Biography
Dave Shuford, longtime participant in Brooklyn’s infamous No-Neck Blues Band, records and performs under the adopted name D. Charles Speer as singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His roots-Americana material examines the eccentric fringes of American experience, summoning echoes of earlier eras, reflecting contemporary realities, and gesturing toward what lies ahead through the idioms of the Deep South and country & western. Fellow No-Neck Blues Band veterans form his backing group the Helix: Hans Chew on piano and vocals, Marc Orleans on electric guitar and pedal steel, Margot Bianca on vocals, Ted Robinson on bass, and Steven McGuirl on drums. The first releases, Past or Beyond/Canaanite Builder and Some Forgotten Country, surfaced on the Sound@One imprint in 2007. After Hours followed on Black Dirt in 2008. In Madagascar appeared on Sound@One the next year, while Distillation was issued the same year by Three-Lobed. Speer also joined Jack Rose for the four-track EP Ragged and Right, released by Thrill Jockey in 2010 several months after Rose’s death. Two further albums on Thrill Jockey, Arghiledes and Leaving the Commonwealth, arrived in 2011, and Doubled Exposure came out early in 2014.
Albums
