The Light Wires are:
Jeremy Pinnell vocals, guitar
Andy Hittle guitar, vocals
Mike Montgomery bass, vocals
Rick McCarty drums
Releases:
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Organelle
Various Artists
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The Light Wires
10-song CD/LP
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The Invisible Hand
10-song CD/LP
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Listen to The Light Wires
Press:
In the realm of crooning folk rock The Light Wires are a godsend. Singer Jeremy Pinnell delivers his longing lyrics with
a lump of tears in his
throat that no one has mastered since Adam Durst. It's warm in the way my house felt in Montana after coming in from -13 degrees outside to a
heater. The pain in the songs sounds like it was channeled through Neil Young, filtered through Elliott Smith and then slowly dripped out of
Pinnell. Even when
Pinnell and company turn on just a smidge of rock, the mellowness under their guitars is always present. In "Belly Of The Beast"
Pinnell sings about addiction in a
way that no one has touched sine "Needle and the Damage Done." This is a strong debut from these Cincinnati
folkers.
- Modern Fix
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The Light Wires, the four-piece band framed slyly around songwriter
Jeremy Pinnell's
snaky amalgam of American music,
have learned a thing
or two about
contradiction in their short
year together. First formed to serve as a platform for Pinnell’s
remarkable
songwriting, the
Cincinnati, Ohio band
has found themselves in
the thorny space
between reverence to and subversion
of the traditional American songbook.
In the summer
of 2002,
Pinnell
(late of Ladderday),
band-less and busy amassing an imposing catalog
of songs, enlisted longtime friend and
multi-instrumentalist
Mike Montgomery
to expand
some musical ideas. Upon hearing the
first traces of Pinnell’s ageless compositions, Rick
McCarty
(with Montgomery in Thistle,
El Gigante, and Ampline) and
Andy Hittle (also in El Gigante) quickly
insinuated
themselves into the fold
and helped
to flesh out the
songs. And before they even had
a name, The Light Wires had mesmerized
its
first audience with its mood-swinging forays
into
plaintive laments and
wiry tangles of
American song. Pinnell’s brilliant three-minute dramas
had found a home with accommodating
musicians who knew how to enlarge
as well as
dismantle his tunes.
Today, to hear The Light Wires
is to appreciate the sum of its parts. Pinnell’s voice, honest, resonant,
and
devastatingly clear,
completes
his deceptively simple acoustic guitar
fragments while the
rest of
the band steps obliquely in and out of the frame. Montgomery and McCarty,
young musical
veterans both,
supplement Pinnell’s songs with tasteful highlights. The resulting effect is one
of respect toward the
traditional rhythm
section while
challenging convention with
startling
melodic lines, whispering percussion,
and dramatic respites. Hittle’s cunning guitar completes
the
compositions with allusions to elegant
Nashville lines while
undermining the proceedings
with innovative textures and phrasing. On balance,
the sound
simultaneously nods toward and
takes the piss out of Nebraska-era
Springsteen and the
singer-songwriter tradition.
Tour Dates:
::::: NO SHOWS SCHEDULED :::::
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