http://www.soulmusic.com/vanhu20fe.html

IMO, this guy is one of THE most interesting artists around right now, so there's my bias. To learn that some exec is sitting on an album because they aren't visionary enough to 'see where it fits'. To have more proof that record companies are nothing more than well-paid puppetmasters, molding and depriving their subjects/ consumers, well, it just makes me sick to my soul.

To non-artistic people who criticize(d) Prince for calling foul in the 'Slave/Emancipation' period and continuing to work at maintaining whatever freedom from that system he can, I say open your eyes. Every time we complain about the state of music today, we're feeling symptoms from the disease he endured the lampooning and lost chart numbers to battle.

Add Hunt to what I call the 'TTD list'.


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FEATURE: Van Hunt 2009 Feature

“At The End Of A Slow Dance” On The Jungle Floor.

The music begins with a soaring guitar siren screaming out above the indie Slop, it sounds like Sly Stone fucking the Smiths with Kurt Cobain’s guitar. The accompanying video to “At The End Of A Slow Dance” is set in 1985, on a Prom Night in Dayton, Ohio. Our hero Van Hunt is called to the stage wearing a tux, he’s just been made Prom King along with his fit white skinned cheerleader Queen, who gazes at him lovingly. Until this moment no-one else at school knew they were a couple. Cut to the crowd, high school jocks & mean girls with a variety of hair, skin & eye colours all scowl at their newly crowned King & Queen. We figure nobody actually voted for this couple. As the song ends Van & his sweetheart escape from the school grounds to “The Point”. Both embracing, in the background is a large Oak tree. The tree has been “papered” by the high school kids.

The paper is burning.

Van and his band perform the vamp (in front of the tree) to the fade. Video ends. It’s featuring on an MTV awards show. Cut to Justin Timberlake who opens the envelope. “And the winner is … Van Hunt!” – Van has just picked up his first VMA.

That’s what could have happened. But it didn’t. His label Capitol Records, owned by EMI just didn’t “get” it. They couldn’t see the commercial potential in the ahead of its time, aforementioned 80’s nuvo slop killer “At The End Of A Slow Dance” nor in the limestone rock ballad “Daredevil, Baby”, instead opting for the play it safe funky soul singles “Character” & “Being A Girl”, but soon after the promotion was halted on the brilliant 2nd album “On The Jungle Floor”. Even a Grammy win for an appearance on a Sly Stone cover (“Family Affair” with John Legend & Joss Stone) didn’t get his label juiced up, so when he handed in his 3rd album, the fantastic “Popular” he was switched from Capitol to Blue Note. That’s right Blue Note the Jazz label. They began creating a buzz, sent out review copies but “Popular” never made the title search on iTunes or the CD racks of HMV. What happened?

“I don't actually know.” Admits Van, “I can only guess as far as EMI's role in the record not coming out but I'm sure at the bottom of it all you'll find money being the main reason. I think their forecast for the success of the record wasn't very bright and they opted to save themselves from having to promote it by not putting it out at all. Blue Note didn't want to associate themselves with an artist who really can't be defined as a Jazz artist or as an R&B artist, or a Folk artist, which is really all they wanted to do. They knew what they wanted to sell, I just don’t think they understood who I was,” Van laughs, “… and that was after having had to wait ten months for the record to come out!”

At first Van tried to buy back “Popular”, but the label were unwilling to sell it to him “at a reasonable price” He had also already wrapped up a 4th album, an “instrumental piano record” which had to be put on hold. Van explains “I started working on another fully produced pop/rock (album) that I could shop with another record label but I couldn't find anyone who wanted to do business. That's when I decided to go independent.”

“Use In Case Of Emergency” is Van Hunt’s first independent self released album, consisting of rare vault tracks and outtakes. So he’s had to be hands on with the mechanics of putting out an indie album, rather reluctantly as it goes “I opted to do it myself, which isn't ideal for me. I always wanted to just control my music creatively. I haven't necessarily wanted to be the one selling it, you know?” Van has been coming up with his own witty flyers including a laughing horse and an Olympic Athlete bragging about copping the album off of his website. From the outside it would appear that Van is enjoying being the pitchman. Not so; “No, it's not much fun at all (he laughs), except when I get to come up with some of the marketing schemes.” So why release a collection of rarities as his first independent project? Van explains “Oh, well because I wasn't done with the next fully produced record with all new material. I didn't have the money to finish it. So I said ‘I have all these really older songs that no one's heard, so I’ll just package that together and release it as rarities from the vault and get back in touch with the fan base’.”

