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Wooden Wand

Booking Agent | Europe + UK:
Afonso Simões - afonso@filhounico.com

Most likely you’ll think that’s a preposterous claim, and I won’t blame you, but you’ll be totally, completely, and unforgivably wrong to think so. James is a natural. To me it’s obvious he’s animated with the same spirit that’s moved through Willie, Waylon, Merle, and Hank. Not to say he sounds like them, but his songs unfurl with a similar casual authority. There’s no space between who he is and the work he does—never without a guitar, and always writing or listening to/seeking out new music. He’s inhabited. If there were justice in this world, which there isn’t, he’d be on tour right now with Willie Nelson as an honored guest. He’s got that picaresque quality that Dylan had in his heyday, wherein the shambolic narrator undergoes various travails and epiphanies—harrowing, bleak and darkly comical—in the course of a narrative, then leaves you mystified, both smiling and sad.
I laugh out loud when I hear some of the lines in these songs, they’re just so immediate and vivid. The pathos sometimes can leave you, frankly, drained, but the language and the singing is effortless and without loaded portent—it goes down smooth. He’s got a million “zingers,” as he calls them—the sort of concise one- or two-line descriptions that set up the atmosphere for a song instantly. Really, if Nashville were a place where one could peddle great songs anymore, James would be the king of the place. He’s a passionate singer and guitar player and inhabits the songs as he performs them with straightforward, unpretentious, and confident gravitas. I’ve been listening to this record over and over for the last several months—we went through dozens of equally compelling songs before choosing the line up of tracks—and the more I listen, the more honored I am to be associated with James Jackson Toth.
James has previously released records with Kill Rock Stars and Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label; Lee Renaldo produced one of them. He also had a sad slide with Ryko Records. When I heard the latter record I could not believe how good it was and I was pissed off and saddened that it did not do right by James. My humble hope here now is that his music will reach people in a direct and clear and powerful way, because the world needs more truth and passion, and James most definitely supplies it. These songs are a flat-out pleasure to listen to, and each one brings further rewards on repeated listening.
Last time I talked to James, he was laying floors down in Murfreesboro, TN. He is not a hipster, that is for sure, and God bless him. The songs are literate, and there’s a painful irony in some of them, but the level of commitment and sweet passion is rare, and born of hard earned experience. Listen to his music! - Thanks,
Michael Gira about "Death Seat"

Official site
Fire Records(label)
Young God (label)

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Selected Discography
"Blood Oaths Of The New Blues" (Fire Records, 2013)
"Duke/Wand" split with Duke Garwood (Fire Records, 2012)
"Archives Volume 3" (People In A Position To Know, 2011)
"My Week Beats Your Year" (The Great Pop Supplement, 2011)
"Briarwood" (Fire Records, 2011)
"Death Seat" (Young God Records, 2010)
"James And The Quiet" (Ecstatic Peace!, 2007)
"Gipsy Freadom" w/ The Vanishing Voice (5RC, 2006)
"Buck Dharma" w/ The Vanishing Voice (Time-Lag Records, 2005)
"The Flood" w/ The Vanishing Voice (Troubleman Unlimited, 2005)

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Press
Pitchfork "Blood Oaths Of The New Blues" review
Tiny Mix Tape "Blood Oaths Of The New Blues" review
PopMatters "Blood Oaths Of The New Blues" review
Beats Per Minute "Blood Oaths Of The New Blues" review
Finantial Times "Blood Oaths Of The New Blues" review
The Sunday Times "Blood Oaths Of The New Blues" review
Tiny Mix Tapes interview
Dead Journalist interview
Interview magazine interview
The Red Alert interview

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Video

"Supermoon"

"Mountain"

"Doreen"

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Photos

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

credits to Leah Hutchison Toth

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Wooden Wand