"This inspired California foursome has put out its fourth CD since 2001 and the band is still alluring. Their recipe for success? Good songs, varied arrangements, a smooth sound supported by a seductive lead, vocal harmonies right on the mark, sterling electric guitar, transparent pedal steel and some guest artists on violin and accordion. Nothing revolutionary, but one bathes in their traditional virtues like a good soup in an old pot. Seen through the eyes of the Hawks, this music is easy to enjoy, light and timeless. Acoustic ballad, unbridled rock n roll, an Irish tune and a return to country music roots. Welcome to the family, enter, don’t stay out in the cold, and sit right down at the guest table, between the Foster Martin Band and the Dillard and Clark Expedition."

Click here for: interview with Paul L

by Danny McCloskey

Over the course of a little over eight years, I See Hawks in L.A have made an imprint on the Roots music landscape. Through their first three discs, their self-titled debut, ‘Grapevine’ and ‘California Country’, The Hawks bring a strong sense of self. The albums’ characters, narrators and bio related tales have helped to define the band, creating the story via road songs and relationships. On their stellar fourth disc, ‘Hallowed Ground, the band, comprised of Rob Waller (lead vocals, guitar), Paul Lacques (guitars, vocals), Paul Marshall (bass, vocals) and Shawn Nourse (drums), continue that theme. The autobiographical component of the earlier output is especially present on the barn burner ‘Yolo County Airport’. The track capably describes a day in the life on the road with I See Hawks. The road continues and finds another turn on “Getting Home Tonight”, which brings in real life decisions amid time worn experiences. While those tracks manage to keep true to the bands previous tales, many of the albums songs bring in beliefs that help flesh out what I See Hawks in L.A. stand for to complement their life experiences story line.

The songs and the dialogue continue, each allowing the ears on the other end of the notes to decide of meaning and results. The botanist and the astrophysicist of ‘In The Garden’ take on the roles of environmental pros and cons. The loneliness and surface level emotions of ‘Highway Down’ echo the loss that comes with change to the narrators beloved San Joaquin Valley, “Lord knows, I love this valley, though it’s as wounded as an alley”.

Though coming from different places and motivations, “Environmental Children of the Future” and “Ever Since the Grid Went Down” share the desperation of the state of the world. The move towards a greener world is represented as current thoughts when Rob Waller sings ‘Don’t need to steal or borrow from their grandchildren’s rain, from their grandchildren’s sun, from their grandchildren’s mountain, they way we have done”. On “Ever Since the Grid Went Down”, the lessons come from the narrators story. Ever wonder what will happen when the plug is pulled? Check out the birds eye view from the lead character who ‘killed a man for batteries, killed a man for gas’. The move from wants to needs becomes clear with lines like ‘I use my Telecaster for a paddle and my G5 tower for a milking stool’.

The potency of the words would be good on paper. What makes these lines come alive, burn into consciousness and move from ideals to guidelines is the delivery via music and voice. The warmth of the harmonies allows the harshness of the message to come through in a tenderness that draws in rather than building the walls that sometimes arise with difficult medicine to swallow. Like the move between the physical and the mental that comes through with ‘Hallowed Ground’ lyric content, the sonic component takes big steps forward. The organic feel and form of the acoustic based instrumentation on these tracks is given a solid foundation in the rhythm section that allows each to have their say while coming together to create the necessary border to house the rich vocals and the all present message.

I See Hawks in L. A. have created a body of work that provides great listens and lessons.

by Joe Cortez

I See Hawks in L.A. has been one of the most talked about bands in the Los Angeles indie scene for quite some time now. The band has garnered national attention and even a tour or two in the process, all the while amassing a loyal following in its southland stomping grounds becoming constant fixtures at LA.'s Grand Ole Echo and deservedly so.

Their fourth long player, "Hallowed Ground," more or less finds the Hawks in a familiar setting: belting out roots and Americana tinged tunes in a consistently upbeat and joyous tone. It's country in the best sense of the word: unpretentious, honest and direct.

What's so refreshing about "Hallowed Ground" is that you never once get the impression that the Hawks are ashamed of their chosen genre. The problem with most contemporary country music and the public perception that it entails is the genre seems to be defined by lyrical content rather than song stylings with the most popular balladeers and superstars turning out nothing more than pop songs targeted to a certain demographic, propped up by the occasional steel guitar or Charlie Daniels-esque fiddle in the background. This is most certainly not the case with I See Hawks in L.A. Every track on "Hallowed Ground" drips with a love of traditional American music, infused with an infectiously fun sense of imagination and wordplay.

That's not to say that songs about getting even with an ex lover by trashing is four wheel drive are any less "country" than the Hawks' tunes but there is something honest and true found buried deep within. This especially true of the album's bet tracks, "Pale and Troubled Race," "Ever Since the Grid Went Down," and "Never Alive." To put it simply, "Hallowed Ground" is one of the best albums of the year and I See Hawks in LA. are proof that great country music can be found in every part of this land of ours... even Echo Park. For more info visit www.iseehawks.com.

http://www.mishmashmagazine.com/tabid/106/itemid/284/I-See-Hawks-in-LA.aspx
MishMash Website

#1 on the FREEFORM AMERICAN ROOTS CHART in May, #5 in June, #12 in July

#4 on Euro Americana Chart, in the top ten for three months

BY MICHAEL SIMMONS

“This is Rob Waller of I See Hawks in L.A. on May 30, 2008. It’s approximately 73 degrees outside. Western breeze is blowing in off the ocean. We are all currently alive.”

“Barely,” I mutter, as I snatch the tape recorder from Waller’s bearlike paws and replace it with a beer. Lead singer Waller, lead guitarist Paul Lacques and bassist Paul Marshall — three-fourths of the Hawks (drummer Shawn Nourse couldn’t show) — are sitting in my Palms crib and yapping about Hallowed Ground, the band’s latest album. Like the others, it’s filled with songs of wit and vision about the absurdist horror show that is 21st-century America.

“One of the things that trips me out about this record is, Holy shit, we’ve really made a lot of music!” laughs Waller. “This being the fourth record, I hear the good times, the bad times. We are this funny brotherhood who’ve done this crazy shit together and then were able to come back and tell the story.”

“Yolo County Airport” is a rocker so charged, it feels like it’s going to lift off out of the CD player and fly away. The story is based on patrons in said county who invited the band to their posh home, with ducks and egrets and the airport next door. “Most of it is real,” explains Lacques. “Being on Ibiza with Mick and Keith is not real.” Waller picks up: “It’s a metaphor for confronting your rock & roll dreams. But really you’re chugging down the highway in your Suburban that costs too much to fill up with gas.”

“For us, it’s about the music,” Lacques clarifies. “There’s the whole economic hierarchy, but if the Stones have a bad gig, it’s a bad gig. If the Hawks have a great gig, I wouldn’t trade it for anything on Earth.”

The lyrics are quality lit (Waller is an assistant professor of writing at USC) and the melodies finely crafted. The minor/major chordal shift in “Keep It in a Bottle,” which begins as a plaint but becomes a prayer, is an example of the Waller/Lacques team’s alchemical magic. “My 3-year-old daughter Zola listens to that song,” says Waller, “and she waits and waits and it hits those changes and she says, ‘This is the pretty part.’” [Laughter.] “I think we all like consonance,” Lacques concurs.

“But what the fuck do you guys like about L.A.?” the homesick New York writer inquires, shifting gears. “L.A.’s been strip-mauled and you guys see hawks.”

“We’re looking up!” quips Waller, then continues: “L.A. is the rock-star dream, the California dream, the dream of freedom, the dream of it being sunny every day.” Lacques adds: “Yesterday, a hawk flew four feet in front of my windshield. That’s happened about five times in the last year.”

