The Handsome Family announce Northwest Tour dates- behind their True Detective theme “Far From Any Road”

THE HANDSOME FAMILY ANNOUNCES U.S. WEST COAST TOUR BEHIND

THE SUCCESS OF TRUE DETECTIVE THEME SONG “FAR FROM ANY ROAD”

Stream “Far From Any Road” below

RIYL: Johnny Cash & June Carter, Tom Waits, Calexico, 16 Horsepower, Nick Cave, Sturgill Simpson

Screen printed poster by Robby Pore.

“The Handsome Family’s greatest gift lies in its tremendous talent for painting vivid, sometimes terrifying pictures with every word.” – NPR
“The Sparks plunge back into the woods where the trees rise wild for their latest, returning with 12 tales of mystery and imagination that form one of the strongest, most cohesive albums of their career.” – The AV Club
“Amid familiar fiddles and banjos, the Handsome Family’s absorbing vision of decay and entropy is quietly unsettling, and makes most other modern roots music seem like child’s play.” – Mother Jones
“Words that in their everyday surrealism have no parallel in contemporary writing… Music that mines the deep veins of fatalism in the Appalachian voice.” – Greil Marcus
“Music that moves forward by turning the clock back—haunting, primal and strangely heroic.” – London Times
“As songwriters it’s the eerie, ancestral voice of ‘Anonymous’ they resemble the most.” – Chicago Reader

Apr. 16, 2015 (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) — Coming off nearly sold-out tours of both the East Coast and U.K., The Handsome Family has just announced dates for its upcoming West Coast tour (full list below). The run kicks off with a set at Indio, Calif.’s Stagecoach festival on April 24—where they will share the bill with artists such as Sturgill Simpson, Gregg Allman, Lydia Loveless, Merle Haggard & Steve Earle—and wraps up with a May 2 show at Bellingham, Wash.’s Green Frog Acoustic Tavern.
The dark alt-country duo continues touring behind the success of their song “Far From Any Road,” the theme for hit HBO series True Detective. Over their 20-year career, The Handsome Family has made fans of superstars like Bruce Springsteen and Ringo Star, they’ve toured with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy (who often covers their songs), and Andrew Bird’s 2014 album Things Are Really Great Here, Sort Of consists entirely of Handsome Family covers.

The Handsome Family makes haunting, beautiful music—brilliant, emotionally charged and totally unique. Maybe you just discovered them (like the 3 million people who’ve watched the True Detective opening montage on YouTube), or maybe you’ve been following them for the last 20 years—either way, you’ll be thrilled that that The Handsome Family’s catalogue far deeper than “Far From Any Road.”

May 2013 was the release of The Handsome Family’s Wilderness, a record about animals (frogs, flies, wildebeest, octopuses, lizards, etc.), but in lyricist Rennie Sparks’ hands, the wonders of nature are intertwined with true stories of Stephen Foster’s death in a Bowery flophouse, General Custer’s shiny boots as he lay dead on a Montana prairie and the capture of Mary Sweeney, the Wisconsin Window Smasher of 1896. There are also tall tales of the octopus’s hypnotic sea dance, the frenzied mayhem of a town afflicted by a golden lizard’s bite and an enormous mansion full of screeching owls. Musically, you’ll hear everything from parlor ballads to overdriven guitars, trilling mandolin and clawhammer banjo, but also beautiful bells, intricate seven-part harmonies, pedal steel and elemental rock & roll.

The Handsome Family is a 20-year songwriting collaboration between husband and wife Brett (music) and Rennie Sparks (words). Their lyrics and music are very intense, highly descriptive and full of meticulously-researched narrative and exhilarating musical re-imaginings of everything from Appalachian holler, psychedelic rock, Tin Pan Alley and medieval balladry. Of course you don’t have to be a music historian to love these songs. They are full of romantic longing for nature’s mysterious beauty and the tiny wonders of everyday life. They pair sweet melody with sad harmony, love poetry with dark beats. This is music that makes you shiver and cry, but that also makes you happy to be alive.

Wilderness is The Handsome Family’s ninth studio album of strange and compelling music. The Handsome Family’s 2009 release, Honey Moonwas an album of love songs, but the lovers found within these tracks were a praying mantis, a sleeping bird, a cement truck and a puddle. The previous record, Last Days of Wonder (2006), was a paean to beacons of the last century from polar explorers and Nikola Tesla to the first abandoned shopping carts and lone shoes thrown over telephone wires.
The band has appeared in the movie I’m Your Man (2005), a tribute to Leonard Cohen, as well as Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus (2004), a back-roads travelogue of arcane Americana music. They have also appeared on numerous Irish TV shows as well as Jools’ Hollands’ Later.

The Handsome Family record all their songs in a converted garage studio at the back of their house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sometimes live they are a duo (Brett on guitar/vocals, Rennie on banjo/bass ukulele/vocals, sometimes accompanied by a drum machine), but often of late they are joined by percussionist Jason Toth.

A live review by Mike Ritchie in The Scotsman noted, “There’s a lot of smiling at this gig, on and off stage. That might surprise many people who have only read about the duo’s penchant for songs riddled with darkness, death and the macabre. But Rennie Sparks and her husband, Brett are funny live … through their chit-chat, the song introductions and the banter with the audience. This sell-out show was a knockabout celebration of the deadpan, a real joy. … Rennie’s words plus Brett’s music and strong, mellow vocals create a magical potion of grim fairy tales in a rock and blues pot with grinning unavoidable.”

THE HANDSOME FAMILY – SPRING TOUR DATES
Apr 24 – Indio, CA @ Stagecoach Festival (w/Sturgill Simpson, Gregg Allman, Lydia Loveless, Merle Haggard, Steve Earle & more)
Apr 25 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel (w/Wildewood)
Apr 28 – Arcata, CA @ The Playhouse (w/Wildewood)
Apr 29 – Cottage Grove, OR @ Axe & Fiddle  (w/Wildewood)
Apr 30 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge  (w/Wildewood)
May 1 – Seattle, WA @ The Triple Door  (w/Wildewood)
May 2 – Bellingham, WA @ Green Frog Acoustic Tavern (w/Wildewood)

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