She Swings, She Sways is a six piece band. Between them, they can top the usual drums and bass with twin acoustic guitars plus electric guitar and piano. Or acoustic guitar with two electric guitars and trumpet. They can add in a mandolin or harmonica. And guests on the album bring fiddle, pedal steel, and French horn into the mix. The bass player plays a stand up bass, but sometimes he bows it instead of the usual plucking. So She Swings, She Sways can use a lot of different musical textures. They do ...]]> So says Darius of Wasted Love Songs by She Swings, She Sways on his music review blog, Oliver di Place. Don’t want to take his word for it? Go ahead and have a listen for yourself on She Swings, She Sways’s artist page.

She Swings, She Sways – Wasted Love Songs by Darius for Oliver di Place

She Swings, She Sways is a six piece band. Between them, they can top the usual drums and bass with twin acoustic guitars plus electric guitar and piano. Or acoustic guitar with two electric guitars and trumpet. They can add in a mandolin or harmonica. And guests on the album bring fiddle, pedal steel, and French horn into the mix. The bass player plays a stand up bass, but sometimes he bows it instead of the usual plucking. So She Swings, She Sways can use a lot of different musical textures. They do so, but with great subtlety, and the whole thing holds together beautifully. But Wasted Love Songs is an album that rewards repeated listens, because there is so much going on musically. Some songs are mostly acoustic, while others rock out. Sometimes both things happen in the same song. There is even the occasional waltz.

John Gordon is the main songwriter and lead vocalist. He manages all of this beautifully. The pacing of the album allows for the building and release of dramatic tension, both within the individual songs, and in their sequencing.

And what could be more dramatic than love? On the back cover of the album, each of the eleven songs is dedicated to a different woman. The album opens with a declaration of love, What I Wouldn’t Do, and closes with an apology for all the wrongs committed in a relationship, Even So. In between, Gordon takes us on a journey through the adventures that relationships can be. Gordon is a brave narrator, taking on some difficult subjects with delicacy, but also with honesty. He Loves Me depicts a woman who seeks a white knight to rescue her from an abusive relationship. In Ryan’s Song, a woman must decide whether to try to make a relationship with a drug addict work; there are hints that he may be in recovery by the end of the song. But I was most impressed with Evelyn’s Green and Highway.

In Evelyn’s Green, a man offers comfort to a woman who is dying of an unnamed disease. It is clear that the narrator knows she will not recover, but he lies to her about the seriousness of the situation. Perhaps he lies to himself, in hopes that it will be true. The listener must decide whether to forgive this man for his false assurances. It is clear, however, that he does it to try to comfort the woman he genuinely loves.

Highway gives us a young American on a brief visit to Ireland. He has read in Chaucer and Kerouac about sexual liasons that always seem to result in great pleasure for both parties. Sure enough, he meets a young woman, and they wind up sleeping together. It is necessary for John Gordon to describe the sex scene. He does this discreetly but effectively, but we know that it goes badly. And the narrator must leave for home the next day, so there is no time for him to make it right. The kicker is that he is telling all of this to the young woman’s brother. Is this a final gesture of apology?
So here is a collection of three or four minute songs with rich musical textures and emotional complexity that I would expect to find in a much longer work. Either way, as I said earlier, Wasted Love Songs is an album that offers great rewards for repeated listens. That is a rare thing, to be treasured.

They kicked off their set, and it was clear from the first that these guys had something going; they were self-possessed, melodically strong, unpretentious, sweet like organic watermelon. You know what I mean? All mixed metaphors aside, my socks weren’t bowled over but I ...]]> The Iowa Source : Ottumwa’s Indie Artists Revel in their Own Voice : Full Article

The first time I saw She Swings, She Sways was on a summer’s day ’neath a gazebo in one of those idyllic Iowa town squares that look like a Hollywood B-movie set for a Norman-Rockwell-cum-Music-Man after-school special. The weather was perfect humidity-wise, as summers go in this neck of the woods. A small crowd had gathered, and what looked like a laid back, no frills group of musicians was getting set to strike up the band. I had heard these guys were from Ottumwa and were quite good but had no real expectations.

They kicked off their set, and it was clear from the first that these guys had something going; they were self-possessed, melodically strong, unpretentious, sweet like organic watermelon. You know what I mean? All mixed metaphors aside, my socks weren’t bowled over but I found myself instantly liking Ottumwa a lot more.

Keeping in mind that I have an undue fondness for singer/songwriters, what impressed me most about She Swings, She Sways is their strength of character, lightness of being, and depth of field. They’re folks clearly comfortable in their own skins, not the least apologetic to be simply who they are. Did I mention commitment to joy of self-expression in a totally down-to-earth way?

They’re a group of indie artists pushing their creative envelope, luxuriating inside the comfortable confines of their own voice. When it comes to making great music, finding your voice is basically the whole shooting match, the rest is connecting the dots. Thanks to the Icarus-like economic masters of the universe, we all know now what havoc derivatives can wreak upon the world. While these guys are not reinventing the wheel, they are gloriously anything but derivative. Some groups just have that deeper “thing” that flashes when you see or hear them. They do.

S4 is made up of six musical souls, according to their MySpace and Facebook pages (their website is www.sheswings shesways.com), all of whom are listed as vocalists: founders John Gordon and Cory Canny on acoustic guitars, Troy Morgan on bull fiddle, Jason Bolinger on drums, and Diana Garles on trumpet and keys. (Disclosure: Diana’s father, Gary, is a deejay at KRUU-LP 100.1 FM, www.kruufm.com, the grassroots radio station I manage). Fairfield’s own surf-psych maestro Jimmie Dalton has been recently added on electric guitar. Writing credits go to the whole band.

