SIMON JOYNER

SKELETON BLUES

For Simon Joyner’s tenth proper album, he’s joined by his working Omaha band, the Fallen
Men. What they've created is a dark, rock-and-roll, beginning or ending of an era, seven
leaf catalogue of people (skeletons) and their troubles (blues). Sounding like Doug Yule-era
Velvet Underground, Dylan with the Band (or is it Neil Young and Crazy Horse?), and
Sister Lovers damaged Big Star, this is unlike any other Simon Joyner record.

The song cycle begins with a cobblestone street inviting a man in an open window to splash
the bricks below, to the cadence of It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), and ends with a man
walking down the street waiting for the rain to wash him clean. In between is all the news fit
to sing. Joyner knows it takes a worried man to sing a worried song and the songs here are
certainly worried, peopled by bruised lives, but make no mistake, this is not hopeless music.

Unlike recent albums recorded in studios with professional musicians, Joyner expanded his
Fallen Men and recorded live in a vacant old train station building in Omaha over the
course of one lost weekend. Veteran collaborator Michael Krassner flew in to engineer and
was forced to join the band on “warehouse” piano. Chris Deden (drummer from the early
Sing, Eunuchs! records) returns, along with the protean Alex McManus (The Bruces,
Lambchop, Bright Eyes), this time cutting his teeth on pedal steel and sharing lead guitar
duties with Dave Hawkins. Lonnie Methe is back too, playing organ and vibes instead of
violin. Mike Tulis plays the bass.

Skeleton Blues explores themes of loyalty, alienation, death, time, war and divorce. Like the
doctor who warns his patient in the “Passenger” (from 1998’s Yesterday, Tomorrow and In
Between), “go forth and run and hide but you’re just like all the others I’ve seen, a skeleton
inside.” Joyner views our struggle for beauty and meaning to be more important than our
fear of death and the unknown. His skeletons are people in states of transition, falling and
climbing, failing sometimes but always swimming the backstroke from the rolling
graveyards.

Simon Joyner writes and makes music in Omaha, Nebraska. Although he tours only
occasionally, he continues to charge the musical landscape each time he releases a fresh
battery of songs.

Open Window Blues
You Don’t Know Me
Answer Night
Medicine Blues
The Only Living Boy In Omaha
Epilogue In D
My Side Of The Blues

CATALOG #:

JAG96

RELEASE DATE:

NOVEMBER 21, 2006

FORMAT:

CD/LP (VINYL NON-RETURNABLE)

CD BOX LOT:

25 UNITS

LP BOX LOT:

36 UNITS

GENRE:

ROCK

KEY MARKETS:

OMAHA, NEW ORLEANS,

LINCOLN (NE), BOSTON, BLOOMINGTON (IN),
CHICAGO, NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO

CD UPC:

656605209623

LP UPC:

656605209616

1. New album by this perennial great follows a sustained focus on Joyner’s back catalog over the
past year, with Jagjaguwar having released his singles compilation Beautiful Losers: Singles and
Compilation Tracks 1994-1999 and reissued his Room Temperature album, as well as making his
classics Songs For The New Year, Heaven’s Gate and Yesterday Tomorrow and In-Between available
again on vinyl through distribution channels.

2. Joyner will tour the US in support of Skeleton Blues at the end of 2006 and in early 2007.

6

56605 20962

3

6

56605 20961

6

1499 WEST SECOND STREET

BLOOMINGTON, IN 47403

WWW.JAGJAGUWAR.COM

EXCLUSIVELY DISTRIBUTED BY SC DISTRIBUTION

PHONE: [phone] / FAX: [phone]

US DOMESTIC SALES CONTACT JACQUI REFICE

<[e-mail]>

INTERNATIONAL SALES CONTACT ALEX MANN

<[e-mail]>