The collection features the sublime Wurlitzer led sunset gem “Hidden Charms” (originally recorded by Dionne Farris), which could quite easily be heard on Radio 2 or Adult Contemporary Radio in the US “Yeah, I probably could do just an album full of those, kind of Country Soul songs if you will. I love that material, like Patsy Klein, Dobie Gray or Sam Cooke or something, you know? I really love that kind of place”.

The excellent new wave funk of “Sexy (I’m Not Known For Dancin’)” is an outtake from “On The Jungle Floor” that didn’t make the cut. “To my ears it wasn't completed. I'm sure like every other artist, you just want to have something in what you create that makes you smile. Like not in a bullish way, like well “wow that was really good right there!” You know, you can pat yourself on the back. But it just didn't have that for me at the time.” Another outtake from “Jungle Floor” is a track called “Man Of The Year” a sloppy, direct, uptempo clavinet laced monster that surprisingly made way for an alternate version titled “Hot Stage Lights”. “To be honest with you, “Man Of The Year” is probably the one I would have gone with, if I had been producing that record by myself.” Producer Bill Bottrell (Michael Jackson) was behind the board, “It was actually a misunderstanding”, Van laughs “I thought Bill didn't like the original version. But I liked the words so much that I said to the band 'I'll do another version that will get Bill excited and you know, we'll get it in.’ So we did that and we did do the second version. Bill loved it, did a great mix on it and then he comes to me after (it was released) and said, 'Oh, did you think I didn't like the first version?!' I had just assumed he didn't like it!”

As a collection of tracks just gathering dust in a vault its impressive, begs the question how may more songs are there? “Oh, man, I don't know, about a 100. I would only do maybe one more record of rare items from the vault. Everything else I would do is new. Because I'm a composer so I just draw from everything that I've done before and I put it all together and create something new. But it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to go back through all those hundred songs and make them available when they're really just pieces of what I'm doing now.” There’s an original version of “Hopeless” the song he produced on Dionne Farris that kick-started Van’s career is locked in the Vault somewhere, though Van would re-cut it if he was to record it for himself; “I did another version once when Randy (Jackson, Van’s manager and American Idol judge) was bugging me about it. It’s probably in a warehouse somewhere. (But) I always wanted the end to be bigger. So I think I started trying to do that. Yeah, at the end of that song I always heard like “Strawberry Fields”.” I suggest another comparison to the sweet psychedelic funk of Shuggie Otis? Van: “Oh, yeah, but not quite that dark you know? I always heard something that was just more festive. Just at the end, but I like (Shuggie’s) stuff. People always say that my stuff reminds them of him and then I heard him and I was like, 'Oh, that's cool.'”

It’s said that the Beatles & Shuggie Otis were off there faces when they used to create music. Does Van use anything to get into a creative state of mind? “No man, as a matter of fact, I need things to get me out of a creative state of mind. (laughs) But yeah, you know, I love red wine and that's all I need. And I really drink that just so I can relax enough to slow my thoughts down and formulate them. I'm a believer in explaining what my brain's doing specifically, so that I can get to know it and it's not just some mysterious ideas from who knows where. You know? I like to understand when I'm feeling creative and why I'm feeling creative, or what I can do with it.”

