Freedom, the new record from Amen Dunes (aka New York songwriter Damon McMahon), is a first and foremost a study of desperate men.
Damon McMahon has been releasing a somewhat steady stream of music for the past 15 years – as the lead singer of Inouk before launching solo project Amen Dunes. But it’s the new album Freedom that finally takes him from a local New York act to an international name. On ‘Dracula’ – one of the final tracks on his fourth full-length under the Amen Dunes moniker – Damon finds himself somewhere between Cass McCombs’ poeticism and Jim James’ modernised classic rock with a standout number on one of 2018’s stand-out albums so far.
With every record, Damon McMahon aka Amen Dunes has transformed, and Freedom is the project’s boldest leap yet. The first LP, D.I.A., was a gnarled underground classic, recorded and played completely by McMahon in a trailer in upstate New York over the course of a month and left as is. The fourth and most recent LP Love, a record that enlisted Godspeed! You Black Emperor as both producers and backing band (along with an additional motley crew including Elias Bender Rønnenfelt of Iceage and Colin Stetson), featured songs confidently far removed from the damaged drug pop of Amen Dunes’ trailer-park origins.
Love took two years to make. Freedom took three. The first iteration of the album was recorded in 2016 following a year of writing in Lisbon and NYC, but it was scrapped completely. Uncertain how to move forward, McMahon brought in a powerful set of collaborators and old friends, and began anew. Along with his core band members, including Parker Kindred (Antony & The Johnsons, Jeff Buckley) on drums, came Chris Coady (Beach House) as producer and Delicate Steve on guitars. This is the first Amen Dunes record that looks back to the electronic influences of McMahon’s youth with the aid of revered underground musician Panoram from Rome. McMahondiscovered Panoram’s music in a shop in London and became enamored. Following this the two became friends and here Panoram finds his place as a significant, if subtle, contributor to the record.
The bulk of the songs were recorded at the famed Electric Lady Studios in NYC (home of Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, D’Angelo), and finished at the similarly legendary Sunset Sound in L.A., where McMahon, Nick Zinner, and session bass player extraordinaire Gus Seyffert (Beck, Bedouine) fleshed out the recordings.
On the surface, Freedom is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording.
The characters that populate the musical world of Freedom are a colourful mix of reality and fantasy: father and mother, Amen Dunes, teenage glue addicts and Parisian drug dealers, ghosts above the plains, fallen surf heroes, vampires, thugs from Naples and thugs from Houston, the emperor of Rome, Jews, Jesus, Tashtego, Perseus, even McMahon himself. Each character portrait is a representation of McMahon, of masculinity, and of his past.
Yet, if anything, these 11 songs are a relinquishing of all of them through exposition; a gradual reorientation of being away from the acquired definitions of self we all cling to and towards something closer to what’s stated in the Agnes Martin quote that opens the record, “I don’t have any ideas myself; I have a vacant mind” and in the swirling, pitched down utterances of “That’s all not me” that close it.
The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. The combination of a powerhouse rhythm section, Delicate Steve’s guitar prowess filtered through Amen Dunes heft, and Panoram’s electronic production background, makes for a special and unique NYC street record.
It’s a sound never heard before on an Amen Dunes record, but one that was always asking to emerge. Eleven songs span a range of emotions, from contraction to release and back again. ‘Blue Rose’ and ‘Calling Paul the Suffering’ are pure, ecstatic dance songs. ‘Skipping School’ and ‘Miki Dora’ are incantations of a mythical heroic maleness and its illusions. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Believe’ offer a street tough’s future-gospel exhalation, and the funk-grime grit of ‘L.A.’ closes the album, projecting a musical hint of things to come.
Amen Dunes (aka the project of New York-based Damon McMahon)has shared the video for his new single Blue Rose, taken from upcoming long player Freedom which is out on the 30th March.
The song is a teenage clarion call born from McMahon’s growing up with an unpredictable father, his fighting back with music, drugs and fantasy, and his eventual escape from it all via one of the many identities, that of a musician.
“Freedom” took three. The first iteration of the album was recorded in 2016 following a year of writing in Lisbon and NYC, but it was scrapped completely. Uncertain how to move forward, McMahon brought in a powerful set of collaborators and old friends, and began anew. Along with his core band members, including Parker Kindred (Antony & The Johnsons, Jeff Buckley) on drums, came Chris Coady (Beach House) as producer and Delicate Steve on guitars. This is the first Amen Dunes record that looks back to the electronic influences of McMahon’s youth with the aid of revered underground producer Panoram from Rome. McMahon discovered Panoram’s music in a shop in London and became enamored. Following this the two became friends and here Panoram finds his place as a significant, if subtle, contributor to the record.
