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NEW EP Duck Kee Sessions out NOW on Cytunes.org
(click on artwork to purchase):
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100% of proceeds go to fighting cancer.
For all of the original artowork made for the EP, click here:
Duck Kee Sessions Press:
Independent Weekly
this is the best, most balanced material by Schooner yet...Sonically, lyrically and structurally, Schooner supplies a perfect mix of apathy and anguish to these songs, and there's no better conduit for such than the voice of Reid Johnson.-Grayson Currin
The Phill(er)
...on the opening track here, “Feel Better”, you get a surf-inflected country stomp, you get a little mariachi inflection on “Fortuition”. The songs always seem to be hovering over a meeting of Rick Nelson, Brian Wilson and John Lennon. But again: these are influences used by a band that exudes an authentic originality, not the direct pinpoints of some derivative songwriting and playing. This is a band with brains: they are lyrically smart without being smartass, and when it comes to instrumentation the songs don’t rest on a couple guitars and drums and bass; piano comes and goes, “Duck Kee Nights” is an instrumental tack piano (I think) piece with the sounds of the crickets and the highway as a rhythm section, some ukulele helps you “Lose Yourself”, and across these songs there are various percussion and other instruments lending subtle and effective underpinning to the fabric. There’s also much to be said for the vocal arrangements: harmonies and backing vocals are consistently beautiful and/or dynamic (witness the woo-oo-oos on the opener, or the ba-ba-ahs that course through the final track, “In All Probability”).
When I reviewed “Hold on too Tight” a few years ago, I said you should be prepared to make Schooner your new favorite band. I don’t want to repeat myself, so this time I’ll just say go to cytunes.org and buy this album. -Doug Cowie
Ink 19
If the EP consisted of nothing more than six tracks of "In All Probability," the download would still be worth whatever price tag they decided to put on it. It's a gloriously unholy mess, every instrument vying for the auditory fore: a delicious riff that sounds like a muffled vibraphone encircled by syrup-thick fuzz and feedback, Albani's bass lurching and stomping ahead while Johnson broods (backed, as always, by airy oohs and aahs), "I tell you you can turn me down/ And I'll be all right / Maybe you will pass me by / And stay on your side / ... I'll be all right" with as much chin-up resolution as he can muster, drummer Billy Alphin propelling things forward with just the right excess of thud and thwack. -Eric J. Ianelli
Interviews & Live Performances for Duck Kee Sessions:
PASTE Magazine
The State of Things (WUNC/NPR)
Columbia (SC) Free Times Interview
Ear Drum (NYC) Northside Festival Live Review
INDYweek SXSW Plug
Carrboro Citizen Interview
Diversions Interview
WCHL Interview
WXYC - Backyard BBQ (Live Podcast)
WKNC - Local Beat (Podcast)
WKNC - Eye on the Triangle Interview
VR Presents-April '10 Band of the Month
Music.mync.com (Video Performance)
Some more press from Duck Kee Sessions (Cytunes)
Snob's Music
In listening to the music I'm somehow reminded of the great Magnetic Fields...an ability to play many styles of music and to do so adeptly.
laisthenewny
I am completely in love with the song “Fortuition.”
Deckfight
Schooner is haunting my thoughts, it's got this distant reverb in the vocals, like that Jens Lekman character...I can't get out of my head.
Daily Tar Heel's Diversions
Schooner’s Sessions prove that the band has the creativity to fashion catchy pop out of unexpected elements, fusing oddball instruments with accessible chord progressions and choruses.
-Linnie Greene
Triangle Music
Schooner has always been about simple, loose southern pop with hints of strangeness simmering beneath. The heat is turned up on this EP and the hints begin to boil, occasionally bubbling up to the surface to compliment the other sounds...Duck Kee Sessions is a joy to listen to and will certainly heighten the anticipation for Schooner's upcoming full length this spring.
Other mentions:
Largehearted Boy
The Pop Stereo
Consequence of Sound
Newdust
Indie Rock Cafe
The Yellow Stereo
KEXP Blog
Muzorama
The Cropper (Team Clermont)
Mannsworld
Ear Farm
Independentmusic
das klienicum
No Modest Bear
Alternapop
Secret Carrboro Ninja Patrol
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Schooner is from Carrboro, NC. We enjoy experimenting with simple song structures and sounds and aesthetically tend to go for the understated. We play disheveled pop that moves from narcotic sad-eyed tunes to slightly erratic numbers highlighted by boy-girl harmonies and impressionist lyrics.
