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14 minute read
MUSIC Adult Male Blond
Taking his ego out of his work has allowed singersongwriter Wade Gill to manifest good vibes.
BY STEVE STEWARD
When it comes to inspiration, you never know the what or the when that will unlock the muse or motivation that moves you off the couch and over to the proverbial piano. As a case in point, singer-songwriter Wade Gill has played guitar since he was 6 years old, but he didn’t write any songs until 2020 at the age of 33. On Friday, under the moniker Adult Male Blond, Gill will release to streaming services “Ram Dass,” the second single from his 2020 material, which he tracked last year with engineer Britt Robisheaux at Cloudland Recording Studio.
You might surmise that a person in his 30s might not have had the time to really pursue making music, and since Gill was a high school teacher for many of those years, you would be kind of right. But, ultimately, he found the time. All it took was a little thing called a “global pandemic.”
“Seeing the imminent demise of the world kind of re-prioritized things,” he said. “I’ve played music all my life, and I thought, ‘I have all these things I wanna do,’ so I wanted to do it then.”
Like most people during spring 2020, COVID-19 lockdown orders left Gill with plenty of time on his hands. “I started writing songs in earnest. I was teaching at the time, and I had the summer off, and you couldn’t do anything in that first summer [of the COVID-19 era], so I thought, ‘If we’re all gonna die, at least let me die doing something I love to do.’ ”
Of course, in 2020, COVID was not the only source of national anxiety. Gill was also horrified and enraged by the murder of George Floyd by a white cop, which inspired what he thinks of as “protest, almost like folk songs.”
Gill is an unapologetic progressive, yet he didn’t feel like it was his place to enter that genre and talk about institutional racism.
Protest music, he said, “was at the top of my mind. There used to be overtly political music, so I started off doing that a lot, writing these kind of country songs, like write a coun- try song but invert the country stuff, make it very left-wing, working class, but I was less stoked to release those. After the pandemic passed, it was like yes, these things are still all true, but what does writing about Black Lives Matter and the cops kicking heads in
2020 and then releasing them two years later do? Like, what if the protest songs of the ’60s came out a decade later? And who am I anyway to contribute to this discussion? … I had to take my ego out of it.”
Along with racist cops and virulent respiratory infections, Gill said he had been thinking a lot about his own ego at the time. “I was meditating and listening to [psychologist and guru] Ram Das on Audible and thinking about how at that time, all songs are pandemic songs, but also at that time, everyone was so inwardly focused, and I was like, ‘What if I get COVID? What if I die?’ And Ram Das is like, ‘Let go of the ego,’ and I found that really helpful. Anxiety is like a highly inwardly focused state. How do I get out of it? So that thinking turned into a song called ‘Ram Dass.’ ”
Letting go of COVID anxieties helped him shift his focus into a “no better time than now” mindset, which is sort of how he ended up finding his sound, after he realized his sound was not “left-wing country protest tune.” And with both “Ram Dass” and “Little Alien of Mine” — his first single, which he released in December — it turns out that Adult Male Blond’s sound is a version of indie guitar rock in the vein of Jim James and Kurt Vile.
“I love My Morning Jacket,” Gill said. “I have a hard time kind of placing my sound, but people have told me my songs sound kind of like the War on Drugs, which I like, but I didn’t go into it trying to sound like anything.” continued on page 21
The comparisons are apt, though. On “Little Alien of Mine,” Gill sings in a pleasant high tenor, the reverb and delay on his voice soaring over a driving, mid-tempo backbeat that is very much reminiscent of the War on Drugs. “Little Alien of Mine,” he said, is “a love song [with] pop-culture alien references.”
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That injection of subtle, off-centered humor is also a hallmark of Gill’s songwriting. “I like lyrics that are funny and cynical but that don’t take themselves too seriously. At my age, sincerity can be difficult. It’s hard to do it without being syrupy.”
Not surprisingly, Gill cites Warren Zevon as an influence. “That’s the angle. At the end of the day, I don’t know about werewolves in London, but [Zevon] tells a lot of stories about historical and meaningful stuff in a way that’s fun to listen to.”
Joining Gill at Cloudland were two members of local Americana outfit Thieving Birds — drummer Beau Brauer and guitarist/keyboardist Ace Crayton — as well as former Quaker City Night Hawks bassist Pat Adams, who also acted as a producer. The trumpet parts on “Ram Dass” were performed by a British bloke named Gary Alesbrook, whom Gill found on freelancer recruitment site Fiverr.com. Crayton also mixed the session, and the songs were mastered at Electric Barryland near Alliance by Jordan Richardson (Ringo Starr, Ben Harper, Son of Stan). While Gill has yet to play live (“I need a band to carry me,” he joked), he is eager to return to a studio to record more songs. He and his wife moved to Portland last fall after she found a new job there, so he is still feeling out the local scene there.
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“I don’t really want to play acoustic solo-dude type shit,” he said. “Not to besmirch those players, it’s just not what I’m into, but if it were up to me, I’d go back into the studio tomorrow.”
Hopefully, he will get to track his music before the next pandemic happens. l
Wade Gill: “I have a hard time kind of placing my sound, but people have told me my songs sound kind of like the War on Drugs.”
