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Schooner is from Carrboro, NC. We like scribbling illegibly on discarded pieces of cardboard. We enjoy experimenting with simple song structures and sounds and aesthetically tend to go for understatement. We play disheveled pop that moves from mellow sad-eyed tunes to erratic rock numbers highlighted by boy-girl harmonies and existential lyrics. Our releases so far:
-"Schooner || Wesley Wolfe Split 12inch" - April 2012 (PotLuck/Tangible Formats joint release)
-"Duck Kee Sessions" - 2010 is available exclusively at CYTUNES.ORG.
100% of proceeds go to fighting cancer.
-"Hold on Too Tight" - 2007 (54º 40' or Fight! Records)ITUNES,
-"3x4" - 2006 (Pox World Empire),
-"Rocky P." - 2006 (Pox World Empire) ITUNES,
-"You Forget About Your Heart" - 2004 (Pox World Empire)
ITUNES,
And we've also got some early homemade CD's and a few tracks on various compilations that you can ask us nicely for.
Click here to see when we're going to be driving around and playing shows in your town.
Listen to our latest "State of Things" (NPR-WUNC) on-air.
Order older stuff online @ Pox World Empire
Duck Kee Sessions Press:
PASTE Magazine's "Best of What's Next"--May 2010
Independent Weekly
".this is the best, most balanced material by Schooner yet.Sonically, lyrically and structurally, Schooner supplies a perfect mix of apathy and anguish to these songs, and there's no better conduit for such than the voice of Reid Johnson."-Grayson Currin
The Phill(er)
".on the opening track here, "Feel Better", you get a surf-inflected country stomp, you get a little mariachi inflection on "Fortuition". The songs always seem to be hovering over a meeting of Rick Nelson, Brian Wilson and John Lennon. But again: these are influences used by a band that exudes an authentic originality, not the direct pinpoints of some derivative songwriting and playing. This is a band with brains: they are lyrically smart without being smartass, and when it comes to instrumentation the songs don't rest on a couple guitars and drums and bass; piano comes and goes, "Duck Kee Nights" is an instrumental tack piano (I think) piece with the sounds of the crickets and the highway as a rhythm section, some ukulele helps you "Lose Yourself", and across these songs there are various percussion and other instruments lending subtle and effective underpinning to the fabric. There's also much to be said for the vocal arrangements: harmonies and backing vocals are consistently beautiful and/or dynamic (witness the woo-oo-oos on the opener, or the ba-ba-ahs that course through the final track, "In All Probability").
When I reviewed "Hold on too Tight" a few years ago, I said you should be prepared to make Schooner your new favorite band. I don't want to repeat myself, so this time I'll just say go to cytunes.org and buy this album." -Doug Cowie
Ink 19
"If the EP consisted of nothing more than six tracks of "In All Probability," the download would still be worth whatever price tag they decided to put on it. It's a gloriously unholy mess, every instrument vying for the auditory fore: a delicious riff that sounds like a muffled vibraphone encircled by syrup-thick fuzz and feedback, Albani's bass lurching and stomping ahead while Johnson broods (backed, as always, by airy oohs and aahs), "I tell you you can turn me down/ And I'll be all right / Maybe you will pass me by / And stay on your side / . I'll be all right" with as much chin-up resolution as he can muster, drummer Billy Alphin propelling things forward with just the right excess of thud and thwack." -Eric J. Ianelli
laisthenewny
"I am completely in love with the song "Fortuition.""
Deckfight
"Schooner is haunting my thoughts, it's got this distant reverb in the vocals, like that Jens Lekman character.I can't get out of my head."
Daily Tar Heel's Diversions
"Schooner's Sessions prove that the band has the creativity to fashion catchy pop out of unexpected elements, fusing oddball instruments with accessible chord progressions and choruses." -Linnie Greene
Other folks' perspective:
Trianglerock.com
"Schooner are hard(er) to describe: their first impression is of kinda-croony pop music, but that quickly gives way to an undercurrent of weirdness that's always threatening to well up & overwhelm the pop with something far freakier." –Ross Grady
Copper Press
"The quality of frontman Reid Johnson's songwriting is consistently high. No lulls, no hints of attempting to cover a lack of inspiration, no filler, not a single welcome overstayed. Classic stuff, in other words"
CMJ
".rarely has a sibling relationship created something this harmoniousswooning vintage pop, fuzzy Guided By Voices-ish rock and woozy Sinatra/Hazlewood-like country for an overall effect that's equal parts dreamy, deadpan and doomed." -Rebecca Raber
Americana UK"What a fucking marvellous band." -Sian Claire Owen
