CD release parties are de rigeur for indie artists, many of whom make the night all about themselves. But street-seasoned folk duo Fur Dixon & Steve Werner are planning a CD release party that’s more like a community jam.
The album in question is “The Pearl & the Swine,” a lovingly crafted collection of songs punctuated by the sweet yin-and-yang tang of Dixon & Werner’s harmonies. They expect to have a batch of CDs fresh from the manufacturer’s press come Saturday, when they’ll be celebrating at Old Towne Pub. It promises to be a rambunctious evening, with good pals like the Groovy Rednecks, Barren Foothill Breakdown, Jon Foshee, Triple Chicken Foot and bluegrass banjoist/fiddler Cliff Wagner & Old #7 taking the stage to play their own songs and also sit in with Dixon & Werner.
“You always want your friends to come to the party!” Werner exclaims. “It’s not gonna be us and then ‘Death Metal Night.’ Our friends play the same kind of music as us, more or less, and we just want to party with our friends.”
“Plus,” Dixon adds, “we share similar struggles and successes. Some nights in the past we’ve played these gigs with our friends in other bands, and sometimes they’re a smashing success and sometimes they’re not. When you get something good going on, you want to spread the love.”
“The Pearl & the Swine” includes five songs from 2003’s “Live on the Nixon Tapes” that are particularly popular with Dixon & Werner’s following at clubs, farmers’ markets and house concerts around Southern California. One of the carry-overs is “Every Day a Different Journey,” a good-natured ditty that originally began as a paean to “the marijuana in my lungs.” But hemp references have been replaced by new lyrics praising campfire coal and the words of Woody Guthrie. The reason? Respect for their audience – and a savvy understanding of how to enhance their appeal to the festival circuit they’re actively courting.
“Maybe you could say it’s like people-pleasing, but ultimately it’s us-pleasing,” Dixon says.
“I changed the words to that song ’cause it’s a real good song and I was kind of killing it,” Werner elaborates. “There’re definitely some songs you don’t play out there ’cause there’s kids in strollers, etc. On the one hand, you want to be a gritty artist or something; on the other hand … I think some of the [‘Nixon Tape’] songs might have turned people off. They might have a place in another record, but not in this one.”