The bulk of the songs were recorded at the famed Electric Lady Studios in NYC (home of Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, D’Angelo), and finished at the similarly legendary Sunset Sound in L.A., where McMahon, Nick Zinner, and session bass player extraordinaire Gus Seyffert (Beck, Bedouine) fleshed out the recordings.
On the surface, Freedom is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording.
Amen Dunes (aka the project of New York-based Damon McMahon) will release his fifth album, Freedom, on 30 March via Sacred Bones Records.
Amen Dunes last released an album in 2014. The album was called Love . The tune below is called “Miki Dora” . Here’s what McMahon has to say about the track.
“Miki Dora was arguably the most gifted and innovative surfer of his generation and the foremost opponent of surfing’s commercialization. He was also a lifelong criminal and retrograde: a true embodiment of the distorted male psyche. He was a living contradiction; both a symbol of free-living and inspiration, and of the false heroics American culture has always celebrated. With lyrics of regret and redemption at the end of one’s youth, the song is about Dora, and McMahon, but ultimately it is a reflection on all manifestations of mythical heroic maleness and its illusions.”
On the surface, Freedom is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording. The characters that populate the musical world of the album are a colourful mix of reality and fantasy. Each character portrait is a representation of McMahon, of masculinity, and of his past.The lead single “Miki Dora”, and its accompanying video, which features 17-year old Boomer Feith with McMahon appearing as both the story’s narrator and its subject.
Of the track, McMahon says, “Miki Dora was arguably the most gifted and innovative surfer of his generation and the foremost opponent of surfing’s commercialization. He was also a lifelong criminal and retrograde: a true embodiment of the distorted male psyche. He was a living contradiction; both a symbol of free-living and inspiration, and of the false heroics American culture has always celebrated. With lyrics of regret and redemption at the end of one’s youth, the song is about Dora, and McMahon, but ultimately it is a reflection on all manifestations of mythical heroic maleness and its illusions.”
On every record, Damon McMahon’s project has transformed continuously, and Freedom is its boldest leap yet. On the surface, the album is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse, male identity, McMahon’s father, and his mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of recording. The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. The album comes out March 30th.
The video for the first single from Freedom, “Miki Dora,” is out now.
The first LP, D.I.A., was a gnarled underground classic, recorded and played completely by McMahon in a trailer in upstate New York over the course of a month and left as is. The fourth and most recent LP Love, a record that enlisted Godspeed! You Black Emperor as both producers and backing band (along with an additional motley crew including Elias Bender Rønnenfelt of Iceage and Colin Stetson), featured songs confidently far removed from the damaged drug pop of Amen Dunes’ trailer-park origins.
Love took two years to make. Freedom took three. The first iteration of the album was recorded in 2016 following a year of writing in Lisbon and NYC, but it was scrapped completely. Uncertain how to move forward, McMahon brought in a powerful set of collaborators and old friends, and began anew. Along with his core band members, including Parker Kindred (Antony & The Johnsons, Jeff Buckley) on drums, came Chris Coady (Beach House) as producer and Delicate Steve on guitars. This is the first Amen Dunes record that looks back to the electronic influences of McMahon’s youth with the aid of revered underground musician Panoram from Rome. McMahon discovered Panoram’s music in a shop in London and became enamored. Following this the two became friends and here Panoram finds his place as a significant, if subtle, contributor to the record.
The bulk of the songs were recorded at the famed Electric Lady Studios in NYC (home of Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, D’Angelo), and finished at the similarly legendary Sunset Sound in L.A., where McMahon, Nick Zinner, and session bass player extraordinaire Gus Seyffert (Beck, Bedouine) fleshed out the recordings.
On the surface, Freedom is a reflection on growing up, childhood friends who ended up in prison or worse.
The characters that populate the musical world of Freedom are a colourful mix of reality and fantasy: father and mother, Amen Dunes, teenage glue addicts and Parisian drug dealers, ghosts above the plains, fallen surf heroes, vampires, thugs from Naples and thugs from Houston, the emperor of Rome, Jews, Jesus, Tashtego, Perseus, even McMahon himself. Each character portrait is a representation of McMahon, of masculinity, and of his past.
