Bread and Circus Spare Me Over

orignally released on SlowBurn Records (2007)

songs – Miss Me, My Devil, Don’t Come Cryin,’ Letters, Love Come Around, Salt, Radar, Juanita, Astor Place, Spent Everything

John Axtell – vocals, guitar; Eric Johnson -guitar, vocals; Sam Donaldson – Drums; Joe Yearego – bass

SlowBurn Records is proud to announce the release of Bread and Circus’s debut CD Spare Me Over; a collection of songs by singer/songwriter/guitarist John Axtell. What started out as casual late night recording sessions, Spare Me Over quickly developed into a potent body of work featuring instrumental and vocal work from Black Sun Ensemble’s Eric Johnson, drumming and more from former Dharma Bum Sam Donaldson, as well as a host of Tucson musicians and special guests.  Effectively infusing rock, country, folk and psychedelia into a unique hybrid of styles, Bread and Circus creates a refreshing update to the touted “Desert Rock” genre.

Spare Me Over’s material is eclectic, ranging from the train-time rock and blues stomps of Don’t Come Crying and Miss Me, to the dark and stormy Juanita and Letters, to thebittersweet alt-country of My Devil and Spent Everything. Songwriter John Axtell crafts story-driven narratives, edgy, philosophical, and humorous that are surprisingly mature for a debut offering.

Juanita offers a dark twist on the immaculate conception detailing the haunted life of anillegitimate child:

“Nine months later she had herself a son, when asked who the father was she whispered no one. The town folk shunned her, they thought she lied, they didn’t even bury her on the day she died”

On Astor Place the band delivers a New Orleans-style romp both clever and absurd:

“She got kicked in the Astor Place, she fell down with the powder on her face, woke up in flames on Avenue A, took up a collection and cleaned the whole plate off”

My Devil explores the classic theme of temptation with a humorous Faust:

“. . . falling up the stairs again, backsliding since I don’t know when, but things are just

the way they is, not the way they’re supposed to be, He promised that he’d dance withme, then he stole them shoes right off of my feet, have mercy”

Spare Me Over ends with Buy Something. Included here as a “hidden” track, the song is a lo-fi tongue-in-cheek look at the human condition in our consumer-oriented society.  Spare Me Over was recorded and mixed at the Signalhouse, Tucson Arizona