Two-song single is prelude to band’s seventh album “All
The Good Times,” out November 11th.
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Starlings,
TN (L-R): Steven Stubblefield, Mitchell Vandenburg, Bryan Robison, Tim Bryan.
Photo credit: Jason Flowers.
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“The Cumberland” is taken from “Converse Rubber Tracks
Sessions” by Starlings, TN
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Austin-based country-roots artist, Starlings, TN (pronounced “Starlings,
Tennessee”), has re-recorded “Forbidden
Fruit Makes a Sticky Jam” and “The
Cumberland,” two songs from the band’s masterful 2004 album Between
Hell and Baton Rouge. In a review
of that album broadcast by NPR’s
“All Things Considered” program in
January of that year, journalist Meredith
Ochs stated that “This unique approach to roots music requires a certain
disregard for convention, so it’s not surprising to discover that the members
of Starlings, TN used to be in a
punk rock band.”
Besides Doc
Martins, the footwear of punks is certainly Converse All-Stars, and perhaps this fact was an unconscious factor
in band leader Steve Stubblefield’s
decision-making when the shoe company approached him just before South By Southwest earlier this year.
Offering to pay for recording time at Austin’s Shine Studios in exchange for promotional use of the resulting
tracks in the company’s South By
Southwest advertising campaign, Converse
left the commercial rights to the tapes with Stubblefield, who has released them as a two-song digital single
entitled “Converse Rubber Tracks
Sessions,” available for purchase via iTunes
here. A stream of the updated version of “The Cumberland” can be heard here.
“We wanted to give these two songs a new breath of
life,” says Stubblefield, who chose
the songs because the updated arrangements incorporate current Starlings, TN band members Bryan Robison and Mitch Vandenberg in ways that resulted in vastly different versions
than those recorded a decade ago. The
sessions also yielded a new relationship for Starlings, TN with engineer, Justin
Douglas.
“We knew before the day ended that we wanted to work
with Justin again,” says Stubblefield. Indeed, Starlings, TN and Douglas
convened earlier this summer to record the band’s next album All
The Good Times, which is scheduled for release on Austin’s Chicken Ranch Records this November 11th. “His attitude about music was exactly what we
had been searching for, and if I was going to give up the reigns as engineer, I
knew there was no one else that I would rather turn it over to,” Stubblefield explains. In a
recent interview with local Austin NBC
television affiliate KXAN about the
sessions, he Stubblefield elaborated
further saying, “This is the first time in 20 years where I’ve been in a studio
where I haven’t also been the engineer. I get to relax and have a fun day
today.”
The Starlings,
TN two-song single “Converse Rubber
Tracks Sessions” is out now. The new
Starlings, TN full-length album All
The Good Times will be released on November
11th. Steve Stubblefield is available for
interviews. Contact Josh
Bloom at Fanatic for
more information.
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Starlings, TN
“Converse Rubber Tracks Sessions”
(Chicken Ranch, Out Now)
01. Forbidden Fruit Makes A Sticky Jam
02. The Cumberland (STREAM)
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Starlings, TN Links
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Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion
