Show Over the Rhine's "Almost Free" show is at 6 p.m. Sunday at the P&G Pavilion at Sawyer Point Park. Donation is $2. Opening acts are described as "friends of the band." Over the Rhine is expected to play at around 8 p.m. For more information call 241-7311.