Our Friend: Damion Suomi

A couple of my friends have records coming out in the coming months and I think this is a fine place to tell you about them and how damn good they are.  I met Damion a couple years ago, my friend Soorya told me about his band Dame.  I’m pretty sure I went to see them at the Backbooth and I liked it but it was far too “acoustic-y” for my tastes at the time.  Mind you at the time I was playing a Gibson Explorer Bass, so you can’t really trust my tastes too much there.  I’m pretty sure I only saw him play with that band once.

I’ll have to see if Damion remembers when we started being buds, our times together are usually clouded by pints of Guinness or my new favorite Irish concoction, The Black Velvet: Half Guinness / Half Cider, all tasty.  He bar tends at a joint called Paddy Cassidy’s that we play pretty often, the cover photo for his album was taken in there, it’s pretty fitting.  You wouldn’t think twice about the place if you passed it, just a little bar in a strip mall, but it’s a special place with its own little culture.  I’ve lamented and celebrated the invention of the infinite jukebox many times but something just doesn’t seem right about dancing to “Make Love in this Club” in an Irish Pub.

Oh wait, I remember.  Damion sings on “the Queen” at the very end, all that “going to Califoooooornia” stuff where it gets all nutty.  When he came by the house we were recording at I don’t think I knew who he was, just a guy wasting my recording time but when you look back a bit the story starts to make more sense.

Anyways, when I think of Paddy Cassidy’s I think of Damion.  On his myspace he has a little quote I gave him, it makes sense to me.  He sounds, “kind of like Michael Stipe and Billy Bragg having too many beers and playing Woody Guthrie songs…”  Throw a Bukowski reference in there and I think you’ve got it.  He’s one of the only musicians I know that I think of as a poet and I think his new record is proof of that.

We were on our way home from our summer tour with Gasoline Heart when we stopped in Matt Malpass’ new studio to see what he was up to.  The stuff he played us was great.  Solid songwriting with production that was inventive and real, there’s bottles clanking and glasses crashing with some interesting percussion all around.  We sang some gang vocals on the record, CJ played a great solo and I think I did some keys and harmonica here and there.  We drank black and tans and watched a Woody Guthrie documentary and the Big Lebowski on Matt’s wall.  It was, fitting.

This record has been done for a while but its finally getting a proper release next month and it deserves it.  It’s a funny thing though, a record is always going to be new to someone, I love that.  Last year I got into Townes Van Zant for the first time, the year before that it was The Byrds, Zevon the year before that.  I hope this record finds some new ears.  It is the first release of our record label, P is for Panda, a confederacy of like minded friends concerned with art, charity and “the bigger picture”.  Our record will probably follow accordingly, here’s how it works:

$5 - All of the MP3s on the record right now
$10 - All of the MP3s on the record right now & a CD in the mail
$15 - All of the MP3s on the record right now & a Vinyl Record in the mail

Get it today : Damion Suomi - Self Titled

I’m ordering my copy of the Vinyl today, I hope you do the same.  At the very least do yourself a favor and check out our friend Damion Suomi:

Damion on Myspace
Damion on Facebook
Damion on Twitter
Damion on Tumblr