http://paulkerr.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/trailer-star-black-river/

As the world goes wonky with financial instability and summer temperatures in October (apart from Scotland where the heavens opened) Blabber’n’Smoke hunkered down in the bunker and set to listening to an album that’s been sitting on the hard drive for some time. Black River is purportedly the final album from Trailer Star, the last in a line of intriguing releases swathed in a mythology summoned from the mind of the man behind it all, Shaun Belcher, Originally Trailer Star was meant to be a legendary Berkshire bluesman who met an untimely end. As his executor Belcher was able to release a series of cassettes and CDs of his music. This culminated in a well received tribute album Moon Over the Downs where Belcher was able to corral a bunch of artists to cover his songs. Now he’s decided to draw to a close this episode with Black River stating

“This is Trailer Star’s final and exhaustive round up. All tracks recorded between 2005-2010. These are all the late great Trailer’s recorded tracks and signals the final volume in the three CD Trailer Archive series from Tstar records.”

Mythology apart the album sounds primitive, home made and home grown. The sound recalls the ambience Neil Young created with Campaigner, stripped down but chockfull of emotion. It’s intimate and ultimately very personal with songs relating to the death of Belcher’s father dominating the latter part. Much is said about the redemptive power of music and one hopes that these stark and dark tales ultimately did some good for the author.
For the listener it’s hard going at times but glory can come from misery. The canon is stuffed full of songs from disenfranchised black bluesmen, poor sharecroppers, troubled minds. Trailer Star mines the same seam as the late Skip Spence on some of the songs here. The fragility and the feeling of being on the edge of toppling over is balanced by the skeletal beauty of the songs.
The album is available in several ways, in fact the whole story of Trailer star can be read on the website where the various albums can be listened to and even on occasion downloaded. Head over there to look at the whole impressive saga.

website

Final session at Toerag Mayday 1993 added to player Sleeve art of cassette titled 'Goodbye Double-Decker'

Now here's the REAL High priests sound before things went badly wrong..first session at Liam Watson's original Toerag Studio and I'm channelling recession blues and Nick Cave in equal measure and an unhealthy preoccupation with Crows, Cars and the colour black..... We recorded all in a hour or so to keep costs down and I remember Liam swigging throughout and a bunch of others messing around... Liam one finger hammond organ on 'Your Girlfriend's Quit'...our drummer adored Moe Tucker and even got a Xmas card one year from her. The player abve has the E.P.added first. The cassette tape this the cover of found its way to Too Pure head guy (Paul Cox) who came to see us and left disappointed..seems our version of Tav Falco not quite good enough...

After a casual conversation which involved Joe Meek and Beat Happening I decided to excavate some of the original High Priests material which had been scattered to the wind. It was Grunge time and I and a mad drummer from Oxford and even madder guitarist formed the greatest racket makers this side of the Thames Valley. The Single: The Story.... Formed in 1990 and hitting the shambling but right track soon after 'The High Priests' took their name from a Alex Chilton record. Looking for the missing link between Garage Punk, Power Pop and Sun-era Rock n, Roll they avoided rehearsing and playing live until 1993 when the above live first-take recordings were laid down at London's infamous Toerag Studios under the genius care of one Liam Watson ( more famous recently for his work with The White Stripes amongst others). Thinking they'd made the greatest wigout garage classic ever the bass-less trio span wildly out of control at a succession of dingy north london pub venues before exploding in a bewildering cacophany of feedback mid song at a Piao Festival in Hammersmith London where the head honcho of Rough Trade was seen to physically grimace and walk away in despair... All in all a thoroughly glorious failure as befits a drunken blues bunch... A 7" was released through Southern Distribution in 1993 featuring 'Ice Cream Town' b/w 'Black Swans Sink'. It was a bloody racket according to noted noise merchant Billy Childish and graced a sleeve by the designer of Stereolab Sleeves. As only 1000 were pressed and most disappeared along with guitarist Tim Featherstone who has never been heard of since*... It could be a collector's item or it could be crap...who knows.... the band members are still searching for that rare single and the master tape of the High Priests session recorded at Toe-Rag Studios London with Liam... a mix of punk and blues with heavy Moe Tucker like drumming and no bass player....hmmm...a full ten years before the White Stripes and the Black Keys...maybe if we'd had a colour in their name ...... the High Priests 'complete' works are to be released on Tstar Records sometime soon......you have been warned... * we found him recently but still no date for the repackaging of the HP's greatest hit..and please do not confuse with the London band of same name ( we had the idea first:-)

