Chris Stamey playing European and UK dates; releasing new album of interpretations
North Carolina songwriter / vocalist / guitarist / producer Chris Stamey will be playing a string of EU dates plus a UK show this Spring (dates below). He’s releasing a new album this Summer, Modernism . Conceived as a companion piece to 2025’s lauded Anything Is Possible, the new album is a further “love letter” to the kaleidoscopic variety of music heard on AM and free-form FM radio in the 1960s and early 70s, and features many of his favorite songs from that era. The title is a wink and a nod to the fact that it was made primarily at Modern Recording (Chapel Hill, NC). Modernism is being released by Flatiron Recordings on 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming services on June 19. I hope you’ll be interested in advancing his show with an interview, feature, news story or album review. Please let me know if you need a download or streaming link.
North Carolina songwriter / vocalist / guitarist / producer Chris Stamey will be playing a string of EU dates plus a UK show this Spring (dates below). He’s releasing a new album this Summer, Modernism . Conceived as a companion piece to 2025’s lauded Anything Is Possible, the new album is a further “love letter” to the kaleidoscopic variety of music heard on AM and free-form FM radio in the 1960s and early 70s, and features many of his favorite songs from that era. The title is a wink and a nod to the fact that it was made primarily at Modern Recording (Chapel Hill, NC). Modernism is being released by Flatiron Recordings on 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming services on June 19. I hope you’ll be interested in advancing his show with an interview, feature, news story or album review. Please let me know if you need a download or streaming link.
It features new versions of classic songs such as the Beatles’ “Hey Bulldog” (with Big Star’s Jody Stephens on drums), the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” (with the dB’s), and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” (featuring the Uptown Horns, Brian Dennis [DAG], and Jon Wurster [Mountain Goats, Superchunk]). Deep cuts are also in evidence, including “Shadows Breaking Over My Head” by the Left Banke (with Brian Wilson Band alums Probyn Gregory and Nelson Bragg), “Hernando’s Hideaway” (from The Pajama Game, and a 1954 hit for Everly Bros. producer Archie Bleyer), “At Last” (by Harry Warren), as well as three new interpretations of his own earlier tunes. There’s also a closer of the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” a version produced by Alex Chilton in 1977. The original mix is now lost, but a charming instrumental rough mix on an old reel-to-reel analog tape (Alex on drums and guitar) was recently discovered, and Chris and Pat Sansone (Wilco, Autumn Defense) were able to replace the missing vocals and (with Don Dixon’s bowed bass and Rachel Kiel’s alto recorder) bring the track to life.
“This record was a blast to make,” Chris reports. “ I had come back from touring with renewed confidence in my own playing, and realized I’d been relying on some of my friends’ vast chops for so long in the studio that I’d forgotten how much fun it was to groove along on guitar and bass myself.”
Although a bevy of charismatic drummers are on board, including Jody Stephens, Jon Wurster, Mitch Easter, Alex Chilton, and Will Rigby, more than half of the tracks were cut with session ace Rob Ladd (Alanis Morrisette, the Connells) in the chair. “I’ve been the beneficiary of Rob Ladd’s drumming expertise during many live gigs over the last decade. We met up one October day to revisit some of these live arrangements—in hopes of finding ‘a few’ to add to a deluxe version of ‘Waterloo Sunset’ that the dB’s had cut with me a while back. Of course there are so many great songs out there: on a different day, it might have been a totally different record.”
Chris is an indie-rock icon with a long and illustrious history that’s encompassed co-founding seminal avant-pop band the dBs, playing with Alex Chilton in the 70s and more recently with Jody Stephens’s Big Star Quintet and the all-star smart-pop outfit the Salt Collective. The new album features special guests such as Jody Stephens (Big Star), Pat Sansone (Wilco), long-time cohort Mitch Easter, Probyn Gregory and Nelson Bragg (formerly of the Brian Wilson band), The dB’s, NC legend Wes Lachot, and Emily Frantz (Watchhouse), among others. And the solo on “Waterloo Sunset” is by Peter Holsapple. Modernism is being released on 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download, and streaming platforms on May 1, preceded on April 18 by a 7” colored-vinyl 45 of “Waterloo Sunset,” with a nonalbum B Side of a song by Paul McCartney, “Goodbye,” first recorded by Mary Hopkin.
