Time Goes Rushing By by Floor Creak

Floor Creak is guitarist/songwriter Dave Shiflett, bassist (mostly on upright) Joseph "joebass" DeJarnette, and vocalist Kathie Thomas. Five guest performers are used sparingly throughout, but the sense of guitar, bass, and voice never gets bogged down in "clever things we can do with multiple tracking." It's all good, but moments of splendor lie in "Voice Of The Night," "Birmingham," and "You Were Always That Way."

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Here's one by Aaron Bragg from The Local Planet, Spokane, WA

FLOOR CREAK

Time Goes Rushing By

Truthface

It's tempting, considering the timing of the release of Time Goes Rushing By, to dismiss the album as yet another attempt to capitalize on the current craze over all things hillbilly. After all, the soundtrack from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, in addition to winning the Grammy for Album of the Year, has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of six million copies. Given that the Silent Majority has gone from voting Republican to buying Bluegrass, who wouldn't want to grab a cousin or two and bang out one more version of "Wildwood Flower" or "Orange Blossom Special?"

But dismiss Floor Creak at your peril, for this is a very talented trio: singer Kathie Thomas; Dave Shiflett, guitarist and songwriter; and Joe "Joebass" DeJarnette on, naturally, bass. "Trio" is the operative word here. Obviously, there are three of them (with assorted guests on mandolin, fiddle, et al.), but that's not the point - Floor Creak is the sum of its parts. You see, it's hard to imagine this music without Thomas's voice, without DeJarnette's huge sound and subtle phrasing, and without, well...the music itself, nearly all of which was penned by Shiflett (who's not a bad guitar player, either).

And it's that - the music - that really makes this album. A blend of bluegrass, folk, country, and even a hint of jazz (check out DeJarnette's work on "Moonshine"), Shiflett has managed to craft something old, something new without compromising his art. And Thomas? One comes away with the sense that Shiflett had her in mind for these songs all along. Her voice is at once plaintive, soulful, and expressive, with just the right amount of unaffected twang. CDBaby claims that her voice literally stops traffic at music festivals. I believe it.

Time Goes Rushing By carries about it that which Dave Alvin points to as perhaps the most important characteristic of traditional American music: sincerity. And sincerity doesn's need a movie.

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Here's one more, from the King of the Bloggers

Instapundit

I'M CURRENTLY LISTENING TO A GREAT CD BY FLOOR CREAK, a band featuring Dave Shiflett, best known to most InstaPundit readers for his writing at National Review Online, but a hell of an acoustic guitar player, too. (Dave plays acoustic through a Fender Super Reverb, which is the secret to the Nebraska Guitar Militia's sound, too -- though the Super Reverb used by NGM usually has the tremolo controls set on "11"). Very nice stuff.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at August 25, 2002 03:21 PM

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About Floor Creak:

Floor Creak was primarily a recording project. Vocals are by Kathie Thomas, with some supporting vocals by Mik Thomas. Joe Dejarnette plays bass, with Dave Shiflett on guitars. Dave wrote 11 songs on the CD and co-wrote one with Nashville songwriter Jackson Leap. There's also a cover of "Last Drink of Wine" by Sally Barris and Teresa Langworthy. The band was joined by several guests, including Christian Shiflett, Kevin Carr, Will Perkinson, and Barbara Kay.

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