Album Notes

A drink from a broken glass. A howl for your sweetie. A starry still life staggering with the moon. Daydream fields. A hat for a scarf. Funeral walks and sleeping trees. A boy with a thorn from the head of our savior. Feelings go south. A bottle of whiskey and me on the other side.

The songs of Blake Rainey are haunted; God, ghosts, dreams, and the natural scene all play a major role in Appetizer Sickness, Rainey's debut solo album. The tunes on Appetizer Sickness are marked by the outcast characters embedded within the remnants of an old world: mill homes and broken sidewalks, bridges abandoned and burned factories all rot along with their inhabitants searching for truth under moon and lamp lit scenery. They struggle each with their own sense of desires and purpose, yet never able to completely lose all hope, transcending in the end with surreal celebration.

Rainey grew up near Esom Hill and the Alabama border in Cedartown, Georgia, some 70 years after Sterling Holloway was born there. Though he currently resides in Atlanta, the rustic roots of a rural town forgotten by time are still at the core of Rainey's music.

As Rainey is now hard at work promoting his new solo release, he carries on a parallel universe as the frontman of the loud rock band The Young Antiques. The 'Tiques' most recent release, 2003's Clockworker, was also released by Two Sheds. The 'Tiques' post-punk blare and energy sharply contrast the muted introspection of Appetizer Sickness, yet the literary overtones are ties that bind.

Rainey also performed on and co-produced (with David Barbe) Faith Kleppinger's Asleep in the Well, which was released by Two Sheds in 2002.

Appetizer Sickness was produced by Blake Rainey and Jimmy Ether at the Ether Lounge in Atlanta.

Guest musicians include:

* Jimmy Ether - guitars, percussion, piano
* Faith Kleppinger - vocals
* Diana Obscura - cello
* Carol Statella - viola
* Judson Henry - vocals
* Drew de Man (of No River City) - accordion
* Terri Onstad (of No River City) - cello
* Pam Burton - vocals
* Sarah Ruska - vocals
* Lisa Hayes - vocals
* Laurie Beck - vocals