Schooner started from a 4-track project by Reid Johnson in 2003, and soon turned into a full band. The current lineup includes Reid Johnson, Billy Alphin (The Ashley Stove, The Rosebuds), Maria Albani (Organos, Pleasant, Un Deux Trois), and Chris Badger (Hotel Lights). We've released 2 full-lengths: 2004's You Forget About Your Heart (Pox World Empire), and 2007's Hold on Too Tight (54,' 40° or Fight!) as well as a couple of limited edition EP's we've sold out of. Our latest EP release "Duck Kee Sessions" recorded at the legendary Jerry Kee's Duck Kee Studios (Superchunk, Kingsbury Manx, Polvo) will be released exclusively on Cytunes.org, a music downloading site that donates all proceeds to brain cancer research.
Soon after Cy Rawls, a music scene staple in NC and friend of the ours began his struggle with brain cancer, Cytunes was conceived of by Chris Rossi (Spacelab Studio) to help with mounting hospital bills. After Rawls passed away in October 2008, the concept of Cytunes changed; it became a site where musicians can upload music (Superchunk, The Rosebuds, Polvo, and many more artists have exclusive material on the site), and fans can purchase music with 100% of the proceeds going to brain cancer research.
Reid has released music on the site via The Flute Flies, a studio band which consists of he, Ivan Howard (The Rosebuds), and Zeno Gill (Pox World Empire), and realized that Cytunes was the most meaningful place for Schooner's newest recordings. We began talking with Chris Rossi about selling download codes at their shows for Duck Kee Sessions and incorporating friends' artwork to buy via codes as well.
Contributing artists’ artwork will be featured at the Duck Kee Sessions EP release party. The artwork will be available February 19, 2010 at The Pinhook in Durham with Erie Choir, Veelee, and The Popular Kids, a comedy troupe that counts Cy Rawls and Reid as former members. The artists participating are (in alphabetical order):
Dave Cantwell (Cantwell, Gomez & Jordan, Analogue)
Kerry Cantwell (Actual Persons Living or Dead)
Catherine Edgerton (Midtown Dickens)
Zeno Gill (Pox World Empire)
Will Hackney (Trekky Records)
John Harrison (North Elementary, Minus Sound Research)
David Koslowski (Free Electric State)
Shirle Koslowski (Rockin' the Stove, Free Electric State)
Ron Liberti (Pipe, Bringerer, The Ghost of Rock)
Michelle Preslik (Midtown Dickens)
Billy Sugarfix (Evil Weiner, Sugarfixmix)
Chris Williams (Plastic Flame Press, Maple Stave)
Maria Albani (Organos, Minus Sound Research)
Reid Johnson
Images of the artists' work can be found in the fotos section.
We'll be recording another full-length album in June 2010.
Keep in touch to find out when we'll be coming to visit you.
Our releases (click on artwork to purchase):
(You can also download our stuff off of ITUNES.)
(Lyrics can be found here) 
"You forget about your heart" 2004
Pox World Empire
"3x4" (Limited edition, SOLD OUT) 2006
Pox World Empire
"Rocky P." (Limited Edition, SOLD OUT) 2006
Pox World Empire
"Hold on Too Tight" 2007
54º 40' or Fight!
"Duck Kee Sessions" 2010
Cytunes.org
For press kits and more info contact us at info@schoonermusic.com. Additional news, pictures, and tracks can also be found at our Reverbnation, Facebook, and Myspace sites (High Res pics can be found on our fotos page). ADD folks can follow us on Twitter, too.
When people talk about us :
Ear Farm
Silver Jews meets Red House Painters by way of Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra, with a dash of The Hold Steady thrown in for good measure. Or, songs that might just break your heart while simultaneously putting the pieces back together with irresistible melody. OR, in turn, party songs fit for barroom singalongs that still manage a certain distant intimacy. Is all of that even possible? Yep. And that's truly only a hint of what Schooner does so well. From their most recent songs to their always impressive live shows, this is a band you need in your life. Rewind that over and over, and memorize it.
Trianglerock.com
Schooner are harder to describe: their first impression is of kinda-croony pop music, but that quickly gives way to an undercurrent of weirdness that's always threatening to well up & overwhelm the pop with something far freakier.
-Ross Grady
Independent Weekly (NC)
When Schooner isn't pushing the tempo on sad-eyed rockers and making melancholy sound fun, this Pox World prize dresses delicate moments in uplifting melodies that reach for the light at the end of the tunnel. It's sad, heartening, honest pop.
-Robbie Mackey
Reid Johnson's voice can be as wintry and challenging as Mark Kozelek's distant tone and as confiding and intimate as Sam Beam's breathy whisper. Johnson's songs follow suit, pushed-to-the-edge statements about taking comfort in the small things, especially if they're all that's left. Pretty great.
-Grayson Currin
Schooner's pop rock tumbles and sways, and even when it lands on its ass, there's a kind of grace that guides it on its charming, ramshackle way.
-Chris Parker
The Wilmington Star
If you don't already know Schooner's music, you're missing out on not only a great N.C. band, but a poetically inclined buffet of pop perfection. Reid Johnson's lyrical quality is transporting...
