upcoming

The Richard Thompson Band

What:

For the Record.

There was a time when recording artists — be they bands or singer/songwriters — would produce a small body of work, go into the studio, lay down tracks for a new album, then wait impatiently for the record company to do their business crating a finished disc. That often took months on end and by the time the record was finally made it into stores, the artist may well have moved on to newer material. Nevertheless, the record label would typically want to mount a tour in association with the new release with sales in mind. Of course things have changed as musicians and the music business struggle to adapt to new media delivery systems. Many bands have jumped ship eschewing record companies to go D.I.Y.

Guitarist/songwriter extraordinaire Richard Thompson has a different sort of plan for his next as-yet-untitled record. This week and next, he’ll be working his way down the West Coast from Seattle to San Francisco playing eight dates in five cites, recording a live album of all new songs as he goes.

The current Richard Thompson Band has Thompson on vocals and lead guitar (of course) with multi-instrumentalist Pete Zorn, Canadian fiddler Joel Zifkin (who also plays with the McGarrigle Sisters), bassist Taras Prodaniuk (from Lucinda Williams’ band), and Michael Jerome on drums. (Prodaniuk and Jerome both played on Thompson’s last studio album, Street Warrior.)

Local sound man Russ Cole is on the tour, working as recording engineer. “Last night was the fist time they’d done the whole set straight through,” he said calling from Los Angeles, where the Thompson Band held a tour preview show last week.

The new material? Cole’s favorite (so far) is “Crime Scene,” a dark murder mystery “with a film noir kind of narrative — very cinematic.” There’s another murder tale called “Sydney Wells.” “It just rocks,” said Cole. “At one point it becomes like a Scottish dance tune with a Gaelic riff, but it’s a rock tune — very modern. Richard is such a great conduit of traditional songs contemporized.” Death comes up again in “The Brother Slips Away,” a sad one about three of Richard’s friends who died last year. Current events are often fodder for Thompson: He mentions “our lovely banking institutions” in his introduction to “The Money Shuffle.”

The second set will change night to night, but generally includes songs from throughout Thompson’s four decade long career. It’s a deep songbook, full of stunning tunes going all the way back to Thompson’s time with Fairport Convention in the ’60s. Rest assured that there will be ample opportunity to show off the instrumental prowess of Richard and his band.

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The Richard Thompson Band plays at HSU’s Van Duzer Theatre on Sunday, Feb. 21, starting at 8 p.m. Tickets are  $38, $25 for HSU students. Call 826-3928 or go to www.humboldt.edu/~carts for reservations.

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