Why Do All The Country Girls Leave? by Myshkin

got to work playing dusky bars, making small dark jewels for records, touring the u.s., canada, europe, australia, relentlessly. soaking up the sound of her city, spitting it out twisted, political, burning, spooky, storied, subtle. chasing truth.

"fiercely talented, elegantly skewed" -time out magazine, london uk

"a wholly original voice...distinctive, arresting and affecting"

-new times, san luis obispo ca

"album of the year! myshkin is a giant among songwriters. well observed, unflinching, tender, bitterly funny songs." -city life magazine, manchester uk

"myshkin continues drawing from a wide range of styles to establish her musical identity...edgy, interesting, great songs." -dirty linen usa

"dexterous picking, loose jazzy swing and poetry...myshkin gives singer songwriters a good name." -philadelphia city paper

"relevant, humorous dark and tearless...she is a great unsentimental storyteller whose songwriting far surpasses today's standards"

-creative loafing, atlanta

"carl perkins and patti smith all rolled into one!"

-a happy fan, new orleans

myshkin has played festivals, clubs, and concerts in:

albuquerque, atlanta, baltimore, berlin, boston, bremen, chicago, dallas, denver, detroit, dusseldorf, el paso, edinburgh, hamburg, houston, hull, koln, london, los angeles, manchester, melbourne, memphis, minneapolis, new york, philadelphia, portland, portsmouth, salt lake city, san diego, san francisco, st. louis, seattle, southampton, sydney, toronto, utrecht, vancouver, wichita .... and a few thousand other small cities, towns, villages and open fields in between.

myshkin's songs have been played on community, college and commercial radio stations throughout north america, europe and australia.

her work has been honored with a new orleans music industry award, and two big easy award nominations for best folk artist.

recordings:

rosebud • bullets (Myshkin's Ruby warblers) double salt 2002

why do all the country girls leave? binky records 2000

blue gold binky records 1998

econoline (with mike west) binky records 1997

dr plauge and other lullabies (myshkin impossible) wreck it records 1995

slate wreck it records 1993

myshkin has recorded and toured extensively with mike west (www.mojono.com/mm), and as part of the kirk rundstrom band. she writes, performs and records with the road dog divas and the ez bake organs. she has recorded with dozens of artists, including shawn mullins and chuck brodsky. she is a member of little red hen, a women's booking collective (www.littleredhen.com). binky records (www.binkyrecords.com) are distributed by dna.

HERE ARE SOME WHOLE REVIEWS FOR WHY DO ALL THE COUNTRY GIRLS LEAVE?:

Ian Kearey

Folk Roots Magazine (UK) aug/sept 2000 pg. 83

Myshkin

Why Do All The Country Girls Leave?

Binky 1024

Myshkin's excellent last album, Blue Gold, concentrated on her songwriting abilities and the songs were set against understated backings. This time, however, she's kicked out the jams (as we oldsters like to say) and given each set of lyrics a very different kind of backing, to the point of naming each style with the title. So you have Country Girls (Rock), The Last Year (Ska-billy), Sugar Man (Polka), and so on, through to Yvonne's Bar (Yorkshire Brass) and even Market Town (Folk). Commercial suicide, lady! But the hell with that - this album is a brilliantly cohesive work that confirms Myshkin as one of the best songwriters around.

All the tracks feature Myshkin on mandolin and guitar plus husband Mike West on guitar and banjo, Matt Perrine on bass and Scott Magee on drums; and the variety of songs perfectly fits the subject matter of each song, without being too obvious or laboured. The hard blues of Headstrong - "you wanna slip through the cracks, but your eighteen and pregnant honey, there's nothing subtle about that", the libidinous polka of Sugar Man, and the menacing swing of Apricot Tree - "you and your new junky boyfriend and me, falling apart under the apricot tree" - all frame the songs exactly. If anything, this album's nearest neighbor is David Ackles' American Gothic, with which it shares it's sweep of Americana: the little boy's painful realization of slavery, loss and cruelty in Market Town, low life and revenge in Ruby Ann, the passing of time in Yvonne's Bar (not so much Yorkshire Brass as the soul horns on James Carr's records) and the history of the Conquistadores in Bojador - each song encapsulates a period or emotion, without sentimentality but with empathy and compassion, not to mention tenderness and pure craziness at times. Oh yes, and she sings like a dream, too, projecting herself into each character just enough to make the point - no more.

The moment a reviewer starts talking about an album being An Achievement it's usually time to turn to ...And The Rest or the Biff cartoon, but this really does represent something special.

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