The frequent ornithological references suit the band. Their three-part vocal harmonies indeed soar, a skill most pop bands lost interest in 30 years ago that is making a casual resurgence of late. The Hawks share that sonic krssshhh with the Byrds, the auditory sensation of flight. “It’s a challenge to live here and remain connected to nature,” philosophizes Marshall, “but it’s actually easily done if you’re paying attention. The ocean’s right here. The ocean!”

“I can go to my grave knowing I tried to express my concerns about the human future in an artistic way,” says Lacques. One song off the new disc, “Ever Since the Grid Went Down,” a dark-humored postapocalyptic scenario, is balanced with “Environmental Children of the Future.” The latter has elicited both strong positive and negative responses from Hawks fans. It’s about an architect friend of the band, and goes, in part: “With recycled materials she built towers filled with dreams/Based on the pattern of a spinning, falling leaf.” Marshall swears “it goes right up to ‘corny’ and kisses it on the mouth.” While they confront the nightmares of the past decade, part of the Hawks’ appeal is their unapologetic insistence that daylight will break.

Zola Waller (as well as the newborn Henry) has influenced her father’s lyrics. “I suspect that her life in terms of material comfort will be more difficult. There’s more competition for less resources, whether you’re talking environmental stuff or capital. But she’s well suited to deal with it. Her generation will solve lots of problems.

“Whenever something’s totally fucked, somewhere else something good is happening. I don’t mind being poor as long as I get to play good music and jam in my living room.”

“The friendship is why we’re together,” adds Lacques with a smile.

Click here to download an MP3 of the track "Gettin Home Tonight" from the album Hallowed Ground
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Also, see photos from the band's record release show at the Echo on June 8 at our music blog, PLAY.

The nine-year survival of I See Hawks in L.A. stands as righteous testimony to a bunch of semieternal truths. 1) Country/roots molds should continue to get busted. 2) Singer Rob Waller and guitarist Paul Lacques have proved you can start something new when you’re not very young, and a goodly number of humans might pick up on it. 3) What would’ve been a major-label act 30 years ago can nevertheless breathe in an indie atmosphere. 4) Talent and persistence will tell.

True as all the Hawks’ four albums have rung (and “Hallowed Ground” ranks as their most complete and satisfying), the recorded form isn’t their biggest strength. On the blind home speakers, occasional peculiarities of subject matter -- environmentalism, drug sport, cracked humor -- can come off as distractions from country music’s reliable verities. When you see the Hawks live, though, you realize that Waller and the gang are just artists who feel no need to exclude the feelings that hit them deepest, traditional or no.

The selections usually encompass the main themes of “Hallowed Ground”: love, death, the death of love and the love of death. In the rolling rocker “Carbon Dated Love,” Waller muses on his kinship with a fossilized fern. In the lulling waltz “Never Alive,” he compares himself to inanimate snow, a ghost unborn. “Highway Down” finds him casually digging his own grave. “Good and Foolish Times” pulls off a practiced Hawks contrast -- memories of pleasures shared and lost, rendered all the sadder when delivered via the band’s upbeat Waylon/zydeco two-beat pump.

The 2008 version of the group does a hell of a lot with four pieces. The ever-amazing Lacques has his urban-trucker look going, ball cap yanked down over his eyes to suppress his gray hippie locks, picking clean or rocking wild on his favorite brown left-handed Telecaster like a hybrid of Clarence White and Sam Houston Andrew. He sings, too, and incorporating bassist Paul Marshall’s sweet tenor, the Hawks put together many a true mountain harmony. Drummer Shawn Nourse enforces the mandatory Kickin’ of the Shit on the BurritoBerry rocker “Yolo County Airport” (“I’m drunk, I’m stoned and I’m tired/Pretty soon I’m gonna be wired”) and on the Hawks’ apocalyptic carnival ride to Maggie’s Farm on the Mystery Train, “Ever Since the Grid Went Down” (“I went back to smokin’ Marlboro Reds”).

