Tacoma’s vinyl-first Holy Roll Records releases first LP | Opinion
The latest songs from the Kimball Superstars have been through a lot to get to you.
First they were soundwaves hitting microphones. Then they went onto tape, mostly digital, but some magnetic. After some mixing, a lathe cut the sounds into grooves on a fragile disc made of acetate. A metal coating created a reverse image of the grooves on plates called stampers. And the stampers pressed the grooves onto vinyl LPs.
There was some back-and-forth about quality after that, but eventually it became “Here’s To the Memory,” an album carefully engineered for record players. It’s the first release of a new, vinyl-first label that calls Tacoma home: Holy Roll Records.
“It was kind of an ordeal in some ways,” frontman Matt Kimball told me over lunch at Red Hot a few weeks ago. “I don’t know what to do with myself when I don’t like something. But we figured it out.”
You might know Kimball as the soft-spoken cowboy responsible for stocking new music at Hi-Voltage Records and Books on Sixth Avenue in Tacoma. Maybe you’ve spotted him in the store sporting a thick mustache, wide-brimmed hat and bolo tie. Given his commitment to the craft of country music, “western” is more than a look for Kimball.
His musical ensemble is as country western as his clothes. He sings lead vocals and plays guitar and harmonica. A pedal steel player brings a swooping, fluid treble to the joint, rounded out by a drummer, bassist, and occasional fiddler. Kimball’s girlfriend, Julia Mullen Gordon, adds clear-toned back-up vocals with just enough staticky twang to scratch an itch I didn’t know I had.
The album comes out March 13, with a live release party at the Mule Tavern on South Tacoma Way on March 14. It’s not typically a live music venue, but Holy Roll president Casey Catherwood said it was the right atmosphere for a country western record release.
“It’s one of the closest things we have to a good old-fashioned tavern here in Tacoma,” Catherwood said, calling the venue “something unconventional for an unconventional record, an unconventional person, an unconventional label. I think it’ll be a good hang.”
Music on the record
Kimball’s commitment to getting these songs on the literal record is also legit. For him, the LP isn’t just “merch” you might buy to support an artist you like. It’s the point.
“I don’t really care about streaming,” he said, “so the LP is the only thing that matters to me.”
It’s one thing to point out that streaming has disrupted the very idea of an album. And it’s true that the algorithm of your given music service is geared to create a continuous feed of sameness. You could argue, as Kimball does, that owning a physical copy of an album prompts re-listens that can give you a deeper appreciation than you’d get from listening to half a song online before hitting “next.”
But it’s another thing to commit to the limitations of a vinyl record, which dictate length and require a no-longer ubiquitous apparatus to play. That’s what Holy Roll and the Kimball Superstars have done.
I’m a music lover, and I’ve listened to The Byrds’ “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” enough times to find my way around a classic country soundscape. But I don’t own a record player, so “Here’s to the Memory” had to take one last journey before it reached my ears. Destination: Mom and Dad’s house.
Possessed by muscle memory, I set the receiver on my parents’ sound system to “phono” and dropped the needle on the record. Then a bell-clear sound poured out of the speakers.
The ordeal? Worth it.
Embracing the limitations of the format
I flipped the record enough times to give it two thorough listens. I kept coming back to the second-to-last track: “The Thinking Man’s Plight.” It’s just Kimball, his guitar and harmonica, captured on a Tascam 388 reel-to-reel eight track recorder.
It feels like you’re in the room with him. That’s intentional, of course. The tape recorder is known for producing warm sounds and high fidelity. It also forced him to use a whole take from start to finish of the song.
“I didn’t want to give myself the temptation to be able to fix anything,” he said. In the recording studio, “you’re so naked there you’ll want to go, ‘I didn’t play that chord exactly right, so maybe we can stitch it.’”
The once-through approach doesn’t lower the quality of the track, though. Kimball said it let him stop overthinking his technique and just do it. The thinking man’s plight, indeed.
The lyrics contemplate the ways both your nature and your lot in life shape your beliefs. In a verse on the wisdom of saving money for an emergency by forgoing a little happiness now, he says:
“You can’t save a good time like you’d save a dime / there’s no happiness locked in a safe / and when that rain starts to fall, maybe you’ve had your ball / or maybe all you’ve done is wait.”
Kimball said he takes songwriting cues from the Beatles, and focuses more on getting the words to fit the music than on getting some deeper truth out.
I’d argue he managed to do both.
