Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Take a Listen to a New Release from Billy Sedlmayr (And Prepare to Celebrate)

Posted By on Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 5:14 PM

In 2012, with help from fellow musician Gabriel Sullivan and other Tucson friends, Billy Sedlmayr launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to record and produce his first solo record, Charmed Life, recorded at Waterworks Studio by Gabriel and Jim Waters and mixed at Wavelab Studio by Craig Schumacher.

Well it's getting close to celebration time.

Billy and friends released a track from the album today, "Two Angels," and you'll be able to download the record on Sept. 30. For more info, go to Billy's Facebook music page. But news also went out that a CD release show is happening at Club Congress, Friday, Oct. 3 with Billy Sedlmayr & The Mother Higgins Children Band. Doors at 7 p.m. Joe Pena and Billy's longtime friend Van Christian is also playing that night.

News about the CD release party also came with info that the album will be available online on Sept. 30, and there are some tour dates:

Tour dates:

10-01-14 - Prescott, AZ - Raven Cafe
10-02-14 - Phoeniz, AZ - Crescent Ballroom
10-03-14 - Tucson, AZ - Club Congress

More on Billy from supporter and occasional Weekly contributor Carl Hanni:

For well over three decades Billy Sedlmayr has been at the hot and dry beating heart of Tucson music.

From his teenage years in early Tucson punk bands like The Pedestrians, Billy went on to become a founding member of the legendary Giant Sandworms, later and still known as Giant Sand. That combo - Sedlmayr, Howe Gelb, Dave Seger and the late, legendary Rainier Ptacek - laid down a blueprint for Tucson music that is still being played out over thirty years later. Billy was a key player in a scene that included such other much loved bands like Naked Prey, Doo Rag, Al Perry & The Cattle, Green on Red and The Sidewinders. He later went on to play and record with Tucson local Rich Hopkins, and front other acts like Las Cruces.

It hasn’t always been an easy journey for Billy, and he spent portions of the 80s and 90s in lockup. It was, however, during his time inside that he really found his voice as a songwriter and storyteller, and boy does he have some stories to tell. With considerable help from Tucson musician Gabriel Sullivan and a huge cast of locals, Billy has finished recording his official first solo record, Charmed Life. Recorded at Waterworks Studio by Gabriel and Jim Waters, mixed at Wavelab Studio by Craig Schumacher, and featuring a numerous local and international musicians backing him up, the story-songs on Charmed Life are some of the most brutally honest and beautifully evocative tales to ever emerge out of the Sonoran Desert and Tucson’s kaleidoscopic musical underworld.

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