May 2 Kilkenny, Ireland—Kilkenny Roots Festival
May 8 Antwerp, Belgium—Djingel Djangel
May 10 Zaragoza, Spain—La Lata de Bombillas
May 11 Bilbao, Spain—Colegio de Abogados del Señor
May 12 Madrid, Spain—Fun House
May 13 Valencia, Spain—La Batisfera
May 14 Barcelona, Spain—Barbara Ann
May 15 Glasgow, Spain—Glad Cafe
May 17 London, England—Betsey Trotwood (afternoon show)
May 19 Paris, France—Life Is a Minestrone Concerts
May 20 Marseille, France—Club 27
ticket link: https://label51.ffm.to/
BIO
Chris Stamey began writing and playing music in grade school in Winston-Salem, NC, in the mid 1960s, in what is known now as the Combo Corner scene. In 1976, while studying music composition at UNC-Chapel Hill, he self-released Sneakers, one of the very first American “indie” records. The following year, he relocated to Manhattan to play and record with Alex Chilton in the burgeoning CBGB rock scene, then formed The dB’s with fellow Carolinians Will Rigby, Gene Holder, and Peter Holsapple, with whom he made several acclaimed records of original material, including Stands for deciBels (self-produced with Alan Betrock) and Repercussion (produced by Scott Litt).
During the next decade and a half in New York, Stamey worked with a wide variety of musicians. He recorded well-received solo records for A&M and Warners and was a part of Anton Fier’s Golden Palominos project, alongside an international touring cast that included Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Jack Bruce (Cream), Carla Bley, and Bernie Worrell (Talking Heads, George Clinton). He continued recording and producing upon returning to NC in 1993.
His recent releases include The Great Escape, Lovesick Blues and Euphoria, as well as Falling Off the Sky with The dB’s and A Brand-New Shade of Blue with the Fellow Travelers. As a producer and a featured singer/songwriter with the Paris-based Salt Collective project, he collaborated with Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Juliana Hatfield, Richard Lloyd (Television), Matthew Sweet, Aimee Mann, Andy Partridge, The Lemon Twigs, Mike Mills, and Lynn Blakey, among others. As a producer, arranger, and mixer, he has worked with over a hundred artists, including Alejandro Escovedo, Kronos Quartet, Flat Duo Jets, Skylar Gudasz, Branford Marsalis, Tift Merritt, Le Tigre, Those Pretty Wrongs, Ryan Adams, and Yo La Tengo.
From 2010-2018, Stamey was orchestrator and musical director for an international series of concert performances of Big Star’s classic album Third, alongside Big Star’s Jody Stephens, Ray Davies, members of the Posies, R.E.M., Teenage Fanclub, Wilco, Kronos Quartet and Yo La Tengo; Thank You, Friends, a concert film of these arrangements, was released by Concord in March 2017. He currently tours as a member of Jody Stephens’s Big Star Quintet, whose line-up includes Mike Mills (R.E.M), Pat Sansone (Wilco), and Jon Auer (Posies). His original radio musical about the early ’60s in Manhattan, Occasional Shivers, premiered nationwide on Christmas Day 2016. A “songwriting memoir,” A Spy in the House of Loud (Univ. of Texas Press), was published in 2018, followed in 2019 by his first printed collection, New Songs for the 20th Century, with a companion two-disc CD (Omnivore Recordings).
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- Hey Bulldog (feat. Jody Stephens)
- Waterloo Sunset (feat. the dB’s)
- Shadows Breaking Over My Head (feat. Probyn Gregory, Nelson Bragg)
- Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (feat. the Uptown Horns)
- Neon Rainbow (feat. Emily Frantz from Watchhouse)
- Of Time and All She Brings to Mind
- Hernando’s Hideaway
- Where the Fun Is
- Let’s Get Lost
- At Last
- There’s a Dream Around the Corner
- Ruby Tuesday (feat. Pat Sansone, Alex Chilton)