jeffmattison.com News

The acoustic show at the brand new Toad in the Hole Pub in Santa Rosa has been postponed due to delays in getting the place ready for opening. A new date will be announced soon. Stay tuned.

More cancellations....the only remaining date scheduled as of this time is an acoustic date at the Petaluma Farmers' Market on Saturday, October 14th.
Get 'em while you can...

Wayward Angels Go On Hiatus....All electric shows have been cancelled and no resumption date has been announced. Thanks to all who have come out and supported live local electric music. You still have a few chances to come out and catch Jeff and Chad playing acoustic Wayward Angels music...see the calendar for more details. Work will continue on the new CD with the high probability of more electric shows following its release. Stay tuned to this site for more details.

Due to persistent scheduling conflicts, both of the remaining
KOA poolside shows, on Saturday July 22nd and on Saturday August 19th,
have been cancelled. Keep an eye on this site in the coming days for some important Wayward Angels news.

Just Announced:Jeff will be playing a rare solo acoustic show tomorrow, Saturday June 24th, at the Petaluma Farmers' Market in downtown Petaluma. Show starts at 2:00.

The Tradewinds Show on Friday July 7th has been cancelled due to scheduling conflicts. Stay tuned for a reschedule date.

Work continues on the upcoming CD release, though no release date has been set. Recording sessions in April and May yielded plenty of fine performances....in particular, the live acoustic sessions with pedal steel player Dave Zirbel playing alongside Jeff and Chad provided a wealth of great material to balance out
The Wayward Angels' usual electric mayhem.

Here we go...The Wayward Angels in the studio the next two nights, recording twelve new songs, not all of which have been previewed live. On the 12th, pedal steel and dobro player Dave Zirbel comes in to pick acoustic with Jeff and Chad, covering seven of the same songs. Should provide a nice collection of material to move forward with.

It's a go...The Wayward Angels will be in the studio recording electric on April 10th and 11th, and Chad and Jeff will be in the studio on the 12th along with pedal steel and dobro player Dave Zirbel, recording some acoustic stuff. You might remember Dave from his stellar work on the Backroads Heart Attack CD.

Due to a scheduling conflict, The Wayward Angels show at The Tradewinds on March 10th has been postponed. The new date is tentatively scheduled for July 7th. Check the calendar for more details as the date draws near.

Work continues on the followup to the Backroads Heart Attack CD, which is untitled as of now. The band has added several new songs to their working rotation, Tryin' Not to Cry and Lowdown Blues, making it eleven songs ready to go, with a couple more still to come. Recording is tentatively scheduled for early April, and with any luck, the new record should be finished later this year. Stay tuned to this site for further updates.

Happy New Year everybody. With the turn of the year comes changes to The Wayward Angels. Mike James has left the band to pursue family life and other adventures. Taking his place on guitar...from Nashville, Tennessee...Ernie Brady. Now, those of you who were lucky enough to catch the show at the Willowbrook Ale House at the beginning of last month with Ernie filling in know what a great addition this is to the Angels' sound. Ernie brings a fresh and enthusiastic attitude to the band, and the man can flat out play. Welcome aboard Ernie.

Check out the new dates for The Wayward Angels. First up, on Saturday December 3rd at the Willowbrook Ale House in Petaluma, the Angels get electric with special guest guitarist Ernie Brady, who hails from Nashville, Tennessee. In mid-February, the band returns to the usually raucous atmosphere of The Black Cat in Penngrove. Those who have seen the band there before can attest to the high energy and unpredictable hijinks that are sure to be a part of the show.

The Wayward Angels made a surprise acoustic/electric appearance Sunday at the Sebastopol Farmers' Market. Look for more of these appearances to augment Jeff and Chad's regular acoustic dates....next up for the acoustic/electric version of The Wayward Angels...a return engagement at the Sebastopol Farmers' Market on Sunday November 27th, where we can all celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday by giving thanks for great music. See you there!

The Wayward Angels have begun booking electric dates for early 2006. Keep an eye on this site for more details.

Guitarist Mike James and his wife Juliet have given birth to a lovely baby girl, Lois James. Welcome to this crazy world Lois!! Congratulations Mike and Juliet! Mike will be taking much of the next month off as he undertakes a crash course in fatherhood.

