Literary heavyweight and confounding soul Graham Greene differentiated between his more serious work and his "entertainments" (mainly his suspense novels), which he wrote for widespread consumption. While Greene might have downplayed what he thought of as lighter fare, I’ve always enjoyed his “entertainments” as much as his supposedly more important religion/political/morality tales. Whenever a musical artist decides to release skeleton songs from their past, they invariably seem to pardon themselves and make excuses much like Greene did in his writing days with his “entertainments.”
For his latest record, Hard Knox (Ecstatic Peace!), James Jackson Toth, a.k.a WAND (formerly Wooden Wand), explains in notes written about the album that this collection of tracks was recorded between 2002-2007 in Knoxville, TN, but he thankfully doesn’t apologize or belittle his old ways with such derogatory terms like “entertainments” but sees them rather as flawed but enjoyable "snapshots." Of course, Toth is in the enviable position of not needing pet names for lesser work because he doesn’t write lesser work, at least none that we’ve heard. Toth is a fan’s wet dream when it comes to releasing records, because his entire expanding oeuvre is worth investigating and digesting, be it regarded as serious prose and poetry or mere “entertainments” by its creator.
We touched upon the latest WAND tour here -- and also mentioned his recent signing to Michael Gira's Young God Records -- but we’re such big boosters of the man that we thought a Toth-only story wouldn’t hurt yas too much. Toth will no doubt play a varied selection of songs taken from his impressive back catalogue when he takes to the stage tonight in his former home of Knoxville. Whether he plays any of Hard Knox in Knoxville is anyone’s guess, but you can bet it will be “entertaining” as always
07.22.09 - Knoxville, TN - Pilot Light
07.23.09 - Fairmont, WV - River City Grill
07.24.09 - Baltimore, MD - Metro Gallery !
07.25.09 - Brooklyn, NY - Issue Project Room “
07.26.09 - New York, NY - Webster Hall Studio $
07.28.09 - Northampton, MA - Artifacts of the 20th Century
07.29.09 - Albany, NY - Valentine’s
07.30.09 - Portland, ME - The Apohadian Theatre %
07.31.09 - Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club &
08.02.09 - Columbus, OH - Rhumba
08.03.09 - Bloomington, IN - Russian Recording
08.05.09 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
08.06.09 - Rock Island, IL - Huckleberry’s, Daytrotter Session (
08.07.09 - Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
08.08.09 - Toronto, ON - Sneaky Dee’s *
08.09.09 - Montréal, Green Room
08.11.09 - Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel ,
08.12.09 - Carrboro, NC - Akron Family ,
08.13.09 - Atlanta, GA - The EARL ,
08.14.09 - Birmingham, AL - Bottletree ,
! Crazy Dreams Band
“ Michael Gira
$ Larkin Grimm
% Fire on Fire, Seymore, South China
& Destroyer
( Poison Control Center and Light Pollution
* Woods
, Akron/Family