ChromeWaves.net
Blending sweet boy-girl vocals, some '50s doo-wop and '60s baroque pop influences (not heavy, but there) with the college rock skronk of their hometown in the '90s and some timeless power-pop hookery, the five-piece didn't disappoint...
-Frank Yang's take on our Pop Montreal show
Bees Knees Zine (Athens, GA)
...I witnessed a live show of a man possessed as the lead singer / guitarist Reid Johnson commanded that not only you listen, but that you watch in amazement as his band went from gazing out with effects to spastic acoustic guitar based folk numbers to poppy keyboard driven songs making us all remember how much that first Shins record blew us away, and maybe this might be the next band to blow everyone else away. The record (You Forget About Your Heart) is not just recommended, but I would call it pretty much essential.
Reviews...
Hold on Too Tight
Americana UK
Think Fear and loathing in Las Vegas meets the kitsch of Back to the Future mixed in with some Mazzy Star and a whole load of Hammond and you'll be somewhere near to describing this album. What a fucking marvellous band.
-Sian ClaireOwen
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pitchforkmedia.com
"Carrboro" is like a modern, lo-fi Beach Boys gem sung by Stephin Merritt if he'd grown up below the Mason-Dixon Line. Reid Johnson's deep, deadpan baritone induces a narcotic effect as it pours over his sister Kathryn's antithetically cheery vintage organ line like cough syrup. And when the two siblings sing together in deliciously piquant harmony, the languorous humidity of Reid's jaded croon is made all the more evident as it rubs up against Kathryn's sweet, airy voice. Together they sound like the doomed writer and the southern belle, Tennessee Williams singing with Scarlett O'Hara. Even though the keyboards crash into a sunny, sing-along chorus, this tune is actually a deceptively depressing tale of a lonely girl in a new town who loves often and badly ("You said, 'I love you,' without thinking twice/ I knew I didn't, but thought it was nice.") But by cloaking her bruised story in woozy loveliness, Reid and his band take lemons and make lemonade. And really, what's more Southern than that?
Harp
Schooner's disheveled pop is a tricky thing, detouring into bleary-eyed rock and worried country over Hold On Too Tight's 16 tracks. Like fellow North Carolina natives the Comas, the band is glad to follow the erratic moods of its frontman, but Schooner's Reid Johnson exudes angst and charisma with a strangely gentle touch. His sleepy mumble fits his songs' aching sadness and warm coats of reverb. "Hospital Floor" creeps along like Low, "Strange Alibis" jerks and twists as if powered by rubber bands, "Tears in Your Ears" chimes its way steadily to a groggy atmosphere, and "Pray for You to Die" mines black comedy as few pop songs dare. The only complaint would be the listlessness here, but asking Schooner to travel in one direction would diminish the intimate joys to be found as they amble through their best record yet.
-Doug Wallen
CMJ.com
Never heard of Schooner? Then, boy, have you been missing out! This Chapel Hill-based five-piece is lead by the brother-sister team of Reid and Kathryn Johnson, but rarely has a sibling relationship created something this harmonious.
On their excellent sophomore effort, they blow through 16 tracks of swooning vintage pop, fuzzy Guided By Voices-ish rock and woozy Sinatra/Hazlewood-like country for an overall effect that's equal parts dreamy, deadpan and doomed. All of the wistful lap steel, crystalline harmonies and mournful organ parts are anchored by Reid's disenchanted croon, which is reminiscent at once of Morrissey's and Stephin Merritt's. And on the country-ish ballads, like "Married," when he's joined by his sister's spectral soprano, their interplay is akin to that on the recent Arthur And Yu debut; it's intimate, narcotic and addictive. Despite song titles like "Pray For You To Die" and the equally dark lyricism of tracks like "Leaving Your Room" and "Hospital Floor," not all of this haunting record is doomy and aching.
There are uptempo numbers as well "Carrboro" and "They Always Do!" wrap stories of bruised women and cynical men around chugging, '60s-inspired hooks and melodies so beautiful that they are incongruous with the stark sadness of their lyrics. "I Would Tell You That I'm Stuck" is the one track that's out of place, but that's actually a good thing. With its lo-fi, almost punk throttle and ease with the f-word, it is the black eye this pristine collection was asking for. It keeps things just scruffy enough to remind listeners that, though the rest of the sedate love songs on the disc may sound lovely, underneath their layers of mellow reverb lurks a dark and unflinching heart.
-Rebecca Raber
The Phill(er)
When it comes down to it, Schooner sound like Schooner. Their songs are beautiful. "Married" is three minutes of country heartbreak and it moves straight into a Pet Soundsy number called "They Always Do!", which builds to a beautiful chorus ending, and gives way to two-and-a-half minutes of fuzz-pop glory called "I Would Tell You That I'm Stuck". Everything they do well (and they do everything well) is put together to create an aching meditation, "Hospital Floor". Lest things get too morose, they follow up that number with a less than two-minute acoustic stomper. The album reprises the do-do-dos and tucks you into bed with a warm blanket called "Ladybug".
Aiding & Abetting
Albums this cutting come along seldom. Albums that make you smile while eviscerating the human race are absolutely devastating.
Herohill
The arrangements feature a trunk full of well placed instruments (case in point, the beautiful sounds on one of my favorite tracks Leaving Your Room) and rely more on gradual builds than instant hooks. I think the mix works, and Reid and Kathryn's double vocals still stand out work well, but on songs like Married, it's the extra touches (like the distant lap steel) that add the emotion to the song. The record is well thought out and it's obvious they took the time to get the sound they wanted on each song. The choral backing of The Pox Family Singers on They Always Do! or the nicely placed chimes on Ladybug add that little push needed to help these songs really pop, despite the slow pace.This record won't grab you with a heart thumping kick drum or crunched guitars, but with all the acts trying to use the same routine, it's refreshing to hear a band looking past the draw of a quick hit and move more towards the lovely, brooding, heart warming depression I prefer to hear.
Rocky P
Encore Magazine
Schooner is currently one of NC's catchiest, melding an effective compound of conscious pop writing with near-tangible grit. Their third and latest recording, Rocky P, is a work of which they can be truly proud. The backlash-proof sturdiness of Guided By Voices and the upbeat thrill of the Wedding Present are recalled but perhaps not depended upon. They hit all the right chords, sing with pure sincerity and produce the most agreeable ranges of energy.
3x4
Erasing Clouds
"As an Indian sun burns up the past / these ghosts become old hat". Schooner begins the album with the lovely "Indian Sunburn," with soft guitars and organ tones supporting a repeating melody, sung in a hushed but direct voice by singer Reid Johnson. The song circle backs around; when it's on I feel like it could go on forever and I wouldn't care. I get a similar effect from Schooner's more rollicking pop-rock song "Birds and Other Creatures", a looking-back song with nature imagery and rising and falling harmonies which ends on a vaguely lovelorn and bittersweet note: "Have you waited all along for me / well you're free," Johnson sings, accentuating his words with hammering guitars.
You Forget About Your Heart
Copper Press
... reminiscent of Guided by Voices, My Bloody Valentine, Archers of Loaf, The Smiths. The quality of frontman Reid Johnson's songwriting is consistently high. No lulls, no hints of attempting to cover a lack of inspiration, no filler, not a single welcome overstayed. Classic stuff, in other words, and that more than compensates for the brevity. And the sequencing is a model of its kind: every song is exactly where it belongs. This is why the Schooner debut entered my stereo two weeks ago and hasn't come out since. I truly relish every listen...
-Eric J. Ianelli.
The Philidelphia Weekly
It's been more than a decade since the North Carolina triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill yielded the nationally known scene that included Superchunk, Polvo and Archers of Loaf, and spawned Merge Records. Lately, though, I've sensed a second coming. Exhibit A) the Raleigh band Schooner, whose You Forget About Your Heart (Pox World Empire) hit me like a ton of bricks and was voted one of 2004's unknown pleasures by GQ. Just eight songs long, it's steeped in the same stumbling, organ-drenched fuzz-pop of the Walkmen and the Rock*A*Teens....
The Onion
North Carolina's Schooner plays classic indie-pop on its debut disc, You Forget About Your Heart (Pox World), with obscurely confessional lyrics, sparkling melodies, and a strong sense of atmosphere drawn mainly from the record collection of bandleader Reid Johnson. Johnson's Beach Boys/Red House Painters fusion works best on ethereal tracks like 'Long Long Time' and 'Trains And Parades.'
-Noel Murray
Salon.com
I love the organ on this song, which blips dippily and nonchalantly along, even as the vocals make an unexpectedly emotional, Arcade Fire-y burst into the chorus -- and a very fine chorus it is too...
Left off The Dial
The breadth of variety that Schooner offers is mighty impressive....Schooner manages to reinvent its sound over and over again....
Skyway Zine
Schooner has mastered an effortlessly catchy, structurally impeccable brand of indie rock that marries mid-'90s angst with updated Shins-ish accessibility...
GQ
Impressive debut, heavy on the lo-fi melody and bratty thrash...
Early 4track recordings:
Independent Weekly
If you ever wished that The Smiths had a Willie Nelson proclivity and that Harry Smith's folk collections--had inspired them to record an album in a Kentucky log cabin, Schooner may be your bag of hooks. Reid Johnson writes simply chorded, plainly-stated songs that sound like they may be lost love letters to some forgotten paramour. The tunes come complete with a girder of faint guitar noise and simple but essential keys courtesy of the bard's sister, Kathryn.
-Chris Scull