The Wayward Angels have found a permanant replacement for Mark Greeott on drums. Taking his place will be Joe Label, formerly of the country rock band Fearless Heart. The band will currently woodshed with Joe, bringing him up to speed. Look for new electric band dates coming soon.

Jeff and Chad's acoustic show at the Cotati Farmers' Market, originally scheduled for Thursday July 7th, has been moved forward to Thursday June 30th due to the market's scheduling problems resulting from our extremely wet Spring. The show will still run from 5:00 to 7:30 and will feature two distinct sets. The first will have Jeff playing a now-rare solo set, and in the second, Jeff will be joined by Chad playing his usual stellar bass guitar.

Jeff and Chad returned to the studio this week to continue laying down demo tracks for a possible third CD. Now having recorded eleven new songs with one more still unrecorded, they are getting close to pulling the trigger on this new and exciting project. Stay tuned.

Following a medical emergency, Mark Greeott has left The Wayward Angels to pursue other opportunities outside of music in Colorado. Suffice to say, he and his drumming will be greatly missed, and we wish him the best of luck. Filling in temporarily and making his debut with the band on June 24th at The Black Cat will be Dave Maciel, formerly of the band Roadhouse.

The Wayward Angels show on Saturday April 23rd at Jasper O' Farrell's Irish Pub in Sebastopol has been cancelled. Apparently, the new owners, who had hoped to reopen on April 15th, have found much more in need of repair and refurbishment than they had anticipated. They are now projecting that the bar will reopen in May. The Wayward Angels date will be rescheduled...stay tuned for that date.

The Wayward Angels show at The Tradewinds on April 15th has been cancelled, and as of now, there is no rescheduled date. The Tradewinds' license has been suspended indefinitely due to non-payment of delinquent taxes. This is the second instance in as many weeks where the ABC, in their heavy-handed way, has shut down a local roots music venue, the other being the Thursday shows at the Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma, which was raided in the middle of an event on St. Patrick's Day, with the Sheriff's Department along for the ride.

The Wayward Angels once again scorched The Black Cat on Friday night. Continuing to debut new material for the hoped-for upcoming third CD, the newest addition is an up-tempo number called My Friend Sara. With ten new songs now in the working rep and demo sessions underway, we can only hope the wait isn't long. If you weren't there, get thee to a show soon and knock back a few to the sounds of a band that's getting hotter each time out. Next up, The Tradewinds on Tax Day, April 15th. See you there.

The benefit for the family of musician/teacher Peter Bellfy at the Sebastopol Community Center was a resounding success. Thanks to all who came and helped out. The Wayward Angels treated the large crowd to a short but incendiary set, opening with California Blues, following with an extended version of Evening Blues and were even called back to finish up with Medicine Jar....one particularly enthusiastic audience member was heard to shout "you guys are the new American hope!"...indeed

Stay tuned to this link for the soon-to-be-streamed KRSH live in-studio performance by Jeff and The Wayward Angels. We expect it to be up shortly.

Jeff and The Wayward Angels will be appearing live on KRSH FM (95.9) in Santa Rosa, California on Tuesday evening January 25th from 8:00 to 8:30. The show will be hosted by Dean K and will feature cuts off the Backroads Heart Attack CD as well as live performances and band interviews. This will be a treat for local audiences only, as KRSH does not yet stream their programming over the Internet.

Jeff and Chad were in the recording studio on November 17th working up demos of eight unreleased songs. In addition to six new songs, the duo also recorded versions of two songs, Dinner with God and Packin' My Bags, that are familiar to those who have seen the duo or the band play recently. Expect the band to be doing more recording early next year. Dare we hope for a third CD release in the near future?

The Wayward Angels are back as an electric band. With the addition of Mike James on lead guitar, the band is looking forward to its first shows in quite awhile. Expect a band more on the rock side of alternative country. Meanwhile, Jeff and Chad continue to stay working with a busy schedule of acoustic dates, playing nearly thirty dates this year so far.

The Wayward Angels have a new drummer and are now working as a trio while continuing to audition guitarists. Mark Greeott joins the band after playing previously with a variety of bands, most notably with Jessica Star.

