Bill Callahan (musician)

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Bill Callahan
Bill callahan atp.jpg
Performing at ATP Festival, April 2007.
Background information
Birth name William Rahr Callahan[1][2]
Also known as Smog
Born (1966-06-03) June 3, 1966 (age 47)
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Genres Lo-fi, underground rock, alternative country
Occupations Musician
Instruments Guitar, vocal
Years active 1990–present
Labels Drag City, Disaster

Bill Callahan (born June 3, 1966),[2][3] is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, who has also recorded and performed under the band name Smog. Callahan began working in the lo-fi genre of underground rock, with home-made tape-albums recorded on four track tape recorders. Later he began releasing albums with the label Drag City, to which he remains signed today.

Contents

Early life[edit]

Though he was born in Maryland, Callahan's family spent a total of eight years living in Knaresborough in England's North Riding of Yorkshire, with a four year return to Maryland from 1969 to 1973.[3] His parents worked as language analysts for the National Security Agency.[4]

Career[edit]

Callahan started out as a highly experimental artist, using substandard instruments and recording equipment. His early songs often nearly lacked melodic structure and were clumsily played on poorly tuned guitars (possibly influenced by Jandek), resulting in the dissonant sounds on his self-released cassettes and debut album Sewn to the Sky. Much of his early output was instrumental, a stark contrast to the lyrical focus of his later work. Apparently, he used lo-fi techniques not primarily because of an aesthetic preference but because he didn't have any other possibility to make music. Once he signed a contract with Drag City, he also started to use recording studios and a greater variety of instruments for his records.

From 1993 to 2000, Callahan's recordings grew more and more "professional" sounding, with more instruments, and a higher sound quality. In this period he recorded two albums with the influential producer Jim O'Rourke and Tortoise's John McEntire, and collaborated with Neil Hagerty. Callahan also worked closely with his then-girlfriend Cynthia Dall in his early career, and they contributed vocals to each other's albums. After 2000's Dongs of Sevotion, Callahan began moving back to a slightly simpler instrumentation and recording style, while retaining the more consistent songwriting style he had developed over the years. This shift is apparent in albums such as Rain on Lens, Supper, and A River Ain't Too Much to Love.

Smog's songs are often based on simple, repetitive structures, consisting of a simple chord progression repeated for the duration of the entire song. His singing is characterized by his baritone voice and unemotional style of delivery. Melodically and lyrically he tends to eschew the verse-chorus approach favoured by many contemporary songwriters, preferring instead a more free-form approach relying less on melodic and lyrical repetition. Themes in Callahan's lyrics include relationships, moving, horses, teenagers, bodies of water, and more recently, politics. On the subject of voice in his albums, Callahan has said, "It’s usually one character per record. So, the character appears in all or most of the songs on one record and then is gone. Though it makes me feel weird to talk about. Because I don’t really think in clear terms of characters. My albums as a whole could be seen as one character with many voices."[5] His generally dispassionate delivery of lyrics and dark irony often obfuscate complex emotional and lyrical twists and turns. Critics have generally characterized his music as depressing and intensely introverted, with one critic describing it as "a peep-show view into an insular world of alienation."[6]

Cat Power (Chan Marshall) recorded Callahan's song "Bathysphere" on her 1996 album What Would the Community Think and also covered another Callahan song, "Red Apples", on her Covers Record, released in 2000.

In 2007, Callahan released Woke on a Whaleheart, his first solo album released under his own name. Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle followed in April, 2009. Both recordings were released through Drag City, worldwide. In 2009, Callahan contributed cover songs on four separate tribute albums to Judee Sill, Kath Bloom, Chris Knox, and Merge Records. His most recent album, Apocalypse, was released in April 2011 to favorable reviews. Critic Sasha Frere-Jones called it "my favorite of Callahan’s albums, not because it has better songs—those are scattered among at least five others — but because it does exactly what he wants it to do: it conveys an album’s coherence."[7]

It was announced in January 2012 that a tour film chronicling Callahan's 2011 Apocalypse tour would be released later that year.[8]

Works in films[edit]

Books[edit]

In July 2010 Drag City published Callahan's Letters to Emma Bowlcut, an epistolary novel.

Discography[edit]

Main article: Bill Callahan discography

As Smog:

As Bill Callahan:

Filmography[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ SongLyrics.com – Bill Callahan - Honeymoon Child Lyrics. Songwriters: Callahan, William Rahr
  2. ^ a b USA People Search – William Rahr Callahan Age: 44 - Retrieved on March 17, 2011.
  3. ^ a b Ben Thompson (1997-05-11). "Bill Callahan spares nobody in his songs - himself least of all". The Independent. p. 18. 
  4. ^ Ratliff, Ben (8 April 2011). "He Can Sing It, if Not Speak It". New York Times. 
  5. ^ Raymond, Jon. "Bill Callahan", BOMB Magazine, Summer, 2009. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  6. ^ Bill Callahan (musician) at Allmusic
  7. ^ Sasha Frere-Jones. "Apocalypse review". Newyorker.com. Retrieved 2012-09-18. 
  8. ^ Bill Callahan Tour Chronicled in Documentary | News. Pitchfork (2012-01-26). Retrieved on 2012-09-18.
  9. ^ Swimming - Starring Lauren Ambrose of HBO's Six Feet Under. Swimmingthemovie.com. Retrieved on 2012-09-18.
  10. ^ "Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2012-09-18. 

External links[edit]

Bill Callahan
As Smog
Albums
EPs
Singles
Compilations
As Bill Callahan
Albums
Related articles
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