Souled American, Camden Joy
Jeff Hamand
A close-up of Souled American.
Souled American
media release: Arts + Literature Laboratory welcomes Souled American + Camden Joy on Friday, October 25, 2024 at 7:30pm. Tickets: $15 student/ALL Member in advance online, $20 general admission. or $25 at the door for everyone. Tickets available online at https://www.
An elusive band of great influence, Chicago's Souled American make a rare appearance following a presentation by guerrilla artist Camden Joy about his collaborative "Fifty Posters About Souled American," a street project that covered NYC in the summer months of 1997. This will be their one and only appearance together.
SOULED AMERICAN
Souled American formed in Chicago in 1986 and recorded a total of sixty-six songs between 1988 and 1996. Originally a quartet, drummer Jamey Barnard left in 1992, followed by guitarist Scott Tuma three years later. The founding singer/songwriters Joe Adducci and Chris Grigoroff remain.
Their evolving hybrid of roots music spawned “alt-country” and inspired (among many others) Wilco, The Jayhawks, The Feelies, Califone, Counting Crows, The Mountain Goats, and Cracker.
Their records became legendary, unavailable for decades. They arrived on the Internet only last year. The last two are being reissued on vinyl 30th Anniversary Editions this fall from Scissor Tail Records.
CAMDEN JOY
A rock critic bored by the conventions of rock criticism, Camden Joy came to prominence through a series of street postering projects undertaken in the City of New York from 1995 to 1997. These projects, which were gathered in "Lost Joy" (TNI Books, 2002; Verse Chorus Press, 2015), used poster-length manifestos to champion missed cultural moments. Joy's subsequent experiments with "lo-fi literature" resulted in two controversial novels about rock celebrity.