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Ruin Creek

by Brian McGee

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Brian McGee's 2014 album Ruin Creek was produced by Pete Steinkopf (Bouncing Souls) at Little Eden Studios in Asbury Park NJ.
    It is available here on trash mixed color vinyl and black vinyl. Comes with download of entire record.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Ruin Creek via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Brian McGee's 2014 album Ruin Creek, was produced by Pete Steinkopf (Bouncing Souls) at Little Eden Studio in Asbury Park, NJ.
    It was released in the US by Square of Opposition Records and Creep Records.
    This CD was released in Japan by Waterslide Records. Envelope style packaging comes with obi strip and lyric sheet in Japanese and English

    Includes unlimited streaming of Ruin Creek via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD or more 

     

1.
Ruin Creek 02:33
2.
3.
It's Alright 03:20
4.
Time To Move 03:11
5.
6.
7.
Postcards 02:37
8.
Hand In Hand 02:22
9.
10.
Final Vow 04:12

about

RUIN CREEK ALBUM BIO 2014

Dateline: Asbury Park, NJ

Ruin Creek, the third solo album by Plow United frontman Brian McGee, is a carefully chiseled masterpiece of punk brevity and shadowy folk minimalism. McGee is not a punk who picked up an acoustic guitar because he was tired of sharing a van with three smelly dudes; he’s a guy who walked away from the punk scene in 1998 at the height of his band’s popularity and spent the next decade deep in the mountains of Western North Carolina, immersing himself in American folk traditions as both a woodworker and a musician.

From the whiplash cadential strumming of Ruin Creek’s title track, whose lyrics could be pulled from the pages of Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce, to the spare yet aching pathos of “It’s Alright” to the subdued yet triumphant confidence of “Final Vow,” Ruin Creek patiently pulls the listener through a rich palette of emotions articulated by characters with dark pasts and bleak presents, pushing steadfastly toward a light ahead of them that might be a brighter future, or simply the end of the line. The title track was inspired by an exit sign McGee used to drive past on I-85 in North Carolina. "The exit sounded menacing and I still haven't stopped at the Bojangles there," says McGee. But these are the cues from which he develops his most compelling stories. “Sometimes it's like, 'let me walk some fucked up version of myself through a place I'm not supposed to be, and see what happens.'" As the protagonist of “A Little Space” - a grizzled long-haul trucker - puts it, “From this rig I have seen everything. Now I’m crazy and tired and sick.”

Engineered and produced by the Bouncing Souls’ Pete Steinkopf, Ruin Creek is McGee’s sparsest, darkest and most mature work to date. “Pete is a really great listener. He allowed me to do my thing enough to get my point across clearly and set the tone for the record,” says McGee. “And It was fun to record in the same room that the Bouncing Souls wrote True Believers in. There's something to all of that.”

Ruin Creek feels like the crunch of dead leaves under an old boot. It feels like long shadows cast on quarry walls by a setting winter sun. It feels like life and it feels like death. It feels like Ruin Creek.

credits

released June 3, 2014

All songs written by Brian McGee and published by Mezclilla Music BMI 2014
Brian McGee-guitars, vocals, harmonica
Mary Ellen Davis-backup vocals
Nick Harris-backup vocals
Phil Warner-backup vocals
Pete Steinkopf-percussion

Produced, engineered and mixed by Pete Steinkopf
Recorded at Little Eden Studios, Asbury Park NJ
Backup vocals on It's Alright and Hand In Hand recorded by Courtney Hall in Studio L at Echo Mountain Studios, Asheville, NC
Mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side
Vinyl mastering by Dave Eck at Lucky Lacquers
Vinyl pressed at Musicol, Columbus, OH
Original cover art, layout and design by JP Flexner
Photos by Greg Pallante

This album is dedicated to my son Jesse Aaron McGee, born on February 27, 2014.

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about

Brian McGee Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Brian McGee is the singer and co-founder of 90's punk band Plow United. During Plow's inactive period (1998-2011), Brian lived in western NC where he developed his songwriting and deepened his knowledge of American folk music. The 2011 Plow United reunion also coincided with him moving back north to Asbury Park, NJ, where he wrote and recorded his third solo album, Ruin Creek. ... more

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