Moon Shine by Sean McGovern

Release Date: July 31, 2020

iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/moon-shine/1522356942

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/03flUNcKLCtpZMQY0Da5mA

Bandcamp: https://seanmcgovern.bandcamp.com/album/moon-shine

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Jaad8ijzdOA

The sound 

When you introduce your new record by name-checking touchstone records of the past, you risk being taken for deluded or derivative. We will take that risk by saying we wish that R.E.M. had made more records that sound like Murmur, that the Jayhawks had made more records that sound like Tomorrow the Green Grass, that John Cale had made more records that sound like Vintage Violence, and that the Meat Puppets had made more records that sound like Meat Puppets II. 

We are not deluded enough to think that Moon Shine sounds like any of these records, and we are not derivative enough to try to write or record songs that sound like anybody else. But we hope that name-checking those records will suggest the kinds of musical universes we at least imagined we were traveling in when we wrote and recorded these songs.

The Songs

Moon Shine is a collection of 10 songs that Sean McGovern wrote from poetry by Chris King. They aspire to be hook-laden American folk rock with touches of power pop, glam, and country punk. There is enough recurring imagery and thematics to suggest a story sequence: A traveler struggles to keep but loses a lover and ends up alone on a dark road. It’s a record full of long journeys by night, sometimes with a beloved under a lover’s moon (“that old pimp looking down goofy and blue”), sometimes alone with “no star to guide.”

Though almost every line in every song is from a poem by Chris, these are not song settings or poetry scores. Sean curated the poetry, moving lines in and out of poems and even writing a line to hold a couple of songs together. This process extended the practice of the poet, who considers these to be collage poems drawn from things thought, said, and overheard, and fragments salvaged from his old notebooks and obscure primary texts by others.

One silent partner deserves special mention. John G. Bourke was a U.S. Army captain who kept journals while riding with General Crook as literally his right-hand man and field secretary. Much of the natural imagery in the poems is drawn from Bourke’s field journals and books. The Watermelon Mountains, for example, are mountains Bourke crossed while trailing the Apache; Geronimo himself ended up a watermelon farmer when he finally came in from the war path.

The recording 

Moon Shine was produced by Lij Shaw and Meghan Gohil. Chris King was executive producer.

Moon Shine was tracked, mostly live, at the Toy Box Studio in Nashville by Lij Shaw, with overdubs recorded by Lij at the Toy Box and at Hollywood Recording Studio in Los Angeles by Meghan Gohil. Meghan mixed and mastered the record at Hollywood Recording Studio.

The basic live tracking band was Sean McGovern (vocals, acoustic guitar), Lij Shaw (electric and acoustic guitars), Jay Lauterwasser (bass) and Matt Fuller (drums). Sean and Lij overdubbed more vocals. Lij overdubbed more guitars and piano and keyboards. Meghan overdubbed yet more guitars, and Nick Barbieri added backup vocals.

Lij Shaw has recorded and produced a who’s who of rock and roots music, including live Hay Bale Studio recordings of just about everyone who played Bonnaroo in the past 15 years. Meghan Gohil has been recording and producing for more than 30 years and is best known for recording and mixing Levinhurst, led by Lol Tolhurst of The Cure. The live band playing behind Sean recorded and toured as Enormous Richard and Eleanor Roosevelt, hitting the road in the early days of twang and once sharing a record label with Kinky Friedman and Charles Manson.

The artist 

Sean McGovern is a late bloomer as a songwriter and recording artist. Raised in a musical family in Granite City, Illinois, he first had success as the front man of a cover band, Paint the Earth, one of St. Louis’ most popular live acts throughout the 1990s. He came into his own as a songwriter in the 21st Century. He has made a series of EPs of his songs with Meghan Gohil producing based on Sean’s home recordings, with help from friends. Since Sean started writing songs from Chris King’s poems in 2017, they have written hundreds of songs and projected many records. Moon Shine is both his first set of studio recordings with a live band playing his songs and his first LP.