{"id":2213,"date":"2017-10-27T15:24:21","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T19:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=2213"},"modified":"2017-10-27T15:24:21","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T19:24:21","slug":"dot-podcast-ep44-lonely-troubadour-david-ramirez-gets-some-company-on-the-road-new-comedy-from-dana-gould-and-new-release-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2017\/10\/27\/dot-podcast-ep44-lonely-troubadour-david-ramirez-gets-some-company-on-the-road-new-comedy-from-dana-gould-and-new-release-roundup\/","title":{"rendered":"DoT Podcast EP44: Lonely Troubadour David Ramirez Gets Some Company on the Road, New Comedy from Dana Gould, and New Release Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the past several years, David Ramirez<\/a> has been traveling around the country with an acoustic guitar, pouring his heart into his fine, passionate tunes. He\u2019s mostly been doing that alone, with no band to back him, while the arrangements on his albums have grown both more subtle and more expansive. On his new album, We\u2019re Not Going Anywhere, the follow-up to his 2015 breakthrough Fables, his sound has taken another new turn. Ramirez is backed by a full band, and brings in earthy-sounding synths and chiming guitars, an almost nostalgic 80s vocabulary of instrumentation to bounce off his often-elegiac songwriting. \u201cPeople Call Who They Want To Talk To\u201d sounds like Rodney Crowell writing the theme song for a John Hughes movie. \u201cTime\u201d is a rhythmic patchwork of mournful pedal steel and a bubbling synth that could have been sampled from a Howard Jones album. <\/p>\n

It would be difficult to tour with this album alone, and when I caught up with Ramirez before a recent show at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge, Ma<\/a>, he was glad he didn\u2019t have to. As you\u2019ll hear in the beginning of this interview, he\u2019s happy to round out the live sound on the current tour, but he\u2019s also thrilled just to have some company. Ramirez was relaxed and engaging when we sat down to talk. He doesn\u2019t raise his voice much, but he\u2019s quick with a smile. The new album is personal and political, and we talked about the inspirations for songs like \u201cStone Age,\u201d \u201cTwins,\u201d and \u201cEliza Jane,\u201d and about how he came to be that lone road warrior troubadour. If you haven\u2019t heard his stuff, head over to his site<\/a> or to iTunes to pick it up, and come back to this podcast once you\u2019ve ingested it. You won\u2019t regret it. <\/p>\n

Also in this edition, I debut a new feature, doing the \u201cNew Release Round-Up\u201d at the top of the show, detailing some of the best stuff coming out this week in comedy, music, and horror. I attended the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival<\/a> over the weekend and came back with a couple of things to tell you about. And as with every episode a new track after the conversation. This week it\u2019s comedy from Dana Gould<\/a>, from his new album, Mr. Funny Man<\/em>. I\u2019ll be speaking with Gould for WBUR Boston\u2019s ARTery site<\/a> about the new album and season two of Stan Against Evil<\/em><\/a>, so look for that on their site soon. <\/p>\n

You can listen to and download the podcast from the player below, or subscribe\/review on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. Enjoy!<\/p>\n