{"id":505,"date":"2011-05-18T05:36:26","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T10:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=505"},"modified":"2015-10-23T13:10:40","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T13:10:40","slug":"the-cheeksters-hows-your-golden-birds-lumbago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/18\/the-cheeksters-hows-your-golden-birds-lumbago\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cheeksters: Golden Birds Take Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mark Casson<\/strong> and Shannon Hines Casson<\/strong> \u2013 the husband-and-wife musical team leading The Cheeksters<\/strong><\/a> — clearly aren\u2019t originally from around here. Mark\u2019s British accent and Shannon\u2019s Memphis lilt make it clear that the pair have, like others before and after them, made a conscious decision to settle in Asheville NC. And they\u2019ve developed the trademark Cheeksters sound by combining influences from their places of origin into something original. Still, Mark Casson chuckles, \u201cSome would say my influences are quite obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark and Shannon moved from Nashville TN to Asheville in 2000; by that point the pair had already released three albums as The Cheeksters; then as now the studio version of the group features Mark (vocals, guitars, keyboard and more) and Shannon (bass guitar, vocals etc.) plus producer\/engineer\/multi-instrumentalist Brent Little<\/strong>. All of the group\u2019s albums since 1997 have been recorded at Little\u2019s Cream Puff Recorders in Nashville. \u201cWe feel like a lot of magic happens there, says Casson. The group\u2019s sixth and latest long player, The Golden Birds<\/em>, got official release on Saturday May 7 2011, with a release party at Lexington Avenue Brewing.<\/p>\n

The Cheeksters sound combines elements of Memphis soul and R&B with classic Britpop stylings; imagine the Small Faces<\/strong> fronted by a young David Bowie<\/strong> and Dusty Springfield<\/em>. But the group avoids stuck-in-amber retro pandering, preferring instead to focus on songcraft and straightforward, catchy arrangements. Their 2005 song \u201cThe Neighbourhood Kids\u201d enjoyed a high profile thanks in part to its use as a soundtrack for a heavy-rotation TV commercial for Asheville\u2019s Ananda Hair Studio.<\/p>\n

That sort of radio-friendly approach has served The Cheeksters well; last year the title song from their 2007 album Movers and Shakers<\/em> was picked up for use on a series of NFL Network commercials. Casson describes The Golden Birds<\/em> as \u201cvery much in keeping what we\u2019ve done before, but it\u2019s the next logical step forward for us.\u201d He believes that over the years The Cheeksters \u201chave improved as musicians, and have got better at making records.\u201d And while Casson might sound old-school in his description of a collection of songs as a record<\/em>, in fact there are tentative plans to release the album on vinyl later this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe title The Golden Birds<\/em> comes from a children\u2019s book I read,\u201d Mark says. \u201cWhen the children in the story go into a dark wood, they would hear the song of the golden birds, and be changed forever. The fantastic imagery made an impression on me.\u201d The songs on the record are in turns melancholy and upbeat; with its riffy dialogue between electric piano and electric 12-string, \u201cWhy Don\u2019t You\u201d could have fit nicely on the Help!<\/em> soundtrack. \u201cMr. Witchall\u201d has the feel of a sunny afternoon at Piccadilly Circus. The gurgling Hammond organ and air-raid siren that anchor \u201cThe Sleepers\u201d provide a dreamy counterpoint to bouncy, anthemic cuts like \u201cThrill of a Lifetime.\u201d And on \u201cHow Do You Feel Now\u201d Casson and band channel a slinky, soulful Motown vibe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of variety on this record,\u201d asserts Casson. That\u2019s evidenced by the lounge-flavored sunshine pop of \u201cBrand New Way\u201d and Shannon\u2019s lead vocal spotlight \u201cReach You,\u201d with its musical arrangement reminiscent of Sticky Fingers<\/em> era Rolling Stones<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually got to play drums on a recording for the first time ever,\u201d Casson grins. \u201cAnd Shannon came a lot more into her own on this record, too. Her bass playing really drives a lot of the songs, and she\u2019s also featured a bit more vocally than on previous records.\u201d In fact The Golden Birds<\/em> features more Mark\/Shannon unison lead vocals than the group has done in the past.<\/p>\n

The performing lineup of The Cheeksters includes Jay Moye<\/strong> (guitars and keyboards) and drummer Michael Baker<\/strong>; for the release party the group will add Je Widenhouse<\/strong> from the Firecracker Jazz Band<\/strong> on trumpet and harmony vocals. Widenhouse\u2019s presence will bring The Cheeksters\u2019 onstage live sound closer to their analog, live-in-the-studio ambience. \u201cQuite a lot of the solos on The Golden Birds<\/em> are trumpet solos,\u201d says Casson. \u201cOne conscious decision I made when making this record was to stick some different instruments on there, instead of having guitar solos all over the place. I love the sounds of flugelhorn and trumpet, and they seemed to make sense with the songs I had written.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internet radio station Asheville FM (ashevillefm.org) provided a live audio stream of the May 7 show. In addition to being a release party for The Golden Birds<\/em>, the event also served as the unofficial 20th<\/sup> Anniversary gala for The Cheeksters.<\/p>\n

An edited version of this feature appeared in the May 4 issue of<\/em> Mountain Xpress.<\/p>\n

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Mark Casson and Shannon Hines Casson \u2013 the husband-and-wife musical team leading The Cheeksters — clearly aren\u2019t originally from around here. Mark\u2019s British accent and Shannon\u2019s Memphis lilt make it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9226,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions\/9226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}