Tired Old Bones - Which Way Is Home on Skeleton Head Records

A while back I talked to Dustin from Skeleton Head Records out of Boston. He had just put out his first single from Tired Old Bones and the screen printed sleeve was incredible. there's nothing like that gritty thick feel of ink on recycled card stock, it's like ultra fine sandpaper you can feel the ink coating your finger every time you pick it up. Nothing is as DIY as printing something like that with multiple passes squeegeeing screens. Dustin has since built his own printing studio and released a second single from the Allston, MA band.

"Which Way is Home" creates a stabby bopping hammond line for the guitar and drum punches to deliver multiple hits you didn't see coming. Rumbly bass slides up the neck in those dramatic pauses and Bridget's vocals are in complete control like Marvel on the Piñata Records split with Southside Desire and Black Diet. It's one of those vocals that sounds like it comes naturally…it's been trained and nurtured, but the foundation was always there. This unwieldy hobbled together contraption is stumbling along balanced like an alien interpretation of the Decemberists and White Lung. Her delivery ignores the choppy post punk guitar for the most part comfortable with carving out it's own path in this carnival sounding ska. It's building to an epic chorus though and it's in that contrast that this takes unique unexpected turns.

B-Side's "Throw Stones" opens on an ominous slow, quiet electric melody that blows wide open with heavy hitting percussion in tons of space, real dusty lonesome west modern country stuff, like Tracy Shedd or GIant Sand. Bending chords to palming the vibrations into strangled scrapes, they work at pushing the dynamics of this one. From hardly a whisper to the birds eye aerial shots at the credits Bridget's got help of some pretty extreme delay in places with some of that smokey lower end Stevie Nicks sound getting down to the serious business of taking control. She's lying in wait like Rid of Me letting loose on the next verse with doubled up vocals while the band makes sure this muscly blues stays on track.

Dustin mentioned that this single was pressed a couple different ways, pictured is the test press version

"...individually cut from flocked wall paper, with hand cut, printed belly bands. They're on white vinyl and numbered in an edition of 30 housed in a brown paper sleeve. The second press is of 300 numbered white vinyl, housed in black sleeves with exquisite 2 sided inserts and download codes. The covers are embossed and printed with clear glossy ink on matte black paper. Really black on Really black. Not the best marketing ploy but it looks so good in the right light"

Get up both from Skeleton Head or the band direct

Interview with Dustin from Skeleton Head Records

Talked to Dustin last week for the podcast about his new label, SkeletonHead Records and their first release from Tired Old Bones, turns out we have a Boston art connection through my friend Matt and I was blown away by the handmade silkscreen sleeve of this single. We nerded out on the printing process and the design in the interview and I played parts of a couple tracks on the single. Dustin has plans for putting out another Tired Old Bones single soon, actually in the next few months and future releases from yet unnamed Boston bands.

That's this weeks podcast (27 min), which you can download here.

Tired Old Bones on Skeleton Head Records

I got an email from Dustin and his new label Skeleton Head Records, turns out I know him through my friend (and always entertaining podcast co-host) Matt Nash. He was kind enough to send me his first 7" release from Tired Old Bones. He told me he screened the sleeve's himself and they are truly amazing. 4 Color offset on heavy cardstock it has that grainy matte ink feel like nothing else.
The first thing I did was pull it out of the mylar bag and unfold it...that sad jpg above does it no justice, it's really an amazing effort for any single, I'm tempted to go find a frame, but I can't find it in myself to break up the family. The entire packaging is all out, the vinyl is marbled orange and it even comes with a printed CD with a couple of bonus tracks for good measure, labeled a la steve albini: 500 RPM. (Wiki confirms this as the inner ring speed although it varies during play....hey, if you're going to be that specific I have to check.)

Tired Old Bones is from Allston, MA and the story goes Jesse,drums and Neal, bass were looking to start a new project after Bismark and Bury the Needle and happened upon a show with Bridget playing a hammond organ, and when she sang...the rest was history. Bridget has an expressive voice that's equally strong yelling the chorus as it is laying out the verse narrative out from the echo. She's got the pipes and she knows how to use them, like Shannon and the Clams, it's bluesy, from a classically rock place. It doesn't belong in the seedy bars, or maybe it's that contrast that will work.
On 'Country Circus' when Bridget's vocals get layered it's time for the huge chorus in this slightly rockabilly rock country feel track that sways back and forth into all out windmill rock territory. The guitar has a little of that distorted cramps blues style...a menacing surf melody basted in reverb. The organ keeps pulling me back into a psychedelic classic rock sound which just confirms the variety of influenced being pulled together.

'Do Not Disturb' the B-Side is about staying in bed, something I can always relate to, built on a tom beat with a fuzzy bassline, washes of sustained reverb peeking in here and there. I keep thinking live this has to be an impressive performance if she's giving half of the effort here.
Hammering it home with the last line, exhausted....'Let me sleep'. Well, you deserve it.

My second home would be Boston if I ever decided to move away from NYC. It's a small big town in a lot of ways, the huge college presence can be really exciting and insanely annoying, everyone knows everyone else somehow and it's always seemed pretty supportive of a great music and art scene. But then I'd have to interact with people more instead of obsessively posting about singles.
Distractions.

Get it from Dustin at Skeleton Head or Tired Old Bones.

You can buy them from us at Tired Old Bones live shows or mail order them here. $7 each in person or $9 each post paid. Paypal is the easiest- our account is dub1127(at)hotmail.com - but you can also send a check or money order made out to Dustin Williams. Skeleton Head Records
95 Jamaica St. #3
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130