Press

Press for ‘The Road Spit Me Out’:

Wallace has spent the last six years playing in indie / folk band The Wading Girl, as well as touring in Tim Barry’s backing band. The Wading Girl has released two full length albums, two EPs and has played all over the country, sharing stages with acts like Smoke or Fire, The Draft, Look Mexico, Tapes ‘n Tapes, Bishop Allen, Drag the River, Tim Barry, Austin Lucas, and Josh Small among many others. The Road Spit Me Out is Billy Wallace’s debut solo effort and it is well worth the wait. Like a fine whiskey, Wallace’s songwriting has aged and fermented into a beautiful blend of ingredients. Backed by a revolving circle of friends tagged The Virginia Blues, Wallace belts out endearing tales of the road and love gone astray. Recorded in different bedrooms and basements between Virginia and Ohio, Wallace’s Southern storytelling kicks up its fair share of dust along the way. The Road Spit Me Out breathes a rustic beauty and feels alive with a wandering spirit. Laced with authenticity and honesty, Billy Wallace is a true modern day folk troubadour and The Road Spit Me Out is his captivating story. - Will Miller, Sound as Language/Beartrap PR

Usually when I put off reviewing an album for ages it’s for one of two reasons. Either I’m really busy and I’m not finding time to review anything, or I don’t think I’m going to like it and I don’t want to have to listen to it. The Road Spit Me Out by Billy Wallace falls into neither of these categories. I’ve been putting off reviewing it because I just can’t stop listening to it, and I don’t want to lose the excuse I have to do so. On first listen it’s good. Certainly good enough to make me want to listen to it again. On the hundredth odd listen it’s evolved into something truly wonderful. Band members going solo seems to be all the rage at the minute, and it’s sad to say that not all of them manage to transpose their writing talents onto the solo stage - the ever more wonderful Chuck Ragan being one notable exception. I have to admit I’ve not heard Billy’s old band (The Wading Girl) before, though I want to now, but this album more than stands as a future classic in its own right. Billy plays southern country blues with just a hint of jazz, ranging from maudlin ballads to rambunctious sing-alongs, recorded in a variety of basements and bedrooms across Virginia and Ohio. It’s rough and ready and raw and frankly it’s bloody wonderful. It’s only improved by the long list of friends Billy has to help him out, playing a range of instruments from a trombone and flugelhorn to a mandolin and viola, by way of the trusty old guitar and banjo. It reminds me a bit of some of the R Crumb songs from the American Splendor soundtrack, if that means anything to anyone… Oh and the packaging is awesome too. I think this is my (belated) album of last year. 10 out of 10. -Will Slater 
http://www.dieshellsuit.co.uk/article_detail.asp?rID=4347

More greatness from Virginia, this time the former frontman for The Wading Girl and player in Tim Barry’s band (Avail frontman). Setting out on his own, this is Wallace’s first solo effort, recorded all over America in different bedrooms and basements with a handful of friends. Utilizing more instruments than I could list (banjo, harmonica, violin, viola, mandolin, flugelhorn, etc.), Billy and his players construct a blend of folk and country that comes through in stories about the road and love gone awry. ‘The Road Spit Me Out’ is a perfect title as the songs literally feel like tales of a wanderer, a soul whose path is constantly changing and being reinvented. On the first listen through I thought this was pleasant, jangly, stripped down country music with hints of bluegrass, folk and americana. Sometimes gritty, other times delicate and a great male/female exchange on many songs with occasional gang vocals. Certainly good stuff, but nothing to shatter the order of things. By the sixth listen I had come to the realization that Wallace is an exceptional songwriter, capable of penning timeless songs about universal truths in a way that are both poetic and forthright, genuine and articulate. His sometimes warbly voice has an endearing quality that grows on you, and the confessional style songwriting never seems contrived. In just five listens this went from being pretty good to absolutely essential. I highly doubt Wallace is trying to reinvent the wheel here, but he does do a damn good job of rewriting the past and has stories to tell that will pull draw the listener in with subtle beauty, keep you enthralled with playful, charming instrumentation. Available since early August on Wallace’s own Uneasy Records. For fans of: Tim Barry, Matt Pryor, Cub Country, Chuck Ragan, Lucero, Austin Lucashttp://www.go211.com/u/tomhaugen/blogs/6639

www.30music.com 
Young singer/songwriters going country after some success in…whatever non-country music is called (the devil’s music?) is a statement so clichéd its nearly nauseating; hell, even Bon Jovi have dipped their toes in its twangy waters. If Billy Wallace lacks anything, it certainly isn’t authenticity. The Road Spit Me Out, recorded with his band the Virginia Blues, is miles away from the polished country of today or even folkier end of the spectrum that young punks have embraced. Without irony or pity, Billy Wallace embraces the boogie, and perhaps even the woogie, of the country music of the ’50s, when bits of rock ‘n’ roll started seeping in. His voice has a nasally twang that may turn off some converts, but it fits perfectly in the porch blues of the title track and the stripped-down duet of “Different Drum.” Besides the occasional curse word, the album sounds like it could have been recorded 50 years ago.
Despite the 10-person Virginia Blues, the instrumentation is used sparingly, and the usually hushed confines of the songs keep his voice from reaching the screeching heights of full-band rocker “Wrecking Ball Blues.” The epic, multi-part “Lady Manhattan” begs for a place as the final track, as woozy horns peal across a slowly unravelling story of lost love; as the second to last song it’s a bit exhausting to sit through two more voice/guitar compositions, though the group vocals at the end of “When We Run Out of Money” make for a fitting ending. 
This isn’t a modern take on country, or punk country, or post-modern, Lambchop-style country. Without a trace of a smirk Wallace has fashioned a tribute to a long out of fashion style and has done it justice; however it take some effort to take it at face value, and must be embraced as the complete picture that it is.
7 out of 10. 
Review written on 2009/09/30 by Matthew Austin

