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The Music... here's where you'll get the details on June Star's latest album releases and where you can buy a copy.
June Star
Copyright 1999
Debut disc from June Star … Recorded in Alan’s
Basement in October 1998 and released in January
1999. The songs more than make up for the dubious
sound quality.
Personnel: Andrew Grimm (vocals, guitars, harmonica); Alan Zepp (backing vocals, drums, organ); Shane Poteete (backing vocals, bass, percussion)
Tracks: June Star, Cinnamon, Honey Slick,
I Remember, Hello City Limits, Giants,Turned Yourself
Around, Doesn't She, Realize, Muddled Under You
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Songs from an engineer's daughter
Copyright 2000
Released by Hungry for Music in 2000, Songs From An Engineer’s Daughter garnered some radio airplay and attracted the attention of critics.
Personnel: Andrew Grimm (vocals, guitars, bass, harmonica, organ); Alan Zepp (drums, backing vocals); Tim Johnson (guitars, backing vocals); J.B. Chenoweth (bass)
Recorded at Phase Studios.
Tracks: Imogene, Mountain Top, All the Flowers, 8 Dollars, Tonight, Faithless, Find My Way, Texas Summer Nights, Brighter Stars Shine, Tornado, North
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Telegraph
Copyright 2001
The year 2001 was a year of strides for June Star.
A record deal with indie label Safehouse Records
made it possible to release Telegraph.
Personnel: Andrew Grimm (vocals, guitars, banjo,
harmonica, organ); Alan Zepp (drums); Tim Johnson
(guitars, banjo); Tim Bracken (backing vocals, bass)
Tom Scanlan (mandolin)
Guest: Eric Heywood (pedal steel)
Recorded at Phase Studios
Tracks: Thrown, If I, Wedding Girl, New Jordan,
Felled, Shoot Down That Monkey, Leaving/Breathing,
Follow Me, Telluride, Telegraph
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Sugarbird
Copyright 2004
The year 2001 was a year of strides for June Star.
A record deal with indie label Safehouse Records
made it possible to release Telegraph.
Personnel: Andrew Grimm (vocals, guitars, banjo,
harmonica, organ); Alan Zepp (drums); Tim Johnson
(guitars, banjo); Tim Bracken (backing vocals, bass)
Tom Scanlan (mandolin)
Tracks: Shaked, Sugarbird, Giants, Baltimore, Acetone, My Sweetheart, Home, Ohio, Once Knew, Belly, Mexico, Way Down
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5th Album title
Copyright 2005
The year 2001 was a year of strides for June Star. A record deal with indie label Safehouse Records made it possible to release Telegraph.
Personnel: Andrew Grimm (vocals, guitars, banjo,
harmonica, organ); Alan Zepp (drums); Tim Johnson
(guitars, banjo); Tim Bracken (backing vocals, bass)
Tom Scanlan (mandolin)
Guest: Eric Heywood (pedal steel)
Recorded at Phase Studios
Tracks: Thrown, If I, Wedding Girl, New Jordan,
Felled, Shoot Down That Monkey, Leaving/Breathing,
Follow Me, Telluride, Telegraph
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6th album title
Copyright 2006
The year 2001 was a year of strides for June Star.
A record deal with indie label Safehouse Records
made it possible to release Telegraph.
Personnel: Andrew Grimm (vocals, guitars, banjo,
harmonica, organ); Alan Zepp (drums); Tim Johnson
(guitars, banjo); Tim Bracken (backing vocals, bass)
Tom Scanlan (mandolin)
Guest: Eric Heywood (pedal steel)
Recorded at Phase Studios
Tracks: Thrown, If I, Wedding Girl, New Jordan,
Felled, Shoot Down That Monkey, Leaving/Breathing,
Follow Me, Telluride, Telegraph
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Ultimately, change is inevitable. In the five years that Baltimore based June Star has been around, several members came and went as the oft-playing band shared the stage with such acts as The Silos, Slobberbone,The V-Roys, Marah, Last Train Home and The Damnations.
A break was in order. In the winter of 2002 June Star took a year-long hiatus and entered Phase Studios, attempting to follow up Telegraph, the band’s critically acclaimed third CD.The resulting disc, Sugarbird, will not disappoint those taken with a distinctive
sound that was described by the All Music Guide as “a satisfying blend of atmospheric twang, hard-driving humbucker folk, and Wayfaring Stranger’ bluegrass.”The forthcoming disc is slated for free download or Web purchase from cafepress.com.
June Star leader and founding member Andrew Grimm, who continues to churn out desperate songs of love and loss, was joined in the studio by Ryan Finnerin on bass and Jeff Trueman on drums along with jack-of-all-instruments Tim Bracken.The session’s layered instruments and vocals along with Grimm’s solid songwriting produced the most ambitious and satisfying June Star CD to date.
The songs of Sugarbird continue to explore the theme central to Grimm’s storytelling—the heart and what makes it break.The opening lines of the first track, “Shaked”—“The elements you mine/are sistered to this cause”—launch the listener into an all too familiar world of questions and Grimm bravely attempts to supply answers. “Sugarbird,” the title track, suggests that truth and healing occur in surviving: “picked up and shook,/by the roots/you held off another day.” As the album progresses, Grimm continues to grapple with soured relationships, be they between a father and son or a man and his lover. In a departure from alternative country, the jazz-tinged “Baltimore” is a gut wrenching personal reflection on playing dead-end gigs in Charm City bands, a pursuit even the writer’s own father dismisses. In “Way Down,” Grimm addresses the freedom that results from finally severing a pairing that has gone disastrously wrong.
Sugarbird’s twelve tracks are a clear indication that a long, long break is sometimes needed to reload. With a belly full of new songs, Grimm, Finnerin and new drummer Clark Matthews return to the stage, bringing their hard-edged blend of country, punk and rock to those who have waited long enough.
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