Blackwing Music Presents: The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow
How does a pencil company come to release records? Mostly, because we love music. But the story goes much deeper.
A ton of really cool cats used Blackwing pencils over the years. After we acquired and revived the Blackwing brand in 2010, Blackwing started to become synonymous with a culture of people who liked to unplug. Harmony and happiness can come from mindfully engaging with physical things. Pencils. Books. Records. With a focus on feeding this rising following, we turned to the best way we knew to connect people. Through music.
We believe in the power of arts and music, as both a creative outlet and as an educational tool. That’s why a portion of everything we sell supports music and arts education in public schools through the Blackwing Foundation. In 2015, we started our own independent record label in part to help musicians earn a better living. Pencil sales help us keep the lights on so record sales can go into the artists’ pockets.
Grant and Alex met the producer of Band Together, Johnny Irion, while collaborating with his uncle, Thom Steinbeck, on a pencil tribute to Thom’s famous father. They struck up a friendship and soon came up with a plan to release Johnny’s next solo record, Driving Friend, on the Blackwing label.
Johnny and Tim Bluhm of the Mother Hips recorded Driving Friend direct to tape using a vintage Studer console that had been sitting around Jackson Browne’s studio in Santa Monica. Johnny then hauled it cross country to his new studio in the Berkshires that just happens to be an abandoned stationery factory (can’t make it up). His first project? Capturing the supreme talents of five singer-songwriters onto one album, as a band.
Tory Hanna, Billy Keane, David Tanklefsky, Greg Smith, and Chris Merenda, collectively now known as “The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow” went into the Stationery Factory in Western Massachusetts with a stunning cast of back up musicians including folk legend Arlo Guthrie and a rhythm section of Wilco’s Pat Sansone and Black Crowes co-founder Steve Gorman. While their aesthetic and inspiration may draw from the masters of the form (James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon), the band’s topical songwriting is rooted firmly in the issues of the present.
After Pledge Music went defunct, keeping tens of thousands of dollars fans had pledged to help Whiskey Treaty make this record, we jumped in to help release it. A big part of our mission has always been to support deserving artists with something to say. Band Together fits that mission perfectly, and the spirit of Johnny’s recording process hits the heart of the Blackwing ethos. We hope you’ll give it a spin.