You can now find Jeff's music on a wide variety of music downloading sites. Twenty-four different companies have all of Jeff's songs from both CDs available for download, including many of the biggest names like Apple itunes, Napster, emusic, and Rhapsody. Songs may be purchased individually or collectively.

Changes have come to The Wayward Angels...Jesse Wickman and Dave Zirbel have left to focus more intensively on their other musical commitments. Dave plays pedal steel for the very busy Mother Truckers, and Jesse plays in the hard country band One Horse Town as well as in the free jazz ensemble Frenzy. Best of luck and thanks for the great music! Auditions will be held shortly to reassemble the band, this time with Jeff's acoustic partner Chad St. Clair on electric bass. In the meantime, Jeff and Chad expect to stay busy as an acoustic duo.

Petaluma Argus-Courier Article
October 1, 2003

Keeping American Roots Music Alive
Jeff Mattison's edgy folk music and alt-country sound evolves on his second CD,
Backroads Heart Attack

By CHRIS SAMSON
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

For every singer who has a major record deal and gets extensive airplay, there are hundreds of other talented but undiscovered musicians with self-produced CDs.

Petaluma singer-songwriter Jeff Mattison, who released his second CD, Backroads Heart Attack, earlier this summer on his Madboy music label, would like to get his music out to a wider audience, but he understands that good, heartfelt music doesn't necessarily translate to commercial success.

"A lot of people who I have a lot of respect for didn't sell a lot of records in their time," he said. "I'm conscious of being part of something larger than myself. I'm trying to do my part to keep American roots music alive and evolving in some way."

Mattison grew up in the Bay Area and has lived in Northern California most of his life, but his music has echoes of other places he's spent time: the South, Midwest and abroad.

His songs are rooted in American folk, country and bluegrass. "It's a little edgy," he said. "It's not really happy folk music. It's the other kind of folk music I find more interesting as a listener and writer."

Backroads Heart Attack represents an evolution from Mattison's 1998 debut CD, Moonshine Rain, an acoustic guitar-based album with a contemporary folk sound. The new CD, featuring his electric band the Wayward Angels, is a mix of his original alt-country rock, electric folk blues and acoustic songs.

Backroads Heart Attack has been getting airplay on Bill Bowker's "Americana" radio show that airs on KRSH Saturdays from 8 to 10 a.m. and Wednesdays from 10 p.m. to midnight.

Mattison has played the Petaluma Farmers Market for the last several years, including about half a dozen times this summer, performing with bassist Chad St. Clair in the gazebo in Walnut Park. The duo will be playing this Sunday at Jasper O'Farrell's in Sebastopol.

"Chad has a great feel for my music as a bass player," said Mattison. "He doesn't play the bass in a traditional manner. He plays around the root."

As a musician working in the folk and roots genre, Mattison feels he's carrying on a creative energy that's historical as well as musical. "There are two schools of thought," he said, "the purists and evolutionary school of thought. I tend toward the latter. Folk music has always offered observations on the world around us."

Mattison has observed much of the world through extensive travels with his wife Kim. Both grew up in San Jose and graduated from UC Santa Barbara. The couple spent a year and a half backpacking through Asia before moving to Petaluma in 1991. They now own and operate a Montessori preschool and kindergarten program in Penngrove.

Before settling down, they took several other trips, working to save enough money to travel for several months at a time. They have visited Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and India, in addition to tent camping throughout the United States.

"Some good songs came out of that," he said. "It also gave me an appreciation for the real America, the one you don't see in popular culture." Some of the songs "percolated for awhile," he said, and didn't some to fruition right away. Songs like "Over Yonder Faire" and "That Old Train" resonate of rural America.

Mattison counts among his influences and inspirations Jimmie Rogers, Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead. "The Dead were a great inspiration to play music the way my heart told me," he said. "The way they were always on the road opened up (traveling) as a wonderful thing. I got bit by that bug and wound up in a lot of interesting places in the world."

Mattison recorded Back-roads Heart Attack at Petaluma's Grizzly Studios with Dave Zirbel (of Mother Truckers) on lead guitar, pedal steel and dobro, drummer Jesse Wickman and bassist Paul Hoffman. Layne Bowen played mandolin and Callie Watts added backing vocals.