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EXAMPLE A
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Consolidated Notice of Receipt of Application and Intent to Obtain Permit and Notice of Application and Preliminary Decision
Air Quality Standard Permit for Concrete Batch Plants Proposed Registration No. 171222L001
Application. Reliable Paving, Inc., has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for an Air Quality Standard Permit, Registration No. 171222L001, which would authorize construction of a temporary concrete batch plant located at the following driving directions: from the intersection of Farm to Market Road 157 and Trinity Boulevard, go west on Trinity Boulevard for 250 feet, site will be on the left, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas 76040. This application is being processed in an expedited manner, as allowed by the commission’s rules in 30 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 101, Subchapter J. AVISO DE IDIOMA ALTERNATIVO. El aviso de idioma alternativo en espanol está disponible en https://www. tceq.texas.gov/permitting/air/newsourcereview/airpermits-pendingpermit-apps. This link to an electronic map of the site or facility's general location is provided as a public courtesy and not part of the application or notice. For exact location, refer to application. http://www.tceq.texas.gov/assets/public/hb610/index.html?lat=32.815894&lng=-97.100534&zoom=13&type=r. The proposed facility will emit the following air contaminants: particulate matter including (but not limited to) aggregate, cement, road dust, and particulate matter with diameters of 10 microns or less and 2.5 microns or less.
This application was submitted to the TCEQ on December 9, 2022. The executive director has completed the administrative and technical reviews of the application and determined that the application meets all of the requirements of a standard permit authorized by 30 TAC § 116.611, which would establish the conditions under which the plant must operate. The executive director has made a preliminary decision to issue the registration because it meets all applicable rules. The application, executive director’s preliminary decision, and standard permit will be available for viewing and copying at the TCEQ central office, the TCEQ Dallas/Fort Worth regional office, and at the Mary Lib Saleh Euless Public Library, 201 North Ector Drive, Euless, Tarrant County, Texas 76039, beginning the first day of publication of this notice. The facility’s compliance file, if any exists, is available for public review at the TCEQ Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Office, 2309 Gravel Dr, Fort Worth, Texas. Visit www.tceq.texas.gov/goto/cbp to review the standard permit.
Public Comment/Public Meeting. You may submit public comments or request a public meeting. See Contacts section. The TCEQ will consider all public comments in developing a final decision on the application. The deadline to submit public comments or meeting requests is 30 days after newspaper notice is published. Issues such as property values, noise, traffic safety, and zoning are outside of the TCEQ’s jurisdiction to consider in the permit process.
The purpose of a public meeting is to provide the opportunity to submit comments or ask questions about the application. A public meeting about the application will be held if the executive director determines that there is a significant degree of public interest in the application or if requested by a local legislator. A public meeting is not a contested case hearing. If a public meeting is held, the deadline to submit public comments is extended to the end of the public meeting.
Contested Case Hearing. You may request a contested case hearing. A contested case hearing is a legal proceeding similar to a civil trial in state district court. Unless a written request for a contested case hearing is filed within 30 days from this notice, the executive director may approve the application.
A person who may be affected by emissions of air contaminants from the facility is entitled to request a hearing. To request a hearing, a person must actually reside in a permanent residence within 440 yards of the proposed plant. If requesting a contested case hearing, you must submit the following:
(1) your name (or for a group or association, an official representative), mailing address, daytime phone number; (2) applicant’s name and registration number; (3) the statement “[I/we] request a contested case hearing;” (4) a specific description of how you would be adversely affected by the application and air emissions from the facility in a way not common to the general public; (5) the location and distance of your property relative to the facility; (6) a description of how you use the property which may be impacted by the facility; and (7) a list of all disputed issues of fact that you submit during the comment period. If the request is made by a group or association, one or more members who have standing to request a hearing must be identified by name and physical address. The interests which the group or association seeks to protect must be identified. You may submit your proposed adjustments to the application which would satisfy your concerns. See Contacts section.
TCEQ Action. After the deadline for public comments, the executive director will consider the comments and prepare a response to all relevant and material, or significant public comments. The executive director’s decision on the application, and any response to comments, will be mailed to all persons on the mailing list. If no timely contested case hearing requests are received, or if all hearing requests are withdrawn, the executive director may issue final approval of the application. If all timely hearing requests are not withdrawn, the executive director will not issue final approval of the permit and will forward the application and requests to the Commissioners for their consideration at a scheduled commission meeting. The Commission may only grant a request for a contested case hearing on issues the requestor submitted in their timely comments that were not subsequently withdrawn. If a hearing is granted, the subject of a hearing will be limited to disputed issues of fact or mixed questions of fact and law relating to relevant and material air quality concerns submitted during the comment period. Issues such as property values, noise, traffic safety, and zoning are outside of the Commission’s jurisdiction to address in this proceeding.
Mailing List. You may ask to be placed on a mailing list to receive additional information on this specific application. See Contacts section.
Information Available Online. For details about the status of the application, visit the Commissioners’ Integrated Database (CID) at www.tceq.texas.gov/goto/cid. Once you have access to the CID using the link, enter the registration number at the top of this notice.
Contacts. Public comments and requests must be submitted either electronically at www14.tceq.texas.gov/epic/eComment/, or in writing to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Office of the Chief Clerk, MC-105, P.O. Box 13087, Austin, Texas 78711-3087. Please be aware that any contact information you provide, including your name, phone number, email address and physical address will become part of the agency’s public record. For more information about this application or the permitting process, please call the TCEQ Public Education Program toll free at 1800687-4040 or visit their website at www.tceq.texas.gov/goto/pep. Si desea información en Español, puede llamar al 1-800-687-4040.
Further information may also be obtained from Reliable Paving, Inc., 1903 Peyco Drive North Suite 100, Arlington, Texas 76001-6705 or by calling Mr. Josh Butler, Principal Consultant, Elm Creek Environmental LLC at (469) 946-8195.
Notice Issuance Date: January 24, 2023