Send "Wooden Wand " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 James Jackson Toth has been making beautiful variations on folk music as Wooden Wand for quite a while now, but at this point the shift in sound on Briarwood comes as a welcome change. That’s not because he has run out of ideas, mind you. His last album, the excellent Death Seat, may have been his best yet. But it followed other solid but deeply dark albums, like , that followed a time where Toth lost his band—mid-tour—and a major-label deal and scrambled to find his way. The music that came out of it was tuneful but raw, deeply wounded all the way through. If you’ve kept up with Toth, even as you’ve enjoyed his music, surely you’ve also hoped things would get better for him. Briarwood seems to be the sound of him turning a vital corner. The project began when Toth was invited to record a split 7-inch with Duquette Johnston, formerly of the undersold Alabama rockers Verbena. Toth accepted and went to Birmingham and recorded with Johnston’s band, the Gum Creek Killers, and loved the experience so much he enlisted the band—along with some long-time friends—to work with him on his next record. Thus, the Briarwood Virgins were born....full text |
| Piaptk |
| Last year, James Jackson "Wooden Wand" Toth went to Alabama to record a split 7" with The Gum Creek Killers (feat. members of Verbena) a while back and had such a good time, he decided to go back and record an entire Wooden Wand record with the Gum Creek Killers as his backing band. Briarwood is the result of that collaboration. Another Wand album full of great one liners ("We were all at the Wal-Mart for the irony...") and down south pomp and swagger. Limited to only 500 copies, most of which went to Kickstarter pledgers or distributors, PIAPTK only has 50 copies for sale. Only $12 each. Even more rare, we have a handful of the Letterpressed covers (the records come in full color jackets) that were made as Kickstarter gifts. These came in two colors, each with their own charm, chipboard and white. The Letterpressed cover + The Printed Cover + The Record = $20....full text |
| Theskinny |
| James Jackson Toth, the phenomenally-prolific songwriter oft-known as Wooden Wand, recorded Briarwood in Alabama, and boy, does it show. This is Toth’s Southern rock opera, a sour mash concoction of country rock and gospel, Hammond organ and lonesome-road lyrical journeys. He sings of stays of execution, bourbon and salvation in the kind of rough-hewn drawl that renders the word ‘man’ as ‘may-an’. And all of that is, of course, pretty cool, but only if taken as knowingly recycled: if Toth is self-consciously channelling oft-reprinted hymn sheets, his odes to good whiskey, bad women and other such clichés warrant a hallelujah from the congregation, but take Brairwood straight-faced and it's exasperatingly limited, with little to recommend it over a re-spin through The Band’s back catalogue with a whiskey chaser. Pedal steel and aching breaking hearts are an irresistible combination, but ultimately Wooden Wand’s latest resembles a Drive-by Truckers you’ll wish had kept trucking on by. [Chris Buckle]...full text |
Wooden Wand lyrics
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