The themes are darker than on previous Amen Dunes albums, but it’s a darkness sublimated through grooves. The music, as a response or even a solution to the darkness, is tough and joyous, rhythmic and danceable. The combination of a powerhouse rhythm section, Delicate Steve’s guitar prowess filtered through.
It’s a sound never heard before on an Amen Dunes record, but one that was always asking to emerge. Eleven songs span a range of emotions, from contraction to release and back again. ‘Blue Rose’ and ‘Calling Paul the Suffering’ are pure, ecstatic dance songs. ‘Skipping School’ and ‘Miki Dora’ are incantations of a mythical heroic maleness and its illusions. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Believe’ offer a street tough’s future-gospel exhalation, and the funk-grime grit of ‘L.A.’ closes the album, projecting a musical hint of things to come.
The Pinx has shared the stage with The Sonics, Blue Oyster Cult, Dead Confederate, Dead Boys’ Cheetah Chrome and many more quite an impressive resume, but its there hard hitting stormy sound that proves this Atlanta band can fly like fellow Georgians The Black Crowes once did and Drive by Truckers triumph today. The band’s new record Freedom came out last May and Adam McIntrye, the front-man and producer knows he has a winner on his hands.
It holds hints of The Pinx’s previous and well-established influences Led Zeppelin and The Who in it, but the Pinx engine has been supercharged by the likes of The MC5 and Motorhead. “Yeah, I actually yell ‘Give all your money to The MC5’ on this record,” McIntyre says after the mood shifts back to work. “I finally figured out what this band is—it’s my happy place. I’ve done a lot of work to make sure that’s exactly what this album is.”
More rock and roll tunes come spilling out of the studio monitors, eight of the ten being uptempo and crackling with smoldering volcanic energy. Two of them, southern psychedelia oozing with swampy soul. Most of them sound more like potential singles than anything from previous albums. “These songs are all true stories,” says McIntyre, “I tried to write concise, simple little rock and roll songs. This is the set I want to play live.” The album, Freedom, is aptly named with each song centers around the idea of trying to find freedom while simultaneously delivering three and a half minutes of it.
The track “Blue Dream” off Freedoma track of unpolished reflection that stenches of a Stonesesque sound kick. The story aint one of elated joy that created the track, but then again creativity is usually born from some adversity, as McIntyre explains,
“As I was getting divorced a few years ago, and my ex and I were still trying to live together in a house with our kid, we made an agreement to not fight, especially not in front of him. That plan held for about fifteen minutes. She could not stop herself from fighting with me so I grabbed my metal resonator guitar and a slide, a few articles of clothing and headed to my friend’s house and bought a bag of some medicinal herb–a strain known as Blue Dream. Then I got a room at the Highland Inn in Atlanta and told everyone I knew to drop by, day or night. I stayed there for a week, through my birthday. I could have felt very sorry for myself the whole time, but the truth was that I felt more free than I ever had. I felt the support of my community of musician friends, especially the guys in StoneRider, who came by and brought their friends.”
“I had just produced and/or mixed four records at the same time and let the steam off of what was becoming a nervous breakdown by having a low-key party for a week,” McIntyre continues. “Near the end of my stay, a tornado passed the inn. Nobody else was with me at the time and the gravity of my situation sank in as the wind howled and the halls of the inn became a wind tunnel–I needed to stop being a man-child and evolve if I was going to deal with the shit-storm my life had become. It was lousy but I also had a sense of peace that I was going to be okay. On my birthday, the bake shop next to the inn sent over a birthday cupcake from my girlfriend. I ate the cupcake and went back home and started literally cleaning up the mess that was left in my house. Ruby Velle lent her backing vocals to this song, and she sounds great. That’s also Noah Pine from StoneRider on keys. He added so much that I couldn’t.”
From 2007 til 2012, The Pinx toured the Southeastern U.S. incessantly, from Virginia to New Orleans, their shows spilling into the streets where they often set off fireworks for fans, sometimes between songs. They braved crowds of drunk zombies in Savannah, broke up a street fight in New Orleans, and cheered on a couple having sex during their set in Tuscaloosa. They brought their rowdy bar mentality to larger stages like the Cox Capitol Theater in Macon and Atlanta’s Variety Playhouse. They opened for Ben Harper and Relentless7 at the request of Ben himself. You may have even heard The Pinx during ESPN and Fox Sports highlights. The band surged forward, getting bigger offers.
Then it stopped for a while. “Jim [O’Kane, drums] needed a break and Joe [Giddings, bass and vocals] moved to California,” says McIntyre, “but I never stopped writing songs and thinking about my next move.” After producing several records for artists around the Southeast, Adam joined up with likeminded Atlanta rockers StoneRider. “A few days after I joined, a series of events happened and suddenly I was getting ready for a big tour of Europe… opening for Europe, the band, in front of 2,000 people a night!” They shared stages with Blackberry Smoke (McIntyre joined them on lead guitar for a rousing version of The Rolling Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”), Living Colour, Graveyard, Warren Haynes, and a slew of others. “It was an amazing, invigorating vacation from The Pinx with some of the best humans in the world, and then it was time to come back home.”
McIntyre came back home to The Pinx with a massive collection of four-track demos, riffs, and lyric ideas written on the road and several new influences to add to the Pinx mix. “It’s not entirely an ode to guitar riffs” says McIntyre, “a lot of the stuff I learned about songwriting during my decade in Nashville came back. Not the formulaic bro-country aspect, but folks like Todd Snider and Dan Baird. Smart, funny guys who write songs that reflect themselves well. I wanted some of that to come through. It all has to mix with the Rock and Roll and the blues and soul and everything, and I put together a band tailor-made to do just that.”
Longtime fans will blink their eyes in disbelief to see a second guitarist on stage in The Pinx—Chance McColl (a Southern Gentleman if there ever was one) shifts effortlessly between Jimmy Page licks and Danny Gatton’s virtuosic country stylings. Bassist Jon Lee hails from Tennessee but has been thriving in some of what McIntyre calls “the best bands in Atlanta” for years. Drummer Dwayne Jones (Thee Crucials & Order of the Owl) should take much credit for the return of The Pinx, as he offered his services “aggressively” and plays on most of the new album. The new lineup allows McIntyre to become more of a singer live than the original power trio format had, and lends itself to some fun Thin Lizzy-styled guitar harmonies.
When asked about the band’s goals, McIntyre replies, “It’s time to get back out there and play some goddamned Rock and Roll.”
Are you ready to get Experienced, once again? 45 years ago, The Jimi Hendrix Experience played to the largest American audience of its career on the stage of the Atlanta Pop Festival, alongside other artists including The Allman Brothers Band, Mott the Hoople, Procol Harum, Rare Earth, and even a company of Hair! The second Atlanta International Pop Festival was a rock festival held in a soybean field adjacent to the Middle Georgia Racewayin Byron, Georgia, from July 3th–5th, 1970, although it did not finish until near dawn on the 6th.
The now-legendary performance of Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox on July 4th, 1970 will be chronicled this fall with a new documentary film and live album. Legacy Recordings previewed the upcoming release Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival earlier this year with the Record Store Day-exclusive vinyl single of “Purple Haze” b/w “Freedom.” On August 28, the rest of Freedom will arrive on 2 CDs or 2 vinyl LPs. The first 5,000 copies of the vinyl release will be individually numbered.
The 16-song live recording includes familiar Hendrix favorites like “Foxy Lady,” “Hey Joe,” “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”, Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” and of course, a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” befitting the July 4th date. Jimi Hendrix performed at around midnight on the 4th of July to the largest American audience of his career, presenting his unique rendition of the Star Spangled Banner to accompany the celebratory fireworks display. just two months before his death at age 27, the guitarist was one of more than 30 acts that played for an estimated 300,000-400,000 people at the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, Ga
Freedom will be accompanied this fall by the documentary Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church, set for airing on Showtime on September 4th. DVD/BD releases follow on October 30th with additional content not included in the television broadcast. This new film features interviews with Hendrix’s bandmates Cox and the late Mitchell as well as Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney, Atlanta Pop organizer Alex Cooley and others.
Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival arrives on August 28th from Legacy Recordings and can be pre-ordered at the links below!
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Freedom: Atlanta Pop Festival 1970 (Experience Hendrix/Legacy, 2015)
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
CD/LP 1
1.Fire
2.Lover Man
3.Spanish Castle Magic
4.Red House
5.Room Full of Mirrors
6.Hear My Train A-Comin’
7.Message to Love
CD/LP 2
1.All Along the Watchtower
2.Freedom
3.Foxy Lady
4.Purple Haze
5.Hey Joe
6.Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
7.Stone Free
8.The Star-Spangled Banner
9.Straight Ahead
The Fat Angel Sings 