These are experimental compositions of Eric Sommer and Dave Rothschild and the duo is called "The Smallest Particle"... Dave is on moog, sampler, electronica... and Eric is playing the guitars which are mixed in on the fly; really exciting to do this live... Dave and Eric met in Washington, DC and have been collaborating and communicating ever since...

Zero Brownbag

Here are three experimental compositions by Eric Sommer and Dave Rothschild: the duo is called "The Smallest Particle"... some of these soundscapes are inspired by buildings that have been discarded in various states of use, thrown off like an old used shoe. Dave is on moog, sampler, electronica and Eric is playing the guitars which are mixed in on the fly; really exciting to do this live... Dave and Eric met in Washington, DC and have been collaborating and communicating ever since...

Zero Space

These are three experimental compositions by Eric Sommer and Dave Rothschild: the duo is called "The Smallest Particle"... Dave is on moog, sampler, electronica... and Eric is playing the guitars which are mixed in on the fly; really exciting to do this live... Dave and Eric met in Washington, DC and have been collaborating and communicating ever since...

Zero Zero

"Redneck Parking Lot" is a fun and affectionate ode to the peculiar charm of rural life and the nostalgia that lingers around these unique car collections in the front yards of country homes. 

It combines humor with a touch of sentimentality, making it a perfect addition to any country playlist. "Redneck Parking Lot" is a poignet country song that paints a vivid picture of the classic rural American scene – houses with a cluttered front yard filled with a variety of old, broken-down cars. The song captures the essence of small-town living and the quirky charm of these front-yard auto graveyards.

Red Neck Parking Lot

RedNeck Parking Lot

This is a song about loss - our small towns are simply vanishing, many abandoned, left to the elements and drifters; there are drifter cities and ghost towns in Michigan, Florida, Missouri... everywhere. Downtowns are boarded up, stores closed, lives and livelyhoods destroyed... they're a silent, unspoken tragedy... 

Little Home Town

The first cut off the new cd "BROOKLYN BOLERO"... 

Red Dress

Odd images wrap themselves around you as you wander urban landscapes; local voyages, drifters and incomprehensible situational constucts put reality and visual manifestations in betwixt this plane and the next...

Hold Your Hand / Brooklyn Bolero

A celebration of your favorite breakfast cereals - done to a kickin' harmonica infused groove with drum/percussion/sticks beats pushing it along... 

Cereal Song

What A Day I Had

We're going to Mars... we'll need some red desert tunes and some interstellar grooves! Wrote this when I came to the end of a set list in Knoxville, Tennessee and wrote it and played it on the spot. Recorded in Pittsburgh, finished in Pittsboro, NC and mastered by the truly remarkable Jessica Thompson at Neato Mastering in San Francisco...

Holiday on Mars

A guitar-charged acoustic slide song that showcases trippy lyrics over a tight arrangement with a driving percussion signature and some added race car tracks. Check the panned audio and marvelous vocals and vocal doubling!

Featuring Scotty Marvelous on Bass, Billy Joe Kidd on percussion, vocals and Eric Sommer on guitars, slide guitar, vocals • producer/engineering by Mike Nicholson at Hondo Creek Recording

Keep Your Hands On The Wheel

Here's a new twist on the country classic blues, one with a bit of bite and a visual everyone gets: parked junk cars on the front lawn! A rockin' slide guitar, simple and accessible lyrics plus a catchy, ear-worm melody make this song a must on any go-to party playlist! 

Featuring Scotty Marvelous on Bass, Billy Joe Kidd on percussion, vocals and Eric Sommer on guitars, slide guitar, vocals • producer/engineering by Mike Nicholson at Hondo Creek Recording

Redneck Parking Lot

Finding your girl in the arms of another man is a bad day any way you look at it; taking action is the usual, unhappy, result. Inspired by a midnight scene on the New Jersey docks, you understand the circumstances and become part of this emotional tapestry of hurt, revenge, betrayal and the painful aftermath; an emotional bonfire, slowly roasting over a 4 piece horn section, sparse guitar, superb vocals and a Billy Joe Kidd percussion ensemble: exquisite!  •  Steve Bain-Geoff | PINCH/reviews

Featuring Scotty Marvelous on Bass, The Hondo Horns, Billy Joe Kidd on percussion, vocals and Eric Sommer on guitars, vocals

Panic in Passaic

"One great riff leads to an entire composition of tight grooves, guitar lines looking for a dishwasher and smart lyrical vocal trips that make this song a unique, stand-out composition in a catalog of compositions by this Artist where new musical ideas, surprising chorus treatments, and smart instrumentation combine to deliver one more great song!"  • Steve Bain-Geoff | PINCH reviews

Featuring Scotty Marvelous on Bass, Billy Joe Kidd on percussion, vocals and Eric Sommer on guitars, slide guitar, vocals

Tin Roof

"Eric Sommer puts together another creative, drop-dead gorgeous social fabric trauma tune, eschewing the "gotta be drunk to be believed" bro-pop, honky-tonk nonsense and delivering a gem..." Mitch Deacon, Viper Press, LA

Soldier Bob

"Quirky, inventive and original, Eric Sommer comes out as the musical transmogrifier I always knew him to be - from acoustic-slide-open-tuning badass to pop-driven iconoclast, this exquisite composition blends pop, acoustic, telecaster and doubled vocals with an asteroid-view of the city life splashed by an 18 wheeler of heavy urban noir. 

