Artist: David Touchton
Album: B-Sides & Suicides
Year Of Release: 2019
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Tracklist:
CD 1:
01. Lonesome Road (Live)
02. I’ll Live Mine (Live)
03. You Gotta Fly (Live)
04. Difficult Man (Live)
05. Memories (Live)
06. Life on the Run (Live)
07. The Conversation (Live)
08. Wishing Well (Live)
09. Pray (Live)
10. Everything I Know (Live)
11. The Whiskey Got Me Again (Live)
12. I’m Not Around (Live)
13. Happy Being Sad (Live)
CD 2:
01. Drug Dealin’ Cousin (Live)
02. I Don’t Mess Around (Live)
03. I Won’t Bring You Flowers (Live)
04. Shotgun in My Closet (Live)
05. Life on the Run (Full Band Version) [Live]
06. Glad You’re Gone (Live)
07. I’m Not Around (Full Band Version) [Live]
08. Going Nowhere (Live)
09. I’ll Live Mine (Full Band Version) [Live]
10. Lonesome Road (Full Band Version) [Live]
Austin is no stranger to a number of diverse mood-centric venues. It’s rare to see an artist versatile enough to blend amongst them. Country artist David Touchton did just that while recording his upcoming double live album, B Sides and Suicides, on March 22nd and 23rd. Taking stages at Taylor’s The Black Sparrow Music Parlor and East Austin’s honky-tonk, The White Horse, residents of both rooms responded to Touchton cut the stage with brooding blues. With two EPs (self-titled and The Cigarette Sessions) under his belt, Touchton’s music is self described as honky-tonkin’ and old-school country blues, which is certainly revealed when performing with his Nowhere Band. As a raw singer-songwriter, Touchton is a melancholic man in black, tipping his words on either side of generous vulnerability and critical self-analysis.
The show at The Black Sparrow was first in the set of live recordings. It was filled with the kind of intimacy you might expect from a visit with a close friend in your living room. Never mind the Sparrow’s atmosphere—the converted music parlor, once an old bookstore and still stocked with bookshelves and LPs—every song was introduced with a story, drawing the listener ever closer to Touchton’s bare guitar and brazen voice. Themes of sorrow, longing, death, and addiction wove the night, with lines of “help me wash away these blues” and “Time has a way of laughin’ at you, lets you know it’s not on your side.” Touchton included a mix of classic originals, a handful of new songs, and a bold homage to old country with a spoken-verse song written for his papaw and dad, both whom he lost in 2007. The set opened and closed with what has become the quintessential Touchton tune, “Lonesome Road.” “My whole life is a lonesome road,” says Touchton. “Not just on the stage, but my personal life, too.”
Once you know the heartfelt songwriter David Touchton, you wouldn’t necessarily expect him and his Nowhere Band to transform the sound with powerful notes of rock, western swing, folk, and outlaw country. Yet they do, and did at The White Horse, proving that great songs are just as complex as the people that create them—dynamic, adaptable, and unpredictable. The Nowhere Band’s aesthetic held the floor well; people packed to the brink in red neon, ready to rock no matter the space, stepping on each other’s feet and loving it the whole time. Two-steppin’ junkies all their own, but give them a waltz and they all sway the same. The set was filled with the kind of genuine flavor you expect from Touchton, with songs directly citing influences as Merle Haggard, Towns Van Zandt, and Guy Clark. Touchton performed a cover of “Girl at the Corner Bar,” a tune by his grandfather Peck who was a player in the Houston honky-tonk scene in the ‘50s. A song dedicated to his friend Peckerhead Jones, turns out, isn’t a friend at all, but Touchton’s altar-ego. And of course, the whole thing opened and closed with a steel-guitarstudded “Lonesome Road.”
“Lonesome Road” was the first song Touchton wrote when he moved to Austin. Most Austinites are transplants from some road, somewhere, and came with music as a companion, no doubt. Next time you weary travelers go on your way, take David Touchton and the Nowhere Band with you. The new B Sides and Suicides live album will be out at the end of April.