Wooden Wand - Biography
By Nick Castro
Wooden Wand are a mysterious avant folk group from Tennessee with strong improvisational tendencies. Wooden Wand began as James Jackson Toth and Jessica Toth and were sometimes called Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice when playing with their college friends and brooklyn cohorts Steven Jarvis Tavaniere, Heidie Diehl, Pete Nolan and G. Lucas Crane. Their music can range from ethereal and sparse indie folk to disturbed post-Beefheart noise. They managed to maintain an air of mystery while active by using many strange pseudynoms, such as Hassara, H Reality, Nonhorse, Satya Sky, Scupetty, Alpha Women and Wooden Wand Jehova.
They released a mighty barrage of homemade CDR and cassette recordings far too plentiful to list in one location, and enough to make collectors mad trying to track them all down as some were released in true art prankster fashion: editions of 10 to 20. Their list of official releases is just as impressive starting with their debut Xiao (2003 De Stijl), which contained song titles like "Weird Wisteria Tangles Carrion Christ But Intends No Harm" and "Caribou Christ to the Great Void," to be followed by their next album L'Un Marquer Contre La Moissonneuse (2005 Three Lobed) which consisted of two lengthy improvisational tracks. Later the same year they released Buck Dharma (2005 5 Rue Christine) which was slightly less avant garde and more structured in its songs. It still featured lengthy tracks but with a sound similar to the Swans. Two releases that year were not enough for this band of pranksters though. That same year they also released Sunset Sleeves (2005 Weird Forest) and The Flood (2005 Troubleman Unlimited). Early the next year they released their jazzier album Gipsy Freedom (2006 5 Rue Christine) which featured Daniel Carter on Saxaphone. That same year saw Toth's first solo effort titled Harem Of The Sundrum & The Witness Figg (2005 Soft Abuse). His solo sound is much more typically indie acoustic with a definite touch of Tennessee nativism. His songwriting style lies somewhere between Spacemen 3, Leonard Cohen, White Stripes and Bob Dylan. Toth then got a new band called The Sky High Band and, still calling himself Wooden Wand, released Second Attention (2006 Kill Rock Stars) which featured a reproduced copy of the cover of John & Beverly Martin's Stormbringer album. Most recently Toth has released an album under the name James & The Quiet (2007 Kill Rock Stars).
Toth was famous for performing like a madman, sometimes hiding under a table while singing for the entire set. Crane would run a consumer tape player into a series of effects and maniacally change pre-recorded cassettes. They would sometimes split and do duo tours intersecting one another around the country and bringing friends from each town onto the stage to improvise with them. Their sound would often drift into meandering improvisations and art noise jam sessions with a definite dark feeling to it all. They would often evoke mystical imagery with their poetic use of language and lyric. This is not music for the casual listener but instead a music which commands attention. It is difficult to recreate the feeling of their live performance on disc as it was much of a visual experience as it was sonic.