Dickie is coming to Cambridge!

6pm potluck

7pm music

$10-20 suggested donation

All ages, family-friendly

Rain location: Bishop Hill Creative Commons

https://dickiemusic.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfchlNZKvOs

On Dickie’s self-titled release, singer-songwriter Dick Prall took a succession of personal losses and nestled them inside a beautifully-layered soundtrack. The intimate and moody testimonial was cited as “Best Indie Rock Release of 2015” by Music Existence, also making its way onto several “top ten” lists that same year. By the time 2019 rolled around, it found Prall in a nostalgic headspace and in a new partnership with talented drummer and multi-instrumentalist Billy Barton. The result is a stripped-back mix of reflective and pulsating tunes stamped into the 10-track sing-along Minus Thieves.

Though the common thread of Prall’s past releases have showcased lush arrangements, Minus Thieves is a practice in restraint led by producers Pat Sansone (Wilco) and Joshua Shapera.

The simplified effort was tracked at The Magic Barn, a rural studio outside the small town of Solon, Iowa. Its notoriety comes from housing the original recording equipment of New York’s now-defunct The Magic Shop. Iconic artists like David Bowie, Lou Reed, and Blondie have all made records at the renowned facility, but it's within the Iowa incarnation that Sansone and Shapera reached even further into the archives of recording history. Applying a formula of straightforward guitars fused seamlessly with Barton’s tight rhythms, the minimal production of Minus Thieves impeccably highlights the core of Prall’s hook-laden songwriting.

And Prall has a long history of fashioning accessible tunes and inserting them with viral melodies. As a late bloomer musician, he hit the ground running at age 29 with his first full-length album, 1998’s Somewhere About Here. A marriage of the rural soundtrack of his youth and the Brit-pop he adored, No Depression magazine dubbed this freshman release “a track-by-track monster.” The follow-up record, Dressing Up the Failure (The Starch Martins), opened the door to even more positive press and a slot on WRAX’s “Reg’s Coffee House” top ten list of 2001. After an exhausting 3-year stretch on the road, Prall took a long break and refocused in 2005 to put out the eclectic record Fizzlebuzzie, showcasing his ability to stylistically morph from one song to another. The diversity of the album gained Prall further national and international attention with features in media outlets Time Out Chicago, Performing Songwriter, and NME.com. In 2007, he upped the ante with the release of the beautifully alarming Weightless, featuring the single “The Cornflakes Song” with Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket lending additional vocals. The song garnered AAA radio spins across the country, including a spot on Paste Magazine’s Dec 2007 CD sampler alongside Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and Ingrid Michaelson.

In the midst of the 2020 global pandemic, Prall and the COVID bubble he shared with other artist friends proved to manifest other creative ventures like a tongue-in-cheek Christmas variety show, Dickie’s (Kind of) Christmas. Prall’s momentum continued into 2021 with a beautiful cover and video of the classic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and two dance-inciting singles “Stack It” and “Little Conversations.”

As the music industry and live venues cautiously come back to life, Prall is anxious to get back onto the stage he’s shared with such great artists as Wilco, Young the Giant, Blind Pilot, Allen Stone, and the late Justin Towns Earle. Over the years, it’s been uncertain what Prall will offer up, but with each release and each live show it’s assured that he’s committed to the crafts of songwriting and performance.