FROM THE VAULT : Saw Wheel – "The Next Train"
This record was released in 2005 but I just heard it for the first time this last week. I don’t know how I got it but I sure am glad I did. Saw Wheel is a band out of Austin, Texas that sounds a whole lot like Chuck Ragan mixed with Tim Barry. The group has a few albums out and will be releasing an electric album this year. “The Next Train” is the debut by the band and it reeks of late night laments from a barstool. The songs center around the usual suspects; liquor, women, rambling, etc. but there is some real honesty in the words of frontman RJ Cresswell. A side note; how awesome is the name RJ Cresswell? It sounds pretty philosophical and important to me.
The songs have some real beauty to them. My favorite is “Steamboats and Pig Iron” which is a classic tale about working your ass off your entire life and how your trade is ultimately going to be the death of you; you know, if the whiskey, women and gambling don’t get you first. Elsewhere we find RJ singing themes from broken hearts (“Train Wreck”) to resiliance (“The Obvious Hit”), showing the wide range of human emotion on “The Next Train.”
Currently the band is in the studio putting the finishing touches on their third record, “American Fireworks” which is going to be released on their own label Dreadful Industries. We are really excited to head out to their home town in March to partake in SXSW and I’m personally hoping that I can catch these guys play a show somewhere during the week.
“Train Wreck”
“The Obvious Hit”
“Steamboats and Pig Iron”
www.myspace.com/sawwheel