SsSs, as they ssssay, are Iowans all, born and raised within 30 miles of each other (except for newcomer Jimmie, who’s New Jersey born and raised). Swings & Sways joined forces in “the only apartment building in downtown Ottumwa, Southeast Iowa’s post-industrial wasteland,” as they describe it. Speaking of wasteland, their brand-new release, out on the Des Moines-based Authentic Records label, is called Wasted Love Songs. It is their first full-length effort and features tales from each of the members of squished and squandered love. Two EPs have preceded it, each showing marked headway, production value-wise. They have what they call a “Midwestern sound” (think Americana/ folk/pop with a twist), influences ranging from Leonard Cohen to Neil Diamond, sound comparisons with the Decemberists, the Shins, and Whiskeytown.

The new record has great sonics, with songs that are tight and loose at the same time, just the way the prairie gods of the Midwestern sound intended them to be. Seriously, the damn things are little parachutes of near perfection in their nugget-like simplicity, their pure sit-up-and-barkness. A certain open egalitarianism pervades the band’s landscape, the recording matching the simple, smart arrangements. Making great music may not be rocket science, but if you’ve ever tried it, you quickly realize that collaring the crucial mojo of individual performances, and then assembling them into a collective whole, could easily explode a rocket scientist’s head. But done right, the results are as effortless as breathing, as satisfying as eating a perfect orange, the stuff of immortality.
These guys have a deep ease about them that either comes from living, working, traveling, writing, and spending so much time together, or in spite of it—I’m not sure. They seem to do it all deceptively well, live on radio, under a gazebo, or in the studio. Their hearts may be planted in the Iowa soil but their souls appear to be moonwalking toward the long and winding roadhouse blues, far, far away in that neverland place where bands hit paydirt by being themselves better than anyone else.

Like the wings of bald eagles floating above the Des Moines River, She Swings sways with an effortless conviction and a deadly precision. It’s nice to know that whether SsSs is at South by Southwest, the State Fair, or going coastal, they’re taking a little piece of our heartland with them.

The Ottumwa-based band will perform at noon on Friday at Java House, 211 1/2 E. Washington St., as part of the “Java Blend” series. The group has received positive feedback for its latest album, Wasted Love Songs, which was released in July 2008.

The sextet is imbued with a bevy of musical influences. Having not grown up in the “Information Age,” they had to obtain their fill of music the old-fashioned way — radio and MTV — said guitarist/vocalist John Gordon. “Living in Iowa meant that none of us was ever part of any legitimate ‘scene,’ ” Gordon said. “Most of our musical teeth were cut on whatever was in the top-40 ...]]> The Daily Iowan : Swing and Swaying to the Music : Full Article

They didn’t have to travel far to find what they were looking for. The members of She Swings, She Sways didn’t even have to leave Iowa.

The Ottumwa-based band will perform at noon on Friday at Java House, 211 1/2 E. Washington St., as part of the “Java Blend” series. The group has received positive feedback for its latest album, Wasted Love Songs, which was released in July 2008.

The sextet is imbued with a bevy of musical influences. Having not grown up in the “Information Age,” they had to obtain their fill of music the old-fashioned way — radio and MTV — said guitarist/vocalist John Gordon.

“Living in Iowa meant that none of us was ever part of any legitimate ‘scene,’ ” Gordon said. “Most of our musical teeth were cut on whatever was in the top-40 radio: Michael Jackson, Gin Blossoms, early ’90s pop music, etc., or we heard a lot of classic rock radio: CCR, the Beatles, Neil Diamond.”

And, even though he despised it as a youth, bassist Troy Morgan said a tinge of country music influence can be heard in the group’s music.

“No matter what I thought of it, though, it was always around,” he said. “I’ve always played with songwriters, and I guess it was inevitable for some of that sound to creep in.”

She Swings, She Sways’ story began when Gordon and guitarist Cory Canny started as an acoustic duo after meeting in a record store. The group then grew from, adding Morgan and drummer Jason Bolinger. They rounded off the lineup in 2007 with the addition of Wes VanAntwerp (electric guitar) and Diana Garles (keys, vocals, trumpet).

Morgan said the group’s name was born out of a lyric from the band’s song “Doreen,” released on its first, self-titled EP in 2005.

“In the context of ‘Doreen,’ it’s unclear whether the ‘she’ is dancing or dangling from a rope; I think that’s a situation we all find ourselves in at times,” he said.

Since 2005, She Swings, She Sways has toured the Midwest in an effort to gain a broader fan base. With its distinctive blend of pop-laced folk music and genuine attitude toward performing, there seems to be no limit to what this band can do.

Gordon said consistency is very important to the band when it comes to live shows. The members are not a group of musicians who jam during a show; rather, they offer cohesive, tight performances, he said.

Though that’s not to say that the group is uptight in any way.

“We like to be ourselves,” Gordon said. “The audience — particularly our generation — has an incredible BS detector.”

The band’s determination to provide listeners with great music is an ongoing effort on- and offstage. Working with such a team has been quite rewarding, Morgan said, and he has “learned more about work from being in this band than I have from any job.”

“These guys are my friends, and I care about the work we do.”

I popped this one on in the background while making soup for the kids. When it came time to eat and I went to turn it down, my 8-year old said, “Hey, wait, I like that song”.

Their stuff is kind of catchy.

She Swings She Sways heralds (get it) from Ottumwa, Iowa and their album is available on Authentic Records. Wasted Love Songs, has climbed to the #14 most downloaded album on emusic this week. So forget the giving and download this for yourself. You deserve it.

We’re bringing part two of our Crossroads Conference video extravaganza with two songs from Iowa band She Swings, She Sways. Scott and Andrew had the opportunity to visit and talk with She Swings in their hometown of Ottumwa recently for a Rock Iowa feature, so be on the look out for that soon.