Brother Howe, “American Man” – The twang of Brother Howe falls somewhere between Social Distortion, Hank Williams and Reverend Horton Heat.

Band members Jason, Jeri and Nathan Howe and Ash Snyder mix originals with lickety-split cover renditions of tunes such as Weezer’s “Undone (The Sweater Song)” and Williams’ “Long Gone Lonesome Blues.” All in all, a dandy cowpunk debut.

read the entire article here:

Brother Howe American Man

Link here:

Thanks,

Jason

Get American Man here:

Smart me had already had instrumental mixes of each of our songs made during the mixing process. The problem is that the instrumental mix is just the song without the vocals, which is pretty boring actually. So I quickly whipped out my guitar, fired up the recording machine and spend a couple hours learning, playing and recording the melody on my strat.

I submitted the song to the production company and, well, I haven’t heard anything back. HOWEVER, what may be too bad for that production company, turns out to be good news for us because now we have a sweet guitar instrumental version of the song and I can share it with you.

You can listen, and if you want, download it here:

http://snd.sc/yYZLW2

Hope you enjoy it. If you do, let us know what you think in the comments below.

The three major themes ended up being Love, Work and God, so that’s how I ordered it. It starts off with a cover of one of my favorite Hank Williams songs, Long Gone Lonesome Blues, not because of its lyrical depth or meaning to me personally, but because it’s fast, there’s yodeling and it’s just plain fun to sing. So it starts off that this man has lost this woman.

Then the album get’s very auto-biographical actually, as Goin’ Down is essentially the story of Jeri and I getting together and getting married and Shared Secrets continues that story. Undone (The Sweater Song) is the other cover song on the album (by Weezer). Followed by My Love.

So then we needed a transition between this happy, love relationship to the world of work and I thought The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions would be just the song. And it works really well.

American Man (the song) starts off the world of work portion and is about how life doesn’t necessarily turn out like you had dreamed it would. But it’s hard to find something better (Hard To Find).

The God portion contains Search Me O God, Don’t Believe ‘Em, and Heaven Is My Retirement Plan (bringing a sort of reconciliation with the world of work). And then as a final statement Make A Difference caps off the album with how we can make a difference in the world, even if it’s a small one. It’s not so hard after all.

Here’s what you get:

A high-quality digital download of the album with two extra bonus tracks that will not be on the cd. You’ll get instant access to a zip file with high quality 320 kbps mp3 files downloaded directly to your computer.  

Click here to buy now

You wanted a physical copy of the album?  Well as another bonus, if you order the digital download, you have the option of  pre-ordering an autographed copy of  the physical cd for $4.99 as well.  These come in a handsomely packaged fold-open digi-pak (sorry I don’t have pictures yet, but the proofs look great and we’re really proud of them).  And you can pre-order as many copies at this price as you want and have them mailed to your home in time for Christmas (just in case you wanted to have a few extra copies for gifts or stocking stuffers).  

However, there is a limited run of 100 the physical cd’s so if they run out, we won’t be able to ship in time for Christmas.  If you want to be sure to get your copy, you’ll want to act fast.

This deal is only available through our website and is not available now on iTunes, Amazon or in any stores.

The artwork is looking very sweet too…here is a first look at the front of the album:

This is a picture of Luke VanLiere (Nathan and my Grandpa) taken in 1944 when he was 35 and goofing around pretending to be Popeye (hence the sailor uniform, although you can’t see the hat very well in the lighting). 

And in other news, we got a super cool write up the other day at http://ear2theground.posterous.com/brotherhowe-brother-howe-band-of-the-week.

Have a good one!

Update: The results are in and the winner is A, with 56% of the votes!  I realized after I made the form that I effectively split the vote between C and D.  However, even taking those two together, they didn’t have as many votes as A, so A is the winner.  Thanks for everyone who cast a vote!!!

A. Band at side of car

B. Band at front of car

C. Band on top of car

D. Band on top of car but Jason with raised guitar

 Survey Results:

http://rope.foofighters.com/

In my efforts to Beat Dave Grohl, I hereby release the first “single” off of our new album too.  Okay, it was already released on an EP, but it will be on the new album and you can hear it below. 

It also is a bold choice for a first single I would like to point out.  I know, most people wouldn’t choose a slow tempo, slightly depressing song inspired by the sad state of Michigan’s economy as the first single to their mostly uptempo country punk album, but Brother Howe is not most people.  Nor are we most people’s favorite band for that matter (editors note: there might be a connection there).

And so dear readers, without further ado, I present to you the first single off our forthcoming album:

Hard To Find

ps – I dedicate this song to Jeff Daniels, who’s love of our home state inspired my brother to write an award nominated screenplay, which then inspired me to write this song.  I also would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Daniels for trying to pitch him on said screenplay on February 5th of this year.

Right click and “Save As…” to download or click  to stream.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Long Gone Rough Stereo Mix 2010-12-31

Here also is a video I made of  how I recorded the electric guitar track if you’re interested: