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Interveiw with Dusted Magazine with my youngest son, Dylan

dusted

Dylan Golden Aycock — Church Of Level Track (Scissor Tail Records)

Dylan Golden Aycock is part of the new generation of guitar pickers young enough to first have been influenced by early volumes of Tompkins Square Records’ Imaginational Anthem series and then to be anthologized on a later one. The Oklahoma native is on Volume 7, should you feel like looking, playing an early version of “Red Bud Valley,” which sits in the middle of the B-side of the LP under consideration here.  

Aycock’s composing on Church Of Level Track offers evidence that he’s well studied in a lineage of American Primitive pickers that stretches back decades before he was born. “Lord It Over” puts it right out there by opening with a double-thumbed bass line right out of John Fahey’s bag of tricks. But this quotation is merely an opening gambit, and one that is quickly followed by moves that prove Aycock is no parrot but a bird with his own song to sing. The steel guitar that sails in over his picking evokes first the bucolic playfulness of Jim O’Rourke’s Bad Timing and then keeps going back into the deep back shelves of country-rock lyricism. At the same time a virtual band (Aycock plays everything on the track and nearly everything on the LP) sets up a subtle undertow of entropic drumming and echo-laden feedback. 

It’s simultaneously psychedelic enough to be illegal and as clear-eyed as an early riser’s first glimpse of the sunrise coming over the horizon, and it sets the tone for the six instrumentals that follow. Aycock’s music can be woozy, but it is also very focused on evoking certain emotions and images. Familiar acoustic patterns pull for memories you think you should have, even if you know you don’t. Gamboling rhythms bring to mind the blurry grass you blow past on two-lane highways and the attendant thrill of putting your foot down on said road because you’re pretty sure no one’s laid a speed trap on this route for years. 

And on the final track, “Scratch The Chisel,” near-New Age synths compete with dissonantly strummed guitars in a maelstrom of conflicting sonic information that instigates a confused state that can only be exited by hitching your wagon to one final, fingerpicked sprint. Fahey took you through the back corners of his twisted mind; Robbie Basho tried to show you a world much better than one humans have ever allowed themselves to have; Glenn Jones uses guitar strings to evoke the human ties that bond and loosen. It remains to be seen just where Aycock is going to take us, but this record feels like it was made by a man with a well-drawn map in his head. 

Bill Meyer

No Depression Interview w my oldest son, Jesse

http://nodepression.com/interview/interview-hard-working-americans-jesse-aycock

Interview with the Hard Working Americans' Jesse Aycock

BY JULIE WENGER WATSON
JULY 24, 2016

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Photo Credit: Jay Blakesburg

Hard Working Americans brings its soulful, gritty, Americana-jam-band brand of rock and roll back to Fayetteville, Ark.’s George’s Majestic Aug.18. Singer songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan opens the show. The Todd Snider-fronted HWA is touring in support of its latest release, Rest in Chaos, which features 12 original tunes and a Guy Clark cover.

As a solo artist, Snider is known for his sarcastic wit and well-crafted, alt-country folk songs. With HWA, he adds a large dose of psychedelic with the help of some seriously talented players, each with his own jammy pedigree. Bassist Dave Schools (Widespread Panic), guitarist Neal Casal (Chris Robinson Brotherhood), drummer Duane Trucks (Col. Bruce Hampton’s School of Music), keyboardist Chad Staehly (Great American Taxi) and Tulsa, Okla.’s own Jesse Aycock on guitar and lap steel round out the band.

A talented songwriter in his own right, Aycock is a fixture on Tulsa’s music scene. In addition to his own recordings, Jesse’s playing has been featured on albums by fellow Okies like Samantha Crain, John Moreland, and Paul Benjaman. He’s also spent time on the road with Americana duo The Secret Sisters.

Aycock’s introduction to HWA came through guitarist Neal Casal. The two have known each other for years. Casal contributed to Aycock’s 2014 Horton Record’s release Flowers & Wounds.

Oklahoma is still home base for Aycock, but he spends a significant amount of time in Music City.

“I’m still calling Tulsa home, but I end up spending quite a bit of time in Nashville,” he said. “There’s a really amazing group of musicians there that are doing a lot of cool things in the community.”

A play in neighboring Fayetteville is always a homecoming of sorts.

“There’s always a few familiar faces at Georges - some from Fayetteville and usually a handful of folks that trek over from Tulsa,” Aycock said.

Aycock is a big fan of this Dickson Street venue.

“I always have a great time at George’s, whether playing or attending shows. George’s has always been one of my personal favorite venues,” Aycock commented. “A lot of the staff has been there for years and are wonderful to work with. Both rooms sound amazing and are the perfect size. I’ve always been a fan of medium-sized venues because it puts the band closer to the listeners. My buddy Arlie has done sound there off and on since I first started playing George’s, and he does an excellent job.”

A veteran of the recording studio, Aycock particularly enjoyed working on HWA’s latest record.

“The recording process for Rest in Chaos was unlike any other record I’ve ever been involved with,” he explained. “We started tracking right after the last show of our first run in Chicago. It was right in the middle of winter and so cold that parts of the lake were frozen over. Being such a new band and still riding the high from an incredible first run combined with the bitter cold made for a perfect storm. Todd had some poems and was writing many of them on the spot. There were a lot of ideas being bounced around until one would get caught in the musical vortex. The songs just kind of started constructing themselves – true inspired magic. The amount of material we were able to come up with in a week was pretty unreal.”

Aycock enjoys life on the road with his HWA bandmates.

“Getting to play music together every night isn’t half bad,” he joked. “I continue to become a better musician and learn so much from every show. There’s also a ton of freedom in this band, which is important on many levels. Hanging out on the bus listening to records and hitting the local record shops in every town we’re in is great fun. Everyone in this band has such a deep knowledge of music, and I’ve been turned on to a lot of great records because of it.”

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