Andre Williams

[Kelly Hogan]

Hey fellas (and fillies) --

Here's a few notes on Mr. Rhythm.

First of all, the new record is BOSS. I love it so. It's a great "throw open the windows after a long winter and shake your booty all over the house" record -- which means alot to me, the Atlanta expatriate suffering her second Chicago winter.

Andre and The Sadies (who Andre persisted in calling "The Shades" throughout the entire recording sessions) wrote and recorded "Red Dirt" in Detroit during that hellacious blizzard back in early January (see "suffering" above...). They co-wrote all the originals in the studio -- and they're truly my favorite songs on the record -- though the covers are all swell too: Eddy Arnold, Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Paycheck, Bottle Rockets and more.

We released that Andre/Two-Star Tabernacle 7" back in the fall and told Andre that we'd be happy to do a full-length in the future. I think only ten days went by before Andre called saying that he had 13 new country songs written and "when do we go in the studio?" -- he's deadly serious about his love for country music, and also wanted to release a different kind of record because he didn't want people to think he was "just a dirty old man".

He was also the one that specified that we put a picture of a mule on the CD. The man loves mules. And who can blame him?

He did co-write "Shake a Tail Feather" (there was a cool quote from him in a 1998 Chicago Reader article about writing that song -- something like "I knew if I could get people to shake their ass that I would have a hit. But I couldn't just say 'Shake Your Ass' due to the morals of the time, so I had to come up with something else." It goes on from there.) -- but the best part about this to me is that, after some litigation/lawsuit action on Andre's part, the group Hanson actually had to pay a sizable chunk of cash to Mr. Williams for royalties -- because they used "Shake a Tailfeather" on their live album. Sweet justice.

I'm kind of an igmo about these cyber things, but you might be able to read that great article in the Chicago Reader archives. It was written by Rex Doane (anybody know where I can get in touch with Mr. Doane?) and I also saw the article excerpted in the San Fran Weekly last summer too. Andre is VERY quotable.

He's in Europe right now on an extensive tour, backed by The Countdowns. (Euro folks e-mail me privately for a tour schedule) He'll be touring the USA all summer with The Sadies. You can count on me to bug y'all about it. And email me anytime if you have any other questions. I just LOVE that record. Damn.

RED DIRT hits the stores May 18th. Let me know what y'all think.

I'll send an additional Bloodshot update soon.

Your press mule --

Hogan

PS to Atlanta folks --

I've been getting calls all day about the awful Cabbagetown Bag Mill fire -- but I don't have cable/CNN -- can anyone hip me to what's going on?