Dryvetime Onlyne 
The formula by which any given singer-songwriter can dredge up the troubadour effect is a rather tried-and-true one. Listen to lots of Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen, conjure up some sort of world-weary voice, and pen a litany of songs that bemoan one’s current (or just very recently past) station in life. There will always be a people wanting to live vicariously through someone else’s sad bastard, woe-is-me tales; and besides, if you’re anywhere near being a good storyteller, you’ll have a respectable fan base quite rapidly.
What Billy Wallace does right on his debut full-length album, with the appropriately disenchanted title of The Road Spit Me Out, is that he takes the aforementioned formula and promptly turns it on its ear. Yes, Wallace’s songs are replete with the steady forlorn pluck/strum of an acoustic guitar singing “life has been hard to me” tunes, all supported by the customary harmonica, violin, mandolin, banjo, and sweetly cooing high female harmony vocals. Despite all of the possibly too familiar trappings, it seems that this well-traveled musician is in on the joke, as his down-and-dirty odes from the road are actually quite self-aware. There’s a matter-of-fact resolution at work on tracks like the title cut, “Lover, I Am Overwhelmed,” and “Wrecking Ball Blues” that intimates someone who’s been there and done that, but he’s not interested in dragging the listener through the mud, muck, and mire along with him.
To be sure, the record itself isn’t a joke, but it’s more that Wallace is simply quite familiar with the stylistic stereotypes he’s embracing with this nine-song album, so he’s doing so willingly and with a pronounced twinkle in his eyes. It’s as if he’s singing in the first-person omniscient and laughing (possibly to keep from crying) as he recounts his stories of heartbreak and loss. Furthermore, there’s a engaging intimacy that’s cultivated through the apparently DIY method in which the album was recorded: at times, it feels like it was recorded in a living room by some folks who are comfortable with each other as musicians and are also really close friends. 
If you further factor in Wallace’s frequent shout-outs to the beloved Virginia of his upbringing (complete with some smack talk directed at Kentucky), then it’s easy to find favor with The Road Spit Me Out. It’s not every day that I listen to a guy sing about his hopes, fears, troubles, and dreams without being bored out of my mind by how pedantic, plaintive, and whiny he is.
http://www.dryvetymeonlyne.com/2009/11/17/billy-wallace-the-road-spit-me-out/

Can You See The Sunset?
I’ve never heard of an indie folk collective called The Wading Girl nor was I familiar with it’s frontman, Billy Wallace. I’m still not sure how that pertains to Wallace’s solo debut, The Road Spit Me Out, but it’s a cool little album full of what sounds like almost vintage sounding folksy old-timey country music that I might picture being played during the less-raucous operating hours of a dusty old saloon. It’s a bit twangy, a bit ragtime, and (overall) very traditional and authentic sounding (what I mean is that it sounds old without sounding artificially so) in a way that’s actually a little creepy. Wallace’s raspy vocals (sounding like a cross between Graham Lindsey and Jack White) are backed by the likes of guitars, pianos, harmonicas, banjos, brass, yearning fiddles, and more. The Road Spit Me Out is a rambling affair where no song really accelerates past a slow honky-tonk trot, and that’s fine with me. His original songs aren’t bad at all, but my favorite moment on the 9 song album was hearing Wallace’s cover of the Michael Nesmith penned song “Different Drum,” which is one of my all-time favorites. And just because, I’ve included a few different versions of the song but remember that “Billy Wallace High School Football Rules!”
http://www.canyouseethesunset.com/article/billy-wallace-the-road-spit-me-out/ 

Suspect Zine
9 tracks here, is that a short LP or a long EP? It’s a tough call. Anyhoo, whatever it is lengthwise, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable listen so who cares. Great sounding Country/Folk acoustic stuff but with all the trimmings, upright bass violin/viola, trombone, banjo and plenty more, and real strong male/female co-vocals that work together really well. Pretty downbeat and slow and sad sounding though the cover of “Different Drum” is both really great and more uplifting. It comes in a flat card sleeve that is hand silk screened and looks so cool and spot on for the tunes inside. The man himself, Billy Wallace, is in a band called The Wading Girl which I was inclined to check out and found their stuff available for free download and is excellent. He has also apparently toured as part of Tim Barry’s backing band. So, if you like all the punk guys doing country stuff, as I do, and also Bright Eyes at their most country, then you will also be digging this