CDs

Desert Needle Grass

In crafting this Album, Wagner filled journals with tales about the people he met, and the poems, songs and folklore he fell in love with while living for a year in the Mojave Desert near the town of Joshua Tree California. Desert Needle Grass holds stories of ghost towns, homesteaders, quirky songwriters, pianos left on porches, rattle snake weed, the folklore of Bob Keys, blooming Cacti, barking Dogs, and little songs that come true. This album, a well crafted story book of 12 chapters, brings the Listener to the crooked crow trees of the desert for an intimate concert in a field of Needle Grass. Wagner’s songwriting approach explains how there is beauty in hard luck and failure, poetry in suitcases and train stations, and how there’s always that possibility, that one day everything might just be green again.

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Songs From The Kitchen Sink

I wrote these songs in many different places: drinking coffee in cafes, Camping with other songwriters, locked away at home on the couch, in between students, at shows watching other songwriters, in the car on a the way to gigs, but mostly on a fold out chair next the kitchen sink where the gas heater works the best.

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10,000 Stories

Johann Wagner is no stragner to Denton's tumultous music scene. Formerly of the band Sugartrip, and a current member of the Mad Hipsters, Johann has earned his stripes in a music scene notorious for having no long term memory. He's toured Texas playing dives and house parties aike. A stint at the renowned Kerrville Folk Festival even led him to record a few songs for Public Radio. Now in 2004, he's released 10,000 stories, his first solo album. The album is comprised of songs about love gone awry, politcal satire, and escapement. Not unlike early Bob Dylan or Simon, (sans the Garfunkel), when you listen to 10,000 stories you get washed in a tide of clean acoustic overtones and simple yet profound lyrics. The music is soulful, with Johann clawing through the earth and pulling up his own roots, laying them out for the world to see. 10,000 Stories breathes with such vitality and audacity you'll find yourself humming along even when the album isn't playing. Songs like "Alaska" and "This Time" engulf you in a warm atmosphere of aural arrangements that rival that of Tom Waits' pre-Island years. Working with a range of musicians such as Rick Nelson (Polyphonic Spree)and longtime singers Crystal Rios and Eva Hunter, Johann really makes a name