The Mayflies

In the hardened vein of Springsteen's New Jersey and Giant Sand's Southwest canvas-pieces comes the Opry's Americana Gothic, the band's first full-length CD.

The darker elements are hewn to place with the four violin dirges composed by Savage that provide the pillars of the album as well as prefacing such songs as "Funeral" and "Wapsipinicon." Fiddle-driven, and peddle-steel laden, Letterpress Opry seemed to have pulled the songs and arrangements straight from the soil.

But if Americana Gothic is bleak, it is understandably so. Family farms are disappearing, top soil is washing and blowing away, and these days, Midwest fields seem to grow strip malls and gas stations more frequently than corn or soybeans. Looking over the flat expanses of farm country from a gravel road, follow Letterpress Opry's lead, and take a moment to pay your respects to a dying way of life.
- Daily Iowan

Album Description
The Mayflies play Kurt-Weill-loses-a-bet-to-Waylon-Jennings alternative country that veers from darkly funny to severely powerful. Their lead singer, Stacey Webster, has an idiosyncratic, classic country voice. They exist in some righteous corner of the universe that illustrates what might happen if a jam band stopped smoking weed long enough to pay attention to the music and concurrently started listening to a lot of The Band.
- Amazon.com

"The Mayflies churn out a brilliant, balanced set of sparkling clear-water instrumental breakaways, gospel-inflected harmony showcases and, perhaps best of all, a half dozen more opportunities to hear why Stacy Webster is the best, most expressive pure roots singer to come down the pike in many a moon. Muscular, spirited and utterly captivating, this one's a real gem.

-Jim Musser (I.C. Press Citizen, No Depression) - Iowa City Press Citizen

CD reviews

The Mayflies

"A Thousand Small Things"

Mud Dauber

Iowa City's rambunctious pan-Americana purveyors The Mayflies have undergone a slew of band name and personnel changes in their decade-or-so existence.

That said, their current moniker matches their original one (after two alternates), founding members Stacy Webster (lead vocals, guitars) and James Robinson (drums, vocals) have remained constant, co-founder Patrick Bloom continues to feed the group terrific original material from the wings, and rock-steady Dave Lumberg (bass, vocals) has done much to anchor The Mayflies' rhythm section and emotional core.

On "A Thousand Small Things," co-producer/engineer Luke Tweedy (Will Whitmore) captures the band with an early-Seventies vintage treatment that perfectly suits The 'Flies' loose-limbed amalgam of folk-tinged country-rock.

There's a strong whiff of The Dead (circa "Workingman's..." and "American Beauty") throughout -- particularly on Bloom's "All These Desperate Angels" and Lumberg's "Mississippi Soul" -- and outgoing Jon Eric's idiosyncratic banjo adds a trace of The Dillards' electro-'grass hybrid.

But it is Webster's singing -- evoking James McMurtry's dusky, slightly-flatted intimacy or a young Pete Seeger, as well as the romantic, precise-diction stylings of Michael Nesmith in his groundbreaking, high-concept First National Band recordings -- that shapes/defines The Mayflies' sound.

Webster's notched-up guitar playing also is a revelation, and yet, ultimately, it is a group triumph from pillar to post.

-- Jim Musser - Iowa City Press Citizen

Back to the country

Somewhat akin to a musical Alka Seltzer after the festive indulgences, Iowa’s Mayflies provide a fizzing burst of refreshment on a collection of songs that are expertly played and delivered. Although they veer dangerously close to “jam band” status with some lengthy workouts and guitar wizardry the strength of the songs anchor them enough to avoid excessive naval gazing. When they do indulge in individually soloing the results can be spectacular as on “Petaluma” which has some wild bass, drum and guitar parts that fly around without losing sight of the song. There are several strong songs (Petaluma, Mares, and Spooky) which are strong in melody and evoke memories of Poco and even the Dead in Workingman garb. “Maybe Maybelline” captures all of their best features, nifty pickin’ on guitar from Stacy Webster and excellent banjo from guest Jon Eric on a rollicking tune.