On the album, you get to hear a bunch of seasoned guests filling out the space on pedal steel, fiddle, accordion, pennywhistle and what-all. And you get to hear Ethan Allen’s subtle mixwork, such as the psychedelic guitar overlaps that stretch out the deep country of “Gettin Home Tonight.” In fact, “Hallowed Ground” is one of the best-sounding country-rock records I’ve heard. But if you really want to git it, git it live, too.

-- Greg Burk

- Luke Torn, UNCUT Magazine / June 2008

This band's secret is idiosyncratically unusual songwriting. Waller and guitarist Paul Lacques write like hip university professors, or post-countercultural novelists, and their lyrics are fascinating and full of provocative ideas, a rarity in rock.

"Yolo Country Airport" is a cool, dramatic song about flying home as potential superstars. "Carbon Dated Love," an existentialist, epiphanous tale about two hikers becoming one with nature, is a marvel of imagist detail. "Environment Children of the Future," a ballad, balances sincerity about ecological awareness among young people with a killer "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" chorus. The apocalyptic rocker "Ever Since the Grid Went Down" imagines being forced to live "like an honest man" - it's meant ironically - in order to survive a societal collapse. A detour into Celtic music is ill-advised and the production by Lacques could be more forceful. But this is one fascinating band.

Standout Tracks: "Carbon Dated Love," "Ever Since the Grid Went Down" -- STEVEN ROSEN

Despite rumors of its untimely demise, L.A. country is, in fact, still alive and well. It’s just gone underground - or rather, taken to the skies. I See Hawks in L.A. is that rare local bird, an Americana act in a city where rock rules the roost. “[We’re] sort of mavericks,” states lead singer Rob Waller (at right, with Shawn Nourse, left, Paul Lacques and Paul Marshall). “Sometimes people will say, ‘Oh, I see hawks’ and you tell your hawk stories.”

“Modern country music … is really formulated,” says Waller. “Let’s have a song where the girls are geting wild and going out tonight. It’s all been vetted in a focus group. That’s the opposite of what we do.” Despite the band’s thick local roots - they’re regulars at the Echo’s weekly “Grand Ole Echo” concerts - they’ve managed to escape SoCal long enough to play two national tours, where they’ve found a small but welcoming audience.

“People in these towns, they take us to [their] barbecues, we go on hikes together,” he says. “It’s really part of their lives.”

-– David Greenwald

By RON JACOBS
Counterpunch.org

Some days I wake up and the music I hear in my head is the chorus to Hank Williams' “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.” All day long I hear that lonesome whippoorwill until night finally falls, the midnight train whining in the distance. It's not that I'm lonely or anything, mind you, yet that haunting chorus becomes the day's soundtrack.

There's a band out of southern California that renders music as uniquely forlorn as any Hank Williams tune. The name of that group is, somewhat mysteriously, I See Hawks In LA. Composed of founder Rob Waller on acoustic guitar and lead vocals, guitarist Paul Lacques, former Strawberry Alarm Clock bassist Paul Marshall and percussionist Shawn Nourse, I See Hawks In LA bring experienced musicianship (and many experienced guest musicians) to their work. Echoes of the Byrds and Gram Parsons and even The Holy Modal Rounders inform the music this group makes while its lyrics touch on themes of war, peace, freedom, family and that greatest topic of all, love. Sometimes the lyrics are full of humor and sometimes they are full of sadness. Sometimes they sing of the counterculture and sometimes one hears ironic commentary on today's commercial culture of brands and empty meaning. Waller's vocal delivery is a countrified alto that capably evokes whichever emotion the song hopes to convey.

The most recent album, titled Hallowed Ground (Big Book Records) continues the Hawks' trend of danceable rock music imbued with country sensibilities. Fiddle plays a prominent role in several of the songs on the disc yet it is the vocals that once again capture my ear. Lyrically, it is a concerned warning about the environmental disaster we are living in. If the song “Last Lonely Eagle” by New Riders of the Purple Sage were to become an entire album, this is what it would sound like. The third song “Carbon Dated Love” warns of an LA doomed to die. “Now all ye hunters and ye gatherers prepare/For wild blue wandering....” The pedal steel and guitar trade licks reminiscent of the best Sneaky Pete Kleinow. The next tune, with singer Rob Waller sounding a bit like an early Waylon Jennings, continues the theme of a parched, sterile and deadly future.

Despite the dystopian outlook that underscores this album, the true spirit is that of a paean to the beauty of the western landscape and sky, Celtic history and life, love, and the hippie nomad. This spirit is quite clear in the song “Highway Down”--an LA cowboy's song to the countryside he loves and a prayer that it will somehow survive. Even as he digs a grave on the highway down. “Lord knows I love this Valley,” sings Waller. “Though it's as wounded as an alley.” Like the child raised by hippies, the folks in “The Environmental Children of the Future” is a tribute to those young and old who have taken the best of the counterculture ethos and are trying to live a future where the earth matters as much as the people on it. “The environmental children of the future,” go the lyrics, “Took their elders by the hand” and showed them how to live—after the flood as it were.

There is an overall joy that emanates from the Hawks' music. Acoustic guitar progressions accentuate Celtic fiddle melodies on some songs while the melodies of others are carried by a rock guitar reminiscent of James Burton's work with Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. The lyrics display a wry sense of the situation we find ourselves in while remaining hopeful about our future as a species. Other songs display an equally wry approach to the ups and downs of love. This is the music the 1960s counterculture was meant to produce in its brightest hours. The fact that it appears now some forty years later in a world arguably more hopeless is a sign of hope in itself. Despite the echoes of that lonesome whippoorwill, I See Hawks In LA wipes away those tears we are sometimes too blue to cry.

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press.

link to full article

Gram Parsons has been dead for roughly 35 years, and yet he can still be heard all over Hallowed Ground, the latest Big Book Records release from I See Hawks In L.A. Hallowed Ground is precisely the "Cosmic American Music" Parsons would have loved. The band effortlessly blends the three-part harmonies, fiddles and weeping steel of country/roots music with the driving drums, heavy reverb and fiery licks we associate with more rock-oriented offerings. Flavor the whole mess with zydeco, Tex-Mex and even some Celtic flourishes and you'll get an idea of how much ground Hallowed Ground covers. On this outing, the Los Angeles-based quartet is further reinforced with a handful of hired guns, including guitarist Rick Shea (Dave Alvin) and pedal steel whiz Dave Zirbel (Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen) whose licks are sure to stir memories of the late Sneaky Pete Kleinow.

Suffice to say, these boys can all play like the devil, but what really sets I See Hawks In L.A. apart from the others who play in the same sandbox is their willingness to deal with themes that fall decidedly outside of country music's traditional comfort zone. Instead of predictable ditties about dead end jobs and no good women, Hallowed Ground offers songs that dabble in ecology, metaphysics, time travel and for the romantics in the audience, a lovers' stroll that ends in a suicide pact. My favorite has to be Ever Since The Grid Went Down, a wry, picture-postcard of life in post-Apocalyptic California that just might become a survivalist anthem if/when this country finally goes to hell in a bobsled.

Very highly recommended for fans of the The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Byrds, and the aforementioned Dave Alvin. Absolutely essential if you refused, on principle, to buy Long Road Out Of Eden retail simply because it was sold exclusively at Walmart and Sam's Club.

-- Dave Alvin

I See Hawks in L.A., Hallowed Ground (out May 20):

"I really liked a lot of these alt-country rockers' last album, and this one continues to display versatility, variety and power, with an intriguing dystopian science-fictional bent in the lyrics. "

--Ken Barnes, USAToday

http://blogs.usatoday.com/listenup/2008/04/