 

At long last I finally have a working store couresy of the new beta store functionality in Reverbnation. To start with just t-shirts and one CD but more to come including new disc Black River :-)

 

thought I'd lost these they were on Mike's website all along.. thanks to Mike Crook (Wire Duck) for filming :-) http://www.wire-duck.com/ see TSTAR TV page for other film..Poisoned Water

Today I finished adding my entire catalogue to this website. Through an industrious mix and mash of elements from wordpress, ning and twitter I have a fully functional always on player driven catalogue that I can never charge for.. so what's the point? Well I believe and research by others backs it up that the old product driven recording industry is dead. This is what I think the future will look like. All recordings available all the time and no spotify/last fm/mog whatever badging and branding and advertising. If I can do it anybody can. How will artists survive well not by selling CD's , books or any other 'hard' copy but by creating online 'presence' and basically building up a global, personally driven online environment which includes (next step folks..not there yet) online streaming.....the tools are there just a matter of time before available for all.....and as for recording..that's another blog post:-)

This wonderful set of renditions of my lyrics came out in 2003 and pretty quickly sank in the quicksands of the music 'bizness'. All the artists volunteered their tracks by MP3 and Kris and Joe of Cicero Buck tied it all together on Super Tiny Records and that was it basically....various artists records, let alone a Charity record don't get shelf space on the market so that was that until now and the beauties of NING which mean I can represent it complete with no fear of downloads.....so if you want a hard copy you gotta pay some dues to Cancer Research UK. It was dedicated to my father who sadly died of Pancreatic Cancer in 2004. My mother has now been diagnosed with a separate form of cancer so time to highlight this gem and pray yet again.... I cannot thank enough the artists who contributed to it and hope this post helps shine a light on them in return as a form of thanks......keep on shining..... Like The Moon over the Downs... LISTEN HERE Shaun Belcher on behalf of the late great Trailer Star To listen to Trailer's original LO-FI tapes go to MOON OVER THE BARNS THE TRAILER STAR TRIBUTE - SUPER TINY RECORDS - STR002 the tribute to the star that never was - 15 groovy tracks by the likes of Jim Roll, Deanna Varagona, Bob Cheevers, Ronny Elliott..

Trailer Star's track Johnny Rush is featured on the front page of American Sonwriter magazine's website.....alongside Pete Molinari.....maybe he's the old Molinari.... http://www.americansongwriter.com/

Painted Spoken (London) Shaun Belcher’s unique creation Trailer Star appears on two albums, the first by Trailer Star himself, Suit of Nettles. The second is a beautiful tribute album, Moon Over the Downs on Super Tiny Records, dedicated to the tragic victim of a automobile accident “on a deserted downland bend high above Newbury.” It uses Trailer Stars lyrics set to each of the performers’ own compositions. Trailer Star has the same relationship to Belcher as the nearly real artist Nat Tyler has to his creator William Boyd. Though there is fun to be had in “signalling” Berkshire born and bred Trailer Star’s “pivotal position in the development of English country blues” this is a project with lyrical and musical depth. Belcher on Suit and the dozen plus musicians on Moon play and sing it straight, exploring non-metropolitan England through varieties of American form. Oh, and £4 from every sale of Moon goes to Cancer Research UK. Richard Price available online at http://www.hydrohotel.net/PSInformation6.htm