Virgil Shaw At The Time I Didn't Care

Beginning his career as a member of the high-energy, speed-pop band Brent’s T.V. (who recorded two albums for Lookout Records), he later moved to San Francisco where he was a founding member of the band Dieselhed (Bongload Records) from 1992-2000. From there is work as a solo artist became laded with rich, evocative imagery, gothic storytelling and painterly detail. Recorded in San Francisco and the headlands north of the city, Virgil's new album captures the songwriter in a self-reflective awareness, touching on topics from dead and gone love to an absorbing recount of a feveristic dream. It features Henry Nagle (guitar/petal steel), Rusty Miller (drums/guitar/bass), Atom Ellis (vocals/bass), Danny Heifetz (vibraphones), and Whitney Shaw (vocals). Virgil's arc angel yodelistic soul-singing can sound like a cross between Gram Parsons and Jimmie Rogers, and beneath that the band plays anything from the laid-back downer country of Kris Kristofferson or Fred Neil to a psychedelic ethereal dreamscape country sound. At the Time I Didn’t Care reminds one of outlaw country, particularly early and eerie Willie Nelson. It’s a straight country record, nor a folk record, but something original and intangible between.