The result is a mesmerizing musical landscape, painted funky by swimming pool chic, chinese take-out, and glorious vocals" 
www.ericsommer.com
Nellie Dodge, STAFF WRITER, Seattle Music

Formica Suit

You wreck your car, you go get a used one... drive it off the lot and get it home. Get up for the jib and the damn thing won't start. Been there?

That Car Won't Drive

You're 19 years old, sitting behind a 50 Calibre machine gun on top of a Humvee in a war zone...  this is a remarkably common experience...

2 Soldier Bob

Boom Boom Kitty

RED QUEEN

This is a song about double, copy cat suicides in Las Vegas; for so many, it's the only way out, for whatever reason. Is it easy? You'd think so, but it takes a tremendous will to end everything.

Distanced collectivness, the cult of being dispassionately aloof forever, the belief that not standing for something means you stand for everything or nothing. And cruising the fringes of the human condition does not make you immune from it.

We wrote it in the studio - I had a lick and Dave the K liked it a lot so we recorded the song, polished the track and then I went back and laid down the vocals... it's a cool song and we like it...

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ericsommer

Red Queen

COVER MY SOUL IN GASOLINE

The Bowery Poetry Club in NYC was an amazing, magical establish doen on the Bowery around 10th and Ludlow... somewhere in there. Every year they used to host a reading of  "Howl" on Alan Ginsburgh's birthday, and every bit of street flotsam from lower Manhattan would wash up on it's doorstep ready to read a small bit or be part of the scene...

I wrote this in the basement of the Bowery Poetry Club, NYC; it was when they showed me to the "green room" in the basement, that the song took shape. It was August, it was hot, the Green Room was a plywood square with beer kegs standing up, covering the floor. In order to fit in I sat on the beer kegs and ran thru a few songs. 

Pretty soon the rats came out and the floor was crawling with the rat population of NYC - then the sobering thought came that everything I had done in my life had brought me to this point. And that made me write this song. It's Jesus or Dick Van Patton. It's Hitler Jones vs St. Thomas...

You figure it out, 'k?

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ericsommer

Cover My Soul in Gasoline

FARMER BROWN

A bouncy tune about the day I woke up in Nelly's Ford, VA and found myself in the middle of a farmer's market; I walked down the row of cool stalls and ran smack into a giant - 6'7", huge bib overalls... and a name tag that said "Farmer Brown". 

This was simply too much to ignore. It's the idea of Farmer Brown, the old boys who are sitting on the bench outside the John Deer office, the heat of the late afternoon and the intoxicating smell of fresh turned earth, dirt under your nails, farms sounds and horses and cattle moving around the barnyard, animals everywhere...

The tuning I got from Charlie Parr in Winona MN a few years ago, and Dave the K is playing a sparse, magnificent bass line. Yup, Farmer Brown. 

Been looking for him since third grade. Found him!!

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ericsommer

Farmer Brown

SUNNY AFGHANISTAN

I was playing in Minnesota a few years ago and I met a guy who told me a story about a tenured professor at a local college who was co-chair of the ethics department and had been flying to Kabul for 6 years giving ethics courses to the contractors... He returned after his 7th trip and was so disgusted by what was taking place there that he quit his chair a the university, moved to Kabul... and became an arms dealer to provide weapons to the innocent local people whose weapons had been taken by the UN and sold on the black market.

This guy took personal responsibility and wanted to make a difference on his own. As far as we know he is still there, being very helpful to the local folks...

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ericsommer

Sunny Afghanistan

WHITE KNUCKLE GIRL

Didn't you always want someone who would be there with you, hands down, even when the cyclone was at its most intense? 

I lived in a closet in Somerville, MA for a year with some weird people from Tufts who were never there...but my little closet was 5 x 7 or so and had one window and no door; I used to sit there in the afternoon and watch the sunline working its way up the wall as the sun set... it was oddly peaceful, not really lonely but certainly alone. I had a few girls almost over: once they saw it was a closet, well, things went downhill from there.

Always hoped I'd find someone to hang out with in those days who wouldn't really care about things like that, who was more interested in what was happening at The Rat in Kenmore Square or at Jack's or The Plough in Cambridge. The wall paper was completely crumbling and long gone so I pasted the walls with posters I got from my record store job in Copley Square - Strawberries Records, where I worked as a store manager.

I had this song with me for a few years but it took working with Dave the K to really bring it out and we recorded it in Pittsburgh at 20 Cedar, Matt Vaughan did all the percussion, and the vox were mastered by Jeff Silverman in Nashville.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ericsommer

RINY DAY KARMA

White Knuckle Girls

White Knuckle Girl

TELL ME WHAT I'M DOING WRONG

OK, ever had those days when no matter what you are going to do, nothing is going to turn out good... it's a wash from start to finish, you know it and the harder you try, the worse it gets...?

You think it's you - something you did, someone you inadvertently slighted, or outright was rude to or forgot to get the door for... the tidal wave of self-examination crushes everything in its path and the only result of the exercise is a splitting headache the size of Rhode Island...

There was a period when that was happening to me daily. Nothing was lining up, everything was falling apart and it was always predicated on the smallest things, the simplest tasks gone tragically wrong... it's leaving the house, looking for your keys, you're outside and realize they are on the table by the door and you can see them, you dash towards them, your bags fall from your arms, the boxes slip... and the door slowly swings shut. You are locked out, can't make the date. In short, you're fucked.

And since these things were happening in series, it was a long three or four months until the road straightened out, the ducks were in their rows and the stuff was flying right...

http://www.CDBaby.com/cd/ericsommer


Tell Me What I'm Doin' Wrong

Fight back, Europe... defend the centuries of art, reason, creative thinking that gave rise to the greatest civilization on the planet... Europe, Europe - don't let us down!

Europe, Europe (Don't bring me down)

Bad situations require an immediate exit plan... taxis are terrible but they are generally available, except when it's the devil is driving...

I Caught a Cab

Written in Winona, Minnesota; Winona is a small river town on the Mississippi. I was sitting in the front room of Jamie Harper's apartment, the breeze was glorious coming thru the open windows, and this melody floated by.

I grabbed it, played with it and here you go...

Big City Buldozer

Winona Suite

Farmer Brown, Farmer Brown

Found this little lick somewhere in Savannah, worked on it and then ran out of material one night, wanted something different - voila!! It's about Vinnie Van GoGo's Pizza in Savannah... they were always calling out for brown bags; the pizza is amazing - but sooo hot!! A blowtorch came to mind...

brown bag & a blowtorch

Sound Advice: Eric Sommer – Cincinnatti City Beat, December 8, 2016

Singer/songwriter Eric Sommer is an unbelievable intersection of improbable influences and experiences channeled into an amazingly diverse catalog and a résumé that reads more like a musical adventure novel than a series of career bullet points.

Sommer emerged from the Boston music scene in the ’80s with a vengeance, a Folk guitarist with a percussive, open-tuning style adapted from the likes of David Bromberg, Steve Howe, Townes Van Zandt and Brit Folk legend Davy Graham. But Boston was also a hotbed of New Wave, Power Pop and Punk at that point, and Sommer absorbed those influences as well, creating a Byrdsian jangle sound that earned him opening slots for national touring acts and regular bookings at the renowned Paradise Theatre.

Sommer eventually relocated to Europe where he scored tours with Bram Tchaikovsky, Wreckless Eric and Nick Lowe, calling Denmark and the Netherlands home for awhile. After honing his personal songwriting style and playing every conceivable club on the European circuit, Sommer returned to Boston homeless and broke.

Living on the streets and in abandoned squats, Sommer played every available open mic and picked up guitar tips from David Landau and Gary Burton/Steve Howe sideman Mick Goodrick, which led to the formation of a trio called The Atomics, which offered up an American version of Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and Nick Lowe during its run. While The Atomics opened for the Dead Kennedys and Gang of Four and became one of Boston’s best local New Wave outfits, Sommer was finding constant inspiration in the works of Jeff Beck, Pat Martino, Joe Pass and Charlie Christian.

With The Atomics’ dissolution, Sommer’s wanderlust took him to New York, Atlanta and finally the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where he founded the Georgetown Film Festival and embarked on a phase of independent film scoring. Since then, Sommer has been a troubadour with no fixed address, playing well over 250 gigs a year and slowing down just long enough to record a handful of brilliant albums, including Rainy Day Karma with his band, Solar Flares, and his latest solo effort, Brooklyn Bolero.

If there’s any lingering doubt about Sommer’s supernatural versatility, consider that he’s opened for Old 97’s, Nickel Creek’s Sara Watkins, Bluegrass icon Jerry Douglas, Mates of State, Dr. John, Leon Redbone and Built to Spill. Whether in band or one-man form (which nakedly showcases his amazing acoustic Blues guitar stylings), Sommer is a living history of contemporary music and a musical force of nature.

eric sommer

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