"canyon, how I miss those nights / canyon, where the water used to hide..."
I knew that I was smitten with Zack Keim's sweet emotional travelogue "Canyon" about 10 seconds in, I mean the song felt like an unreleased 70's track. A mixture of garden rock and sort of hippie-esque goodness I thought of a band like Stealers Wheel, the short lived Scottish folk rock band formed by Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty in 72 but already broke up in 75 but not before releasing the iconic "Stuck in the Middle with You". Yes, I truly thought all that within 10 seconds and then 4 seconds later I became doubley smitten when I heard Zack's vocal aesthetic for the first time. Coupled with a straight forward, earnest melody and soaring on a sort of canned high register vox (upon multiple listens I think the canned nature of the EQ actually give a sonic higher tone than it might really be) the overall sound is overall unique while feeling nostalgic and warm.
In any event, I LOVE the sound here, the urgency builds throughout the song as it gallops constantly forward with more sliding guitar notes, harmonica counter poised with jammy fun lead guitar wallops. The song feels like an evocative box of polaroids that you found up in the attic revealing gentler times full of discovery and whimsy before every fucking spot in this country is teaming with people.
The first paragraph of the press notey stuff is worth mentioning (in brackets) and you can delve in deeper way down below:
[Zack Keim can find inspiration nearly anywhere. The Pittsburgh singer-songwriter hatched the hook for his new single, “Canyon,” while driving around Washington, D.C. making food deliveries. “I was delivering Uber Eats, and I wrote that on my phone—just a voice memo,” Keim recalls. An insistent vocal refrain (“Can-yonnn!”) was all it took; Keim started strumming the melody on his guitar, and pretty soon the song blossomed into a buoyant folk-pop gem of a tune. Keim’s first solo single since his 2017 debut First Step, “Canyon” is both a monumental leap forward and the first taste of Keim’s forthcoming sophomore effort, "Battery Lane".]
I am so there for Zack Keim's upcoming album "Battery Lane" dropping in 2023. I feel like I found a fast sonic friend here. Just this song alone gives me that feeling in my gut. Learn to follow your gut, it will do you well.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/zackkeim
https://soundcloud.com/zack-keim
https://twitter.com/zackkeim
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Dha1DS1w2rQJe6iQjL7Li
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjJ_qTAus0vOQT1Oo2YEXZA
https://zackkeim.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.instagram.com/zackkeim/
https://www.bandsintown.com/a/2941054-zack-keim
Zack Keim can find inspiration nearly anywhere. The Pittsburgh singer-songwriter hatched the hook for his new single, “Canyon,” while driving around Washington, D.C. making food deliveries. “I was delivering Uber Eats, and I wrote that on my phone—just a voice memo,” Keim recalls. An insistent vocal refrain (“Can-yonnn!”) was all it took; Keim started strumming the melody on his guitar, and pretty soon the song blossomed into a buoyant folk-pop gem of a tune. Keim’s first solo single since his 2017 debut First Step, “Canyon” is both a monumental leap forward and the first taste of Keim’s forthcoming sophomore effort, Battery Lane.
At 25, Keim—whose musical background bridges the gap between garage-rock scuzz and kaleidoscopic folk reveries—has done enough performing for several lifetimes. Born and raised in the factory town of Blawnox, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh, Keim first picked up a guitar at age 13, when he enjoyed pretending to play along with his dad’s Beatles Anthology CD. He formed his earliest bands in middle school, performing Strokes and Arctic Monkeys covers to pubescent classmates. His life changed when he started sneaking out of the house to catch indie-rock concerts, particularly the acclaimed Pittsburgh group 1,2,3. “Seeing 1,2,3 definitely had an impact on me as a musician,” Keim says.
Keim’s father started taking him to local open mics around Pittsburgh. It was at one open stage that Keim met Bob Powers, a veteran slide guitarist 40 years Keim’s senior who introduced him to garage-rock staples from the Stooges to Black Lips. Keim and Powers hit it off and, after working together on blues standards, formed the garage-punk outfit Nox Boys. Keim was just 16 when the band was signed to Get Hip Records, and his life became a whirlwind. Nox Boys rose through the local underground scene, released two gloriously scuzzy albums with Get Hip, and toured nationwide and—more recently—Europe.
By 20, Keim yearned to create something of his own. His debut solo album, First Step, arrived that spring on Get Hip’s Folk Series sublabel. An aching and sparse work of sixties folk classicism, First Step wore its vintage influences on its sleeve: Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Nick Drake. “A lot of artists, when they start out, their first record takes a lot of inspiration from people they listen to,” Keim reflects. By comparison, “Canyon” finds Keim expanding his musical parameters and locating a voice all his own.
Keim wrote “Canyon” at a low point in the spring of 2020. His band’s West Coast tour had been canceled as the coronavirus swept across the country, forcing him to drive from San Diego straight back to Pittsburgh. Soon their first European tour was canceled, too. “That was a turning point, an epiphany for me,” Keim says. During that eventful spring, Keim became entranced by Hamilton Leithauser and Rostam Batmanglij’s I Had a Dream That You Were Mine and Tobias Jesso Jr.’s Goon LP. He also broke up with his longtime girlfriend, who wanted him to become a postman. “I didn’t want to give up on my childhood dream,” Keim says.
While living in Washington, D.C. and saddled with credit card debt from his canceled tours, Keim began delivering for Uber Eats to pay the bills, playing the occasional gig on the side (even at an abandoned subway station). Inspired by the lush textures of the Hamilton/Rostam album, he began pushing himself musically—taking piano lessons, experimenting with a sixties organ, playing synths and keys. He built a home studio in his room, and began buying new gear to stimulate his creativity. One night, while down and out in D.C., Keim performed some new songs on Instagram Live, which caught the attention of musician Josh Sickels, formerly of 1,2,3. Keim began sharing his demos with Sickels and his ex-1,2,3 bandmate Chad Monticue. In a surreal culmination of Keim’s teenage obsession with 1,2,3, the two musicians (who now comprise the duo Animal Scream) enthusiastically agreed to produce Keim’s new material.
On “Canyon,” you can hear this creativity entering full blossom. Keim’s new songwriting revels in a new sonic complexity, full of winks at acoustic psychedelia and rustling piano that recalls vintage Walkmen records. “Canyon,” which Keim playfully describes as his “summer roadtrip single,” will be released on 7” this fall on Action Weekend Records out of Europe.
Now based back in Pittsburgh, Keim is currently at work on his second solo album, titled Battery Lane after the street he lived on in the D.C. area. Produced by Jake Hanner (Donora) and Animal Scream, the album will be out in 2023.
Keim describes “Canyon” as a way of reintroducing himself as an artist. “I grew up listening to lots of indie rock and 1,2,3, but then I shifted into the hardcore garage direction,” Keim says. “Now I’m finding my voice as an artist.”
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Zack Keim, singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, indie rock, garden rock, folk rock, avant pop, indie pop, country tones, folk indie, "Canyon", 2nd upcoming album, solo album, "Battery Lane",
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