JOHN K. SAMSON
I’ll take a small break from selecting the album of the year 2011 and focus on the album of the year 2012. John K. Samson is releasing his first solo album Provincial on january 24th, 2012. This guy is a poet, one of the best songwriters in the world and his band The Weakerthans has released some of the greatest indie rock albums of the past 10-15 years. The last three of them have been top 10 albums at onechord.net and I’m sure the solo album will be equally brilliant. Check out Epitaph’s album sampler below and start counting days. It looks like the Christmas might be a month late and this time it will arrive on the 24th of january.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfqLrWMMPZ4]
And why not post a couple The Weakerthans classics:
Tournament of Hearts (the greatest rock song ever written about curling.. ok the competition probably isn’t very high)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQF5xuLrjpY]
And here’s John K. Samson singing One Great City by The Weakerthans at Songwriting Panel. I recommend checking out other videos from that panel as well. I’ve watched them a few times over the years. Other great songwriters there as well.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK8x-77GqB0]
John K. Samson at Facebook
The Weakerthans Website
JOHN STATZ
It looks like the singer-songwriter Johns are taking over the world on the january 24th, because also John Statz is releasing a new album on that day. Mr. Statz might not be as household name as Mr. Samson is at this point, but he is also able to craft some really fine songs. I enjoyed the previous album Ghost Towns and really look forward to hearing this new one. It’s his first release on the great Yer Bird records and the label recently gave away the first single Distance as a free download. Sounds great to me. Check it out yourself below.