When the band do expand as on “Caroline” and “Shit Creek” they maintain the quality control and their cover of “In my Time of Dying” manages to breathe some life into that old chestnut.

Overall a strong album that recalls grungy longhaired hippies when they discovered that it could actually be cool to lay off the acid, turn down the volume and pick up a banjo. - Americana UK

Letterpress Opry’s ‘Americana Gothic’ sound belies live show


By Steven Hyden
Post-Crescent staff writer

If you like Americana music, “Americana Gothic” will be right up your dusty alley.

The 2003 release from Iowa City band The Letterpress Opry is a lush, rootsy epic about the band’s home state. Mournful fiddle and steel guitar duets tell tales of disappearing farms and dying soil with the starkness of an Ansel Adams photograph.

It is a distinctive sound, but it won’t be the same Letterpress Opry that plays Friday at Cranky Pat’s in Neenah.

Since the recording of “Americana Gothic” the band has undergone significant changes. Guitarist Stacy Webster took over songwriting chores from bassist Patrick Brickel, who departed for a solo career after composing most of “Americana Gothic.” (He was replaced by Dave Lumberg.) Banjo player Jon Eric also has been added to the mix.

It is the latest evolution for a band that has been kicking around the vibrant Iowa City scene since 1999. The group formed when native Iowan Webster moved back home with partner Brickel after the duo played the singer/songwriter circuit in Boulder, Colo.

After living in Minneapolis and Ann Arbor, Mich., among other places, Webster was happy to be back in his old stomping grounds.

“Iowa City was always in my heart,” Webster said. “It’s got the beauty of a small, Midwestern town. But there are a lot of great writers in this town. It’s got a real bohemian feel.”

Judging by the band’s recent demos, the band’s lineup shakeup has been like a kick in the pants. While much of “Americana Gothic” unfolds at a dirge-like pace, new Letterpress Opry songs such as “Bloody Mary Morning” and “Dewayne Story” stomp hard and fierce. The banjo brings a rowdy bluegrass texture to material that is much more rock-oriented than the folksy “Gothic.”

“We’ve always been that way as a live band. The CD was a departure for us,” said Webster, who cites Robbie Robertson from The Band as a songwriting influence.

Webster expects the next Letterpress Opry album to rock harder than the previous release, which included a cast of guest musicians to create an expansive, almost jazzy sound.

“We’re looking for something that captures the energy of our live show, which I think is our greatest asset,” Webster said. In the meantime, Letterpress Opry plan to convey that energy in person Friday at Cranky Pat’s
- Appleton Post Crescent

CD Review: The Mayflies — Americana Gothic
The Mayflies are really quite a remarkable group. Very much in the alt-folk/country genre, this Iowan quartet reminds the listener of why they used to like REM.

Driven by steel guitar with fiddles a-plenty, Americana Gothic offers a complex listening pleasure with not even a hint of hillbilly, but there is more to it than meets the ear on fist listening. As befits a band who hail from the plains of Iowa, the aural experience is cinematic in scope with wide vowel-like string solos and a metre that slowly builds into a crescendo of duplicitous joy and anguish.

The maturity of the music belies the band members’ ages — Stacy Webster’s vocals sound as though they are the result of thirty years of hard drinking and a tracheotomy — yet American Gothic is their debut album. Standout tracks include the metaphysical paean to ageing, obsolescence and the strength of geography, Iowa and the marvelously indolent Junk Barge.

Wapsipinicon is an allegorical tale of the alienation of the perennial outsider, described in the colloquial American liturgy of Baptist and Catholic revelation. The lyric has shades of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at their most tragic, mired in the desperation of the novels of Harry Crews or early Cormac MacCarthy. Americana Gothic? This is no joke.



Author: Jason Walsh | Posted on Mar 04, 04 | Profile - East Belfast Observer