"The way I approached the first CD was we were going to make a folk rock album from the acoustic side. The great thing about doing the first CD was I found my (creative) voice in the process.

"As I started writing a lot of material that ended up on my second CD, I heard a different sound in my head: a fuller, more alt-country kind of place. It was an intensive process, listening to it and emotionally opening up. As a byproduct of the first CD, I heard the second one. That was the one I wanted to make."

Mattison's CDs are available by mail for $15 by writing him directly at P.O. Box 2692, Petaluma 94953. Backroads Heart Attack is also available at local record stores and on the Internet through CD Baby and Amazon.com. He also sells his CDs at his shows.

Backroads Heart Attack Press Release
July 10, 2003

Proving that good things come to those who wait, Jeff Mattison delivers the goods on Backroads Heart Attack, his first release in over four years.

Going well beyond the acoustic-based tunes of his debut record Moonshine Rain, the new CD also features Jeff´s electric band The Wayward Angels, with Dave Zirbel (Mother Truckers) on lead guitar, pedal steel, and dobro and the locomotive rhythm section of drummer Jesse Wickman and bass player Paul Hoffman (both from One Horse Town). Backroads Heart Attack is much more of an electric affair, one that Section M Magazine described as "plaintive, dirty, bluesy alt-country".

Once again recorded in Petaluma at Grizzly Mufuggin´s Studios with Roger Tschann, the CD is stunning from start to finish, with artwork designed by Susan Stover Flory adding visual disturbance to a relentlessly quick-paced song selection. Containing a dozen songs, Backroads Heart Attack elaborates on many of the themes familiar to those who know Jeff´s music. Whether reflecting on economic and spiritual dislocation in songs like California Blues and That Old Train, raising the specter of backwoods distilleries and Robert Johnson in songs like Medicine Jar and Over Yonder Faire, conjuring up an apocalyptic aura in Evening Blues, Post-Modern Lament, and Judgement Day, or ruminating about love gone wrong in I´ll Be Your Angel and She´s Gone Again, the album is truly a bumper crop of the finest homegrown American Roots music.

A nicely balanced offering, the record sets alt-country rockers and driving electric folk blues material against more acoustic-based songs. The rock-solid rhythm section of Jesse Wickman and Paul Hoffman and the stellar lead guitar, dobro, and pedal steel work of Dave Zirbel combine with the high quality of Jeff´s songwriting and the careful seasoning of Layne Bowen´s mandolin and Callie Watts´ backing vocals to produce one of the year´s most exciting releases.

Moonshine Rain Press Release
September 1, 1998

Jeff´s debut album began as a project based on his solo performances. By adding the solid rhythm section of Jesse Wickman on drums and Paul Hunt on bass, it began to take its eventual shape as an acoustic folk-rock presentation. Rounded out by guest appearances by Rick Hatfield on harmonica, Ed Neff on mandolin, and Ryan Ramirez on keyboards, the result is a powerful and well-received introduction to an exciting new artist.

"This record has a very authentic sound…the focus is on Mattison´s reedy voice, as well as his lyrics and acoustic guitar-based tunes…an excellent band helps elevate the record above standard coffeehouse fare while creating a very live, in the living room sort of feel."
-Section M, The Magazine of the North Bay Music Scene

"What I was trying to do with this record was to blend the structures of traditional songs found in folk, country, bluegrass, and spirituals with a sound and lyrical direction more reflective of the times we´re living in now", says Jeff. "What I find interesting is the collision that seems to be happening between the traditional and the modern, and I think Moonshine Rain reflects that."

Several outstanding songs from the album clearly show how successful the approach is. Whether it´s the driving guitar and harmonica of Last Calvaryman, with its gospel-themed apocalyptic folk sound, the yearning in the loneliness of Brand New Day, the pointed and politicized social observations of Emma´s Blues and Singin´ in the Rain, or the updated rendition of the slave spiritual in Auction Block Blues, Jeff´s catchy yet literate songwriting and arrangements invite listeners to both shake a leg and use their mind.