It’s the attention to detail that great artists possess. It’s not enough to just play bass, guitar, keyboards & drums and whip up a track. The greats try new things and develop sounds for their songs, like when The Beatles used a mellotron on “Strawberry Fields Forever” or Shuggie Otis incorporated a Xylophone on “Strawberry Letter 23”. Van has his own pet sounds he’d like to incorporate: “Oh, well right off the bat I'd have to say a Telecaster with all of the treble up on it. On like the last pick up, it's just gnarly and you can go - when it's played right, you can put that in any application and it works. It could be a rhythm guitar for Bo Diddley, for Muddy Waters, for Fats Domino, for The MC5 or Rolling Stones. You know, for any kind of gospel quartet group you wanted to name. The sound of that guitar just works. It always works. To be honest, before I've never trusted my guitar playing enough to always apply that, I'm generally trying to get it out of other people. But I'm working on it. I'm getting closer. I was just talking to my friend about that last night. My guitar playing, the style that I want, I'm getting much closer to and I think you'll hear that on the new record.”

Can’t wait, in the meantime Van’s keen to return to producing other artists as well (notably Van produced some of Rahsaan Patterson’s best work on the classic “Love In Stereo” & “After Hours”) “Oh yeah man. You know if people call me (I would). Nobody calls me to do any work on their records. I think they think that I'm too strange (laughs).” Any artists reading this … Van Hunt’s available to produce. For his fans he has this message; “I hope “Use In Case Of Emergency” re-invigorates the fanbase and maybe they can help me to spread the word about my name, about me coming back on the scene and help me to build a momentum that will set the way into the next fully produced record of new material.”

Van Hunt we’re reading you loud and clear …

”Use In Case Of Emergency” is available to download from www.vanhunt.com

I couldn't agree more. There's nothing much I can add. I'd love to hear who else is on your "TTD list" though.

Unfortunately, Popular and Love for Sale are both victims of this industry. Both are EXCELLENT records. Hopefully, they'll see the light of day in the near future. BTW: Whomever is playing bass on this record is KILLING it

The way the system and industry is set up now, Van Hunt getting a VMA is not even possible. The thing is that alot of things are said about the first Van Hunt record, there was alot of "trying to get him to do things" and he wasnt going for it. I got hold of his first cd from a rep at emi about 3 months before its release, we did a display in my store at the time, played it to death, and got a good response. The rep that used to come by at that time was telling us that Van "was not an easy person" to get to do things, like interviews, instores, etc...this i always felt bit him in the ass. At that time labels still had reps that cared, this was about a year after emi really ran around like crazy people for Norah Jones, who at the time early on was strictly "word of mouth" she was playing nyc bars about 2 years before being signed and even when that first record came out, it was a slow burn for the first 2 months or so. But Van was in a different boat, he was being marketed as RB to radio, and we all know what RB radio wanted, and then they tried to push him over to a crossover artist, but really what "radio" did Van have a chance to get on. So he needed to do these little things like instores,interviews with notable local nyc papers that could get him further, than say tossing his video over to a kid at mtv and hoping they would play it at 4am.

So my feeling is that you really have to make the change, and build your following and play the shows. To me someone like Van is very similar to one of the best bands out of minnie and thats the "Jayhawks" that band recorded from 1986-2004 and really never had a hit, they had tons of critical acclaim, big following, but never got the play, they did their thing, played the shows, went label to label for the most part, and that was that. I think van just needs to circulate his own music, im hearing alot about demos and this and that, he needs to become Ryan Adams and record 5 albums a year and actually put them out.

I agree this guy is the best artist who has come along in a long time. I really hope he catches on. I'll def. put the word out.

P2daP said:

I love Van Hunt's first 2 discs. THere is something to him that is very interesting. So many great artists still end up in Prince's shadow...any black solo guy who plays guitar will be compared to the man and that is not fair. It just shows what a huge mark Prince made - musically and by image. Does anyone look as cool as Prince playing guitar? Anyhow, tracks like 'at end of a slow dance' or 'meansleep with Nikka Costa'make me think that Van Hunt has a place outside of 'the shadow'! There is something unique about them. Songs like 'if i take you home', 'dust' and 'secons of pleasure' etc are AWESOME but firmly within 'the shadow'!!!!

He's a one-man band with a distinctive artistic vision. I own all of his physical works and the digital "UICOE", which was self-released. Given the fact that he's doesn't have a contract with a label, he needs to extend his fanbase with more touring, interviews and promotion. The dude plays a nasty lead guitar, I might add.