{"id":29679,"date":"2015-12-09T20:20:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T01:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=29679"},"modified":"2015-12-14T14:11:05","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T19:11:05","slug":"oxford-expat-jay-lang-sails-to-proud-larrys-for-reunion-show-with-the-devils-due","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/oxford-expat-jay-lang-sails-to-proud-larrys-for-reunion-show-with-the-devils-due\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford Expat Jay Lang Sails to Proud Larry’s for Reunion Show with The Devil’s Due"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oxford came about its nickname \u201cThe Velvet Ditch\u201d honestly. I\u2019ve always understood it to mean that Oxford is one of those places that is easy to get stuck in. Maybe you came for school and planned to move on after graduation, or maybe you came to kick around a few years before getting a \u201creal\u201d job elsewhere, some other bigger city. And then the years pass, time ticks on by, and you\u2019re still here, comfortably wedged in the velvety warmth of familiarity in a town that constantly changes, yet always stays the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

Occasionally someone makes a run for it. They escape and move to a more glamorous locale \u2013 usually Nashville, Colorado, or even New York \u2013 and you can hear distant echoes of their longing for <\/span>Ajax<\/b><\/span> and <\/span>The Grove<\/b><\/span>. And these folks almost always return. The thing about the Velvet Ditch is that even though the landscape has changed, the general attitude of the place stays constant, and is always welcoming.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Just ask escapee <\/span>Jay Lang<\/b><\/span>. After living in Oxford from the time he was twenty, he moved up north about six years ago. His new career sailing boats in Wisconsin and around the Caribbean keeps him mellow. Still, Oxford\u2019s siren call has him headed home for a spell this month, \u201clong enough to piss people off,\u201d he joked, and long enough to get the band back together. I called him up to get the scoop and was pleased to hear that Jay hasn\u2019t completely lost his Southern accent after being in Wisconsin for a while.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I wanted to come back to Oxford to visit and hang out,\u201d Jay said. \u201cI called everybody in my band and told them I was coming into town and they were like, \u2018AH! We gotta play a bunch of gigs!\u2019 But I don\u2019t want anyone to [mess] up their lives over this, don\u2019t miss work, don\u2019t miss exams, let\u2019s have fun doing this and not stress out about it.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jay\u2019s band, <\/span>The Devil\u2019s Due<\/b><\/span>, consists of <\/span>Nathan Robbins<\/b><\/span> (bass), <\/span>Harrison Smith<\/b><\/span> (drums), <\/span>Will Freeman<\/b><\/span> (guitar), Jay Lang (guitar), and a special rock star appearance by <\/span>Mills Hawkins<\/b><\/span> (guitar). (Yes, that\u2019s three guitars in one band.) One thing driving the excitement over a Devil\u2019s Due reunion is a collection of rough recordings made at Nate\u2019s home studio some time ago.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShort version of that story is that when we came back from England, we had just released the other album that we recorded with Winn, and we were touring behind that,\u201d said Nate. \u201cBut we had all these other songs that weren\u2019t on the record and we wanted to get them down. So we sat down and did some extremely rough recording. The end result was much better than we expected.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Having three years to sit on the recordings has given Jay time to mellow over the process. \u201cIt\u2019s really weird when you go back and listen to that stuff you did three years prior. Some of it I just cringe listening to it, and some of it\u2019s really good, and then I go back \u2026 and I can hear myself telling people what to do and I\u2019m just wrong so much of the time,\u201d Jay told me. \u201cI play with a really good group of folks for a reason. And after listening to the stuff recently ad nauseum, I realize that I just need to let them do what they do, because they\u2019re good at it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The band hasn\u2019t played together in at least two years, but both Jay and Nate expect that the chemistry will still be where it was. After touring together and getting serious about making a living playing music, then eventually moving on to other things, Jay said he feels he\u2019s able to approach the process with a much more laid back attitude. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to go in there and play some cover tunes that we\u2019ve always wanted to do and we\u2019re going to play a bunch of new stuff. We\u2019re going to tie up all the stuff we were working on for a new record.\u201d As for the show at Larry\u2019s, Jay said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to play any R.L. Burnside songs, and there\u2019s all these songs that we had that were just filler so we could go in and play gigs. I just want to do nothing but have fun \u2013 all thriller and no filler!\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While the main focus of Jay\u2019s visit will be to put in some studio work, Oxford can expect a high energy show at Proud Larry\u2019s on December 18th. In fact, Nate told me to expect \u201cProbably the most amazing time you\u2019ve had this year.\u201d When asked to be more specific, he replied: \u201cthe sound of a thousand horsemen will descend upon the stage as the giants adorn their armor and proceed into battle triumphantly.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a night you won\u2019t want to miss.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oxford came about its nickname \u201cThe Velvet Ditch\u201d honestly. I\u2019ve always understood it to mean that Oxford is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[7465,1986,53],"class_list":["post-29679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-shows","tag-jay-lang-and-the-devils-due","tag-live-music","tag-proud-larrys"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Jay-Lang_FEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}