As Photo Ops, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Terry Price creates dream pop with a tinge of folk. Since his 2013 debut, How to Say Goodbye, his compact, richly textured songs have garnered over a million plays on Spotify with their eminently hummable melodies, deeply personal lyrics, and earnest, resonant vocals. His sophomore effort, Vacation, came in 2016 and solidified Photo Ops’ reputation for combining beautifully melodic production with raw emotionality.
After relocating from Nashville (where some referenced him as one of the best pop songwriters in town) to Los Angeles, new songs began to emerge that are among the best of his career. In these new tracks, Price captures the feeling of leaving the old behind and embracing the unknown that’s ahead, and he reflects back an impressionistic take on the space and mystery of traveling through the American West. While he continues to evolve and synthesize his own brand of pop sensibility and hymn-like lullaby, here he introduces a stripped-down, natural aesthetic that relishes limited instrumentation.
Another big change in these songs lies in Price’s voice. There is a clarity to the upper register, as he relaxes into high notes in a way that calls to mind the Beach Boys’ Carl Wilson. It’s partly an accident of location, Price says. “In Nashville, I had a garage. I could go out and make as much noise as I wanted. In LA, you have to be thoughtful about your neighbors.” The need to sing quietly has opened up a whole new vocal palette for Price, allowing him to experiment with space and restraint.
Taking these songs into the studio, Price once again paired up with his longtime producer Patrick Damphier. Together, they found a new approach to arranging and recording to align with Price's new approach to songwriting and performing; there is a new immediacy to the production, inspired in part by studies of Bob Dylan's Sirius show Theme Time Radio Hour and its hundred-plus hours of deep-cut Americana that brim with natural energy and raw human moments.
The album Pure at Heart was inspired in part by Price’s time listening to and studying Bob Dylan‘s Sirius XM show, Theme Time Radio Hour while driving through the Southwest. As he explains “I was learning that what made a lot of older music magical, was the performers having to work with limitations. So you had to rely on human performance and the energy you could conjure in real time, in the moment, to communicate your idea.” For the recording, he and a friend turned the living room of his 575 square foot apartment into a studio. “We mostly stuck with the instruments and gear I had on hand and tried to make it sound just as inspired as when we had more of a traditional studio at our disposal. Forcing us to rely less on bells and whistles, more on the strength of the musical ideas and performance. We nailed packing blankets to the walls and ceilings of my living room and created a studio in my apartment. Having to stop every hour to turn the air conditioning on.”
The music of Creekbed Carter sits at the vanguard of a new trans folk aesthetic where intimacy and camp hold hands, whisper secrets, and trade playing cards with the devil to decide their fates.
Raised Catholic and hailing from the sewer creeks of Austin, TX, Creekbed Carter is a trans raconteur slinging "blasphemer queergrass" that's equal parts vaudevillian clown, anticapitalist tramp, and "fingerpicked bittersweet confessionals" (Austin Chronicle). Their shows weave wild yarns about growing up queer and religious around songs that feature Appalachian picking patterns and their own handmade suitcase kickdrum. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Roger Miller, Hank Williams, Gillian Welch, and Claude Cahun, a Creekbed Carter show aims to craft an opportunity for audiences to laugh, cry, connect, and - above all - have a great time.
Since their debut in April 2021, Creekbed Carter has quickly garnered the attention and support of many respected people in the local folk, Americana, and country scenes of Austin. In addition to playing several times a month at some of the most loved venues in Austin, they were featured on the Moontower Stage at this year's Kerrville Folk Festival and have already become a household name in the Hill Country. Their Tiny Desk Contest submission was featured as a Desk of the Day on NPR, and their debut album "Good St Riddance," which they self-released in the height of the pandemic, has received rave reviews from music critics. With a rotating cast of trans and queer musicians, Carter is currently building out a fuller sound, working with queer-owned recording studio Crosspick Studios to record an EP they will be self-releasing in 2022. As if that's not enough, they are also publishing their debut book of short stories under the name Carter St Hogan with 11:11 Press in Winter 2022.
In the great tradition of punk, folk, and trans and queer art, Carter continues the legacy of DIY energy, genre bending, and pushing at the boundaries of societal norms to make something that makes space for everyone. In Creekbed Carter's world, joy is found in deep pain, community is built in profound difference, and change sits at the tail end of every honest note.
Thursday June 23rd • 8pm