Whole Year Inn

What ever happened to the Double Album? The White Album, Exile on Main St., London Calling, Blonde on Blonde, Electric Ladyland, etc. It's back. 2 CD's packed with 25 songs from this talented, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter from Olympia, Washington. Strong songs, catchy melodies and inventive structures are held together by stories with quirky observations and groovy downhome anti-heroes. With comparisons to Ray Davies, Robbie Robertson, Lowell George, and even Bob Dylan this CD belongs in your collection. June isn't always the best weather in the Northwest; however, on a rather pleasant evening in 2009 the phone rang. Having just finished listening to latest lukewarm track of a Seattle folk/rock band that will remain unnamed, I was frankly ready for the machine gun monologue from Olympia by a man introducing himself as Cozy Thomason. To cut to the chase, I was invited to observe a Patrick Storedahl recording session for his new project entitled The Whole Year Inn...with the assurance that I was specifically requested by Patrick to attend, the objective was to compose an eyewitness account of the proceedings for a premier Seattle publication. I should have known that the request by Patrick was actually false. After arriving and making my identity clear, along with mentioning the phone call I'd received, all four of the players (guitarist David Broyles, drummer Maria Joyner, bassist/engineer Peter Jansen, and vocalist/pianist Storedahl) rolled their eyes and war was declared in my direction. I attended three other sessions, which mostly consisted of a belligerent dialog directed at me...

Storedahl even wrote a song on the spot directed at me and they recorded it that night. With the raw material I collected, I managed to hammer out two thousand words only to hear that the aforementioned Seattle mag had folded. So, it came as a surprise that more than a year later I was again contacted by Mr. Thomason requesting that I write liner notes. After two stiff drinks I put aside my rancor and gave The Whole Year Inn a listen. Storedahl's first release, Ink Block Fingerprint was full of quirky lyrics, strong songs, and lush sounds, but except for a few guest players the project was mostly done with overdubs by Storedahl and Jansen. The Whole Year Inn is a band: laying down basic tracks together...sitting in a room eye to eye. Consisting of twenty-five songs broken into two discs and set up into sides like a true double album, this latest effort still contains the quirky lyrics and strong music that you've come to expect from Patrick; however, in this writer's opinion, there is also an element that is more organic. Side one is basically a rock and roll record with some elements of 60's and 70's pop. The Whole Year Inn opens with some studio chatter and counting before kicking into The Dumbest Thing I Never Did #73 or #56, a rocker with a title that pays homage to Dylan's Rainy Day Women; and ends with what could be Admiral Halsey's dark and shady cousin, and one of the strangest songs I've ever heard ...

Molly, Me, and the Man from Tallahassee. Storedahl says, Molly is a pandiatonic theme and variations with a retrograde double binary coda about my first dog. That's the kind of crap I was getting from these people. Sandwiched between Dumbest Thing and Molly are two upbeat numbers: the toe tapping, power pop of Astronaut and the Bolanesque first single Roll Over with it's beaucoup bass and psycho-imagery; and two slower tunes: the acidic waltz, Carpet might be the harshest song I've heard since Elvis Costello's I Want You and the dreamy and beautiful When You Die. Carpet is so intoxicating I played it four times in a row before continuing the rest of the album. With it's catchy, sing-along melodies and word-fest couplets that will leave you thinking for days, one could argue that this opening side is a fan's record. But, with it's meter and key changes, interesting sounds, inventive forms, and guitar solos it is a musician's record too. Speaking of guitar solos, each one seems to reference a different player from Peter Jansen con