Jeff Schaer-Moses Photography
Travis James & the Acrimonious Assembly of Arsonists at The Trunk Space in Summer of 2014
Travis James of Travis James & the Acrimonious Assembly of Arsonists has always sung loudly the praises of his fellow Phoenix folk punk Daryl Scherrer, and the adoration has always been mutual, a fact held most evident by the frequency with which Scherrer’s The Blood Feud Family Singers pop up on Acrimonious Assembly of Arsonist shows. Of course, the two bands do compliment each other very well, but this musical te ta tet goes deeper than just two bands who sound good one after the other.
Scherrer and James are kindred spirits musically who both come at the art of making folk-punk from a highly romantic standpoint and idolize their musical creations above all others. That’s not said to call them cocky men, or say they are full of themselves, however one of them did release a 30-song record about his divorce entitled Crapheart and the other literally named his band after himself, but I say it more to illuminate the passion which goes into every song they write, even more so the ones they choose to release, and in this case the ones they have chosen to cover.
On January. 17 the two bands released Cover Your Tracks a two-song split EP where TJAAA covered The Blood Feud Family Singers folk-noir masterpiece “Let Me Down and Lay Me Down.” While Scherrer and his BFFS took a swing at James’s high energy punk rock – show tune “Everybody Dies (The Night I Almost Died) of James’ 2014 full-length Overdressed and Under Arrest.
Of The Blood Feud Family Singers handling of his track, James said: “it’s like, how my writing brain works but slowed down and broken up for all the elements to shine.” While Scherrer said, “I often forgot that you, not I, wrote it. In those moments where I forgot it wasn’t my song, I was very proud of what a good song I’d written. And then I’d remember, with a certain amount of disappointment, that I didn’t write it, and I’d think, ‘Well, dammit. Good job, Travis.'”
The EP is on Bandcamp for the low price of free and streaming below.