The other night our photographer, Jim Korpi, and I went to the small town of Canaanville, which is in Athens County.  Canaanville was once a small, but thriving company town.  Back in the 30’s the mine closed, but much of the original structures are still standing today (although some are barely standing).  We went to visit the site of the old foundry, mine shaft, and company store in order to get some pictures for Southeast Engine’s new album.  The old company foundry, mine shaft, and headquarters is now owned by a very nice couple who were happy to let us explore and told us about much of the history of the town and the coal mine.  They also pointed us up the road a bit where there is still standing one last original company home of a miner.  The home and the last vestiges of the coal mine are in ruins.  Walls have collapsed, roofs have caved, trees have fallen, lighting has struck the towering chimney on several occasions.   Nature is taking over these sites with ivy and vegetation growing all over the collapsed foundry.  What’s amazing though is that coal dust still occasionally spills from the tipple that was used to load boxcars, creating a pile of coal dust on the ground.  As the next album deals with the history of Southeast Ohio in the 30’s, this trip was very enlightening.  Jim and I are excited to see how the photographs develop, and I hope to share some of them here.  Here’s how things once looked, with an additional link to the site for Little Cities of Black Diamonds, which details the history of Canaanville and many more small mining towns around Southeast Ohio.

http://littlecitiesofblackdiamonds.org/

My new year resolution for 2010 was to keep up with the Southeast Engine blog – so far this year: 0 posts.  However, I was ambitious at the beginning of the year.  Here is a draft that I wrote in January, which I never posted or finished.  Despite its unfinished nature, I’ll post it here today anyway.  I had pictures to add to it, but they were unfortunately erased from my camera.  Excuses. Excuses.  Oh well.

hello all,

Adam Remnant here.  I’m currently sitting in a dungeon like green room in the basement of Schubas in Chicago, Illinois.  Despite the cave like nature of the green room, the live room  here is one of the most beautiful rooms the band has played in.  The rest of the band has ventured out into the cold air of the city to search for a record store, but I am weary of the chill and have holed up to write.  The band is doing a number of shows this month of January 2010.  We left Athens the other day driving straight into the mouth of a blizzard to play a show in Bloomington, Indiana.  Despite the snow and cold, folks came out and we had a great show.  Last night we played in North Manchester, Indiana at a place called the Firehouse.  North Manchester is a small town with a population of about 7,000.  Small towns often provide the best setting for a show, and North Manchester further propels this theory.  The venue treated us exceptionally well, and the whole town was very welcoming.  We made immediate connections with the people there.  One of the most magical nights.  Tonight we play Chicago at our first headlining gig here.  Wish us luck. More shows to come this month in Morgantown, WV; Brooklyn, NY; Boston, MA; and of course Athens, Ohio.  With each show another adventure.

Next month, the band heads into the studio to record our next full-length album.  Don’t want to say too much about it just yet, but I will say some inspirations and influences in my writing the songs were the following:

-the history of my house in Athens, Ohio – how it was built and the circumstances that led to its creation.

-working as a carpenter for the last couple years

-the Anthology of American Folk Music

-Ora Anderson, the history of Southeast Ohio, and the creation of The Wayne National Forest

hi all,

this is a very mirthful time in the life of southeast engine.  the band was featured in “paste”, rem has learned clawhammer banjo, billy got a fiddle, jesse is moving back to athens, i just bought a trumpet, etc.  its been raining kittens and puppy dogs here at camp SEE.

i plan to bring the SEE blog back to life with pictures of the butter compartment of my new kenmore refrigerator (model #kwx1548).  please look for pictures within the next week or so.

star sailor,

leo deLuca

Dear Friends,

I am ecstatic to let you all know that my good friend – Vaughn Stewart – and I will be starting a record label. The label is called Moon Jaw Records and will be an imprint of Misra/Absolutely Kosher Records. Here is the press release:

Moon Jaw Records is Born:

Moon Jaw Records is an Ohio-based imprint of the widely esteemed Misra/Absolutely Kosher Records. The label will be run by former Misra/Kosher intern, Vaughn Stewart, and Misra recording artist, Leo DeLuca, of the band Southeast Engine. Cory Brown, owner of Absolutely Kosher and manager of Misra, has provided the partners with a distribution deal via the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA) and Revolver Distribution. All other areas of operation will be handled by Moon Jaw.

Since its founding in 1999, Misra Records has compiled an impressive catalog of releases including eye-opening projects from Centro-matic, The Mendoza Line, Shearwater, Evangelicals, Great Lake Swimmers, and Phosphorescent. The label’s extensive back catalog includes many significant albums including Destroyer’s masterpiece Streethawk: A Seduction, Jenny Toomey’s Antidote and releases from Bablicon, Chris Lee and others.

Absolutely Kosher Records has steadily grown over the years, releasing music from a diverse roster now including artists such as The Wrens, Frog Eyes, +/- {Plus/Minus}, and The Dead Science. The label’s back catalog includes key releases by The Mountain Goats, Pinback, Sunset Rubdown, The Court & Spark, and Xiu Xiu.

Moon Jaw Records is fortunate to be associated with such pivotal indie labels and will be working hard to discover, release, and promote music of the same caliber. Though the label is distributed by Misra/Absolutely Kosher, it will be its own separate entity with its own roster run by its own staff.

Moon Jaw’s first release will be a 180 gram vinyl pressing of Southeast Engine’s “From the Forest to the Sea”, due out February 17, 2009. CD, digital distribution, and all other areas of operation will be handled by Misra Records. Evening out the initial Moon Jaw roster will be Chicago/Cleveland-based indie pop band, Bears. The label is also currently in correspondence with a number of bands and will have other releases out in 2009.

Please visit: moonjawrecords.com | myspace.com/moonjawrecords

Hey everybody,

Billy here. Im currently seated on the floor of my laundry room drinking a second cup of coffee. Leo asked me write a little something on here before the site launch on tuesday. Because Im a chatty sort of fellow and my girlfriend is watching “Grey’s Anatomy” at the moment, I thought I would take a moment to say hello.

Next weekend Southeast Engine will be getting together to have a weekend of practices at our HQ in Stewart, OH and play a show at Casa with Emily Rogers on Saturday evening. As always, Im looking forward to tinkling the ivories a bit  and spending a little quality time in Athens. This will be the last show we do before the new album comes out next month. Im personally not on this particular record so I feel like I can talk about it objectively. It’s titled “From The Forest To The Sea” and I think it’s the best Southeast Engine album to date. I hope the fellas are very proud of it. It’s a great new set of songs from Rem and Jesse, Michael and Leo did an amazing job of bringing them to life. (I haven’t seen Josh Antonuccio since the record was completed so if you happen to be reading this Josh: fine work at the producer’s chair as always. Golden ears, sir. Golden ears)

So we’re going to play a bunch of release shows after the album is out. Two in Ohio with Frontier Ruckus. My first show was S.E. was at the CD release party for their debut album, “The Oriontown Songbook”. Frontier Ruckus are a really cool band that feature the lyrical genius (Rem hates that word) of Matt Milia and feature a kitchen sink sort of instrumentation of banjo, saw, melodica and trumpet not to mention exotic instruments like electric bass gutiar and drum kit.

We’re also playing a release show in my hometown of Morgantown at 123 Pleasant Street on February 27th with Librarians and One Hundred Hurricanes. Artists Chris Lands and Chris Rhodes are designing two different flyers for this show. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

 Im sure that Im just rehashing things you can see on the tour calendar, but we’ll performing at the Misra showcase at SXSW at the end of March. Having never attended SXSW Im really excited to perform there and hopefully spend a lot of time walking around seeing as much music as possible. Devo are reuniting to perform and Quincy Jones is the keynote speaker. Im sure we’ll meet and become really good friends. Or at least that’s what I was imagining while at work yesterday.

Im re-reading the stories of Breece D’J Pancake at the moment. Mr. Pancake tends to be something of dim cult kind of author so for the uninitiated, I feel the need to say that he might be the best WV author ever. He only has a slim collection of short stories to his credit (published posthumously in the early 80s) so that may not be enough to dethrone Pearl S. Buck, but regardless he captures rural West Virginia in a way that always feels totally ingrained and never studied. Totally seemless. Some Flannery O’Connor and Ernest Hemmingway show up from time to time, but that’s incidental at most.

best fishes,

Billy