Ryley Walker (Jansch-style vocals, finger-picking folk guitar with double bass and violins grooves)

he just opened for ESPers and Vetiver in philly friday. helluva show!

his set at Marfa Myths was so great! he's very self-deprecating but seeing him live it's clear he is delighted to be playing music.

This record is right up the alley of a lot of ILMers. To make a facile comparison, it sounds like Sea Change Beck crossed with Veedon Fleece Van Morrison.

feel like the new album he's let in enough Chicago jazz/post rock into the mix to overcome the Jansch lite comparisons, definitely his best album by far and more in line with the last time I saw him with full band

still think i like the Jansch-lite jams of Primrose Green the best, but i definitely dig that he's trying out different stuff — would probably get boring if every record was like PG.

Ya some songs have a sea and cake/sam prekop vibe (halfwit in me)

The live versions even more so

I haven't listened to the new one, but I like him a lot and he is great live. The last time I saw him prompted a little concern -- he sounded great but he looked pretty raw, red-rimmed eyes and a general sense of hard living. Some friends of mine ran into him on the street a few hours later and told him how much they liked the set; he said thanks and asked if they wanted to come "do some drugs" with him. (They declined.) So, hope he's keeping himself ok!

don't worry about ryley, he'll be here long after we're all gone

He's probably drugging and drinking a bit too much but it's also part of his pose / persona if you follow him on twitter / instagram. He is basically great and hilarious and I love his music, one of my current faves. The newest one hasn't totally clicked for me but I assume it will in time, the last one was the best (Golden Sings.... Highly recommend seeking out the "Deep Cuts" edition of that one, the second disc is an extended live version of "Sullen Mind" that's ~40 minutes long.

Sullen mind is a simple but great track

also i think he does lots of drugs, the first thing he asked my friend who took him out was where to find coke so

Yeah, the most recent album didn't impress me the way "Golden Sings" did.

The "musician drinking and drugging" persona is so boring. More's the pity.

he is a talented person; i wish he didn't get so much of a reward from the persona so he would see more of a benefit to cleaning up his act

About that persona

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/qvmydp/ryley-walker-listens-to-leonard-cohen-for-the-first-time-fuck-this-guy

talk about a pointless article

If you walked to his apartment, I feel like his bookshelf will fall over and kill me.

OK, lol

sorry, but this guy rules

i mean i don't feel like i'm smart enough to listen to Lynyrd Cohen either, so i relate

there's a whole napoleon complex specific to dudes who make the most milquetoast, inoffensive music but express the most virulent assholish opinions about other people's music. it can be funny but do you really want to put yourself in the same persona type as father john misty

As I said elsewhere, I've never heard a Ryley Walker song and I likely never will, but anybody that hates Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed this much is OK by me.

LL did we see this guy play at the same festival with royal trux and lightning bolt? i get him confused with several other acoustic guitar dudes

also how come no one use has used the term "challops" in here yet

Did anyone notice that they used pretty much the exact same photo concept for another Ryley Walker article? Am I missing something?

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjpn8/ryley-walker-opposite-middle-deafman-glance-stream-interview?site=noisey&utm_campaign=qvmydp&utm_source=stylizedembed_noisey.vice.com

I assumed that was by design.

LL did we see this guy play at the same festival with royal trux and lightning bolt?

yes we did!

oh ok. apparently i don't like this guy's persona OR his music then.

some of his tweets are funny though.

Seems weird to meticulously harmonize the visual accompaniment for their ongoing series of Ryley Walker articles unless they do it the same for everyone. I haven't checked!

xposts

I've been a big fan, but the new album didn't click with me either. I struggle with his si-hi-hing style a little.

He's great live - do go if he comes to town.

crying laughing emoji

F**k Ryley Walker, whoever he is. pic.twitter.com/ZlyvS8nfZk

— Adrien Begrand (@AdrienBegrand) August 29, 2018

Kill yr idols I guess. There's plenty of other folks that do his schtick w/o being colossal douchebags.

there's a whole napoleon complex specific to dudes who make the most milquetoast, inoffensive music but express the most virulent assholish opinions about other people's music. it can be funny but do you really want to put yourself in the same persona type as father john misty

OTMFM

you lie with vice, you get challops

Hilarious thing is ryley either gives zero fucks or is also laughing his ass off

His Twitter persona is pretty funny I guess, but there's also something really irritating about his showy contrarianism.

^ true. That Noisey piece elicits about equal parts lol and ah-come-on-fuck-you
Duke's right about him being great live, had a blast last year

I saw him live once but he had the great misfortune of following Circuit Des Yeux. My point being, everyone should see Circuit Des Yeux asap.

that was a great bill

like I love Leonard Cohen and that interview is one of the funniest musician interviews I have ever read.

Gotten 20 or so death threats from the Leonard Cohen piece. Never gotten death threats from switchfoot or genesis fans. Genesis forever

— Ryley walker (@ryleywalker) August 30, 2018

TBF, he needs to piss off some Yes fans to get some legit death threats.

genesis forever

I heard Phil Collins will send you death threats via fax machine

walker of the skies, walker of all

The weird thing is for not knowing much about cohen, ryley actually got cohen’s persona down pat

He was that montreal to nyc transplant fagboy and it is totally a thing

vice would know

sorry that was a flip comment, but I find this characterization very upsetting

Whenever someone plays classical music I say, “hell yeah the verve bittersweet symphony”

— Ryley walker (@ryleywalker) September 21, 2018

lmao

So yeah, saw him Friday night with Trad Gras och Stenar and Endless Boogie (both very great) as openers. He's got an extremely good band together backing and each individual song performance was pretty sharp, understated but not inaudible singing, good sense of ensemble performances all around -- my friend Paul and I traded thoughts back and forth, he mentioned Prefab Sprout, John Martyn and Jeff Buckley, I was thinking of late 90s indie-goes-prog in turn. His loud and exuberant-but-verging-on-obnoxious between song stuff, well, maybe I need to be his age or something. (That said, as I told Paul, we're not talking 90s/00s Anton from Brian Jonestown Massacre here.)

Also he just announced a full cover album of Dave Matthews Band's The Lillywhite Sessions. Whatever works for ya.

i've heard it, it's very good

Between that and Lady Bird I'm...not looking forward to DMB becoming a new generation's Steely Dan or something.

i don't think it's gonna be a thing