Crying for the River and for Us

"Crying For the River and For Us" by Eric Rose and Chris King (with Three Fried Men) is a thinking-person's throwback indie rock record. It has roots in a group of 30-year-old college friendships from Washington University in St. Louis, 19th century American frontier journals, and ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seals.

These eight songs were primarily written by Eric Rose, now based in San Francisco, scoring the poetry of Chris King, who is back in St. Louis where their songwriting partnership and these musical friendships began. Rose's songwriting evokes perennial melodic indie rock -- Uncle Tupelo, Pavement, Spoon,  -- and also alludes back to The Beatles, "Revolver," for a musical touchstone. His musical and tonal palettes are varied. He turns out a lush, mid-tempo ballad in waltz time, stripped-down country-rock, and even a burst of pop funk to end the musical journey.

Chris King's poetry covers themes familiar to the rock and roll canon such as lust and its impediments, the loss of love, talking to the judge to stay out of jail, and drinking wine. He also collages poems from obscure primary sources, finding uncanny scraps of language and heart-stopping stories in unfamiliar places. The poem behind the title song, "Crying for the River and for Us," adapts imagery from ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seals and even scholarship about them, but there is nothing dusty about this bittersweet folk tale: "Riot in the city. Bird man punished for common theft. Animal musicians playing rebel songs in the dusty streets."

"I Would Rather Bid You Lie With Me," is based on the frontier journals of the U.S. Army Captain John G. Bourke, but Bourke's memoirs of generals trying to talk hostile Apache bands in from the war path are adapted, in the poem, from war to love. "I know you see a road leading out," King writes and Rose sings. "Don't take it just yet. I'll tell you this much. That road ends at a great river. The river splits into three. You can make your hard choice now, or you can make it then. The river out is no simpler than you and me." It turns out that trying to talk someone in from the war path is a lot like trying to talk someone into keeping your love alive.

Rose singing King (and Bourke and their other long-dead fellow travelers) while playing acoustic and electric guitars is backed by Three Fried Men. Three Fried Men is both a campus rock band that has been evolving for thirty years and the Poetry Scores house band.

Poetry Scores is an unincorporated, all-volunteer, international arts collective that builds community by translating poetry into other media, including music. Though its scope widened far beyond its origins and is open to endless innovation, Poetry Scores evolved from the post-punk band Eleanor Roosevelt, which started out as Enormous Richard on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis in the late 1980s. Matt Fuller (drums), David Melson (bass), and Elijah "Lij" Shaw (guitars) all played together with Chris King (then, vocals) in those bands. Eric Rose has the distinction of having played in Big Toe, the ur-Enormous Richard, so he was there at the beginning, or before. Meghan Gohil -- who mixed and mastered "Crying for the River and for Us" -- was part of the same campus band scene where this all fermented and produced much of the Enormous Richard and Eleanor Roosevelt oeuvre where this crowd first started setting poems and obscure primary sources to rock music. 

The basic tracking of "Crying for the River and for Us" was done by Elijah "Lij" Shaw at The Toy Box Studio in Nashville. Lij is host of the popular podcast "Recording Studio Rockstars" and longtime house producer of the original recordings made at the Bonnaroo Music Festival. He recently came to national attention for his years-long and finally successful effort to decriminalize home studios in Nashville.

"Crying for the River and for Us" was mixed and mastered at Hollywood Recording Studio in Los Angeles by Meghan Gohil.

"Crying for the River and for Us" by Eric Rose and Chris King (with Three Fried Men) is available from Hollywood Recording Studio wherever music is downloaded or streamed.

The cover art is by John Minkoff, who grew up in the same Washington University campus band scene, played in Enormous Richard and Eleanor Roosevelt, and contributes to Poetry Scores as a visual artist.”

LINKS:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBmT59Hr1aQwXCzUEwQUUow

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5oDtB2ywDbk8E1uuTM5cST

iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/crying-for-the-river-and-for-us/1544589501