Last month, Jarrod Dickenson released his stunning new album Big Talk (one of my favourite album covers of the year so far). Reviewed here, it was described as angry and tender, deeply personal and socially aware in equal measure…an album born of triumph over adversity and a fine reminder that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Jarrod is just coming to the end of his UK & Ireland Big Talk tour; he plays the Empire Music Hall in Belfast this evening (Tickets) and the Workman’s Cellar in Dublin on 2nd April (Tickets here). BIG TALK is out now on Hooked Records (order here).
Jarrod is our latest ‘Off the Shelf’ guest, in which we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves from their home and talk about them. There are no rules, and what occupies our shelves can be quite revealing.
We get off to a fine start…with coffee…now we’re talkin’.
Off the Shelf with Jarrod Dickenson
The first shelf I visit each morning is the one on which my coffee resides. I’m unapologetically a “coffee snob”, and I believe that first cup in the morning is of the utmost importance.
It all starts with good beans, and my favorite beans are from a coffee roaster from my hometown of Waco, Texas, called Apex Coffee Roasters. There are plenty of coffee roasters out there making great coffee, but I’ve found that across the board, Apex’s beans are always very tasty, full of flavor and incredibly consistent from bag to bag. I like pretty much all of their offerings, but my current favorites are their Natural Colombia called “Finca El Corozal”, and their Natural Ethiopia, called “Goraa Shaakkiso”.
I brew my coffee using a “pour over” method, specifically using a V60. I also bring all of my coffee-making paraphernalia with me on the road, so I can make sure that I’m not forced to drink whatever bitter swill is offered along the highways and byways when touring.
This next shelf is in my little music room in our house, and it holds my main guitar amp – a 1962 Fender Princeton. I’ve been using this amp for a good number of years now, both on the road and in the studio. I love the “Brownface” era amps from Fender, and this particular Princeton just has some magic in it. I’ve toured extensively with this amp, and it was the primary amplifier used on both my new album, BIG TALK and on my EP called Under A Texas Sky.
My next shelf offering isn’t a shelf at all, but rather a wall; however, I think it deserves a few words anyhow. When Claire and I moved into our current house, there was a fairly lifeless and useless semi-finished basement room that we weren’t entirely sure what to do with. Eventually, we decided that we wanted to build a little bar down there, as finding a good pub in Nashville (or really the entire US) is a tall order. Most bars here are littered with TV screens and any number of other distractions to keep you from actually having a conversation with the person sitting next to you. So we painted the room, got some nice rugs, found a vintage bar, started seeking out old pub mirrors and bar memorabilia, and before long, we had created our own little pub right inside our house! We ended up using our bar as the set for the music video for “Prefer To Lose”, and at certain angles, you can see this little cluster of pictures and mirrors that I’m showing right here…
I happen to be a massive fan of the TV show “Cheers”. I will boldly pronounce it as being the greatest television sitcom of all time, and I dare anyone to challenge that claim. I’ve seen every episode an embarrassing number of times, and I regularly find myself saying, “Oh, that reminds me of this episode of Cheers, where…” So, when building our own little bar, I decided that I needed to have a shrine to the bar “where everybody knows your name”. A few years ago, Claire surprised me with the “This Is A Square House” sign, which is a replica of one that hung on the set of Cheers, just behind the barstool that Norm considered his home. I also have pictures of the cast throughout the years, and you may notice one picture that is in the opening credits. I fully realize that this is a bit ridiculous, but it makes me smile every time I see it.
Next is another shelf in my music room, though this one is a bit more sentimental. There’s a photograph of my grandfather with me and my older brother when we were young. We would regularly go fishing with our grandfather at a place called “The 800 Ranch”, which was 800 acres just outside of Waco that was owned by a good friend of my grandfather’s which had multiple fishing tanks on the property. If you look closely at this photo, there’s a piece of masking tape at the bottom where my grandfather had written the date and the weight of the two fish we took home that day. The smile on his face shows just how much he loved spending time with me and my brother, and that was something that was a constant in our lives until just a few years ago.
Next to the photograph is a small package wrapped in blue and silver wrapping paper. For years my grandfather and I would exchange two particular “gag gifts” each Christmas. One was an old bottle of “Tally-Ho” talcum powder, and the other was an ancient (and likely petrified) bottle of Old Spice. Each year these two silly little items would get passed back and forth, and each year it would result in big smiles and belly-laughter from each of us.
I was visiting home in early December 2018 – my wife and I alternate whose family we spend Christmas with each year, and this particular year was going to be spent in Ireland with her side of the family. So since I wouldn’t be there on Christmas Day to exchange gifts with my family, I already had this one wrapped up. On the day that I was supposed to bring it to my grandparents’ house, just a couple of hours before we were supposed to arrive, my grandfather fell, causing a fracture and immediate hospitalization. We rushed over to the house, and I was thankfully able to sit and talk with him while he was still clear-headed as we waited for an ambulance to arrive. Unfortunately, by the time he got to the hospital, he slipped into a sleeping state, and shortly thereafter, he passed. He was 97 years old. I never got to give him the gift that year, but like me, he had already wrapped his gag gift, which I opened, along with a lot of tears on Christmas Day. I keep his gift wrapped next to the picture, and I look at both every day. Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows what a huge role he and my grandmother played in my life, and I think about them both all the time. I have this photo of the two of them standing on their porch hanging in our house. I love seeing the two of them so happy and full of life. It’s exactly how I remember them.
We’ll close things out similarly to how we began – with a beverage. This one, however, is of the boozy variety and is typically enjoyed in the evenings. It’s no secret that I appreciate fine whiskies, so this little tray holds a revolving inventory of whiskies from different parts of the world. Currently, you’ll find Nikka Coffey Malt from Japan, Talisker from Scotland, Michter’s Straight Rye from here in the States, and then two different Irish offerings – Dunville’s from Belfast and then Killowen from Newry. The Killowen Rum & Raisin finish is one of my favorite new discoveries. It’s complex, full of flavor, and just a very special whiskey.
You’ll also find four whiskey tumblers on the tray, each wrapped in tooled leather with a hand-painted horse on one side and a steer on the other. These were a gift from my wife, Claire. We saw them in a little vintage shop of oddities in Austin called Uncommon Objects on her first-ever trip to visit Texas many years ago.
And there you have it! I hope you’ve enjoyed taking a peek at a few of the strange and wonderful things in our little house.
A huge thanks to Jarrod for granting us a glimpse of home and sharing those lovely stories.
BIG TALK is out now on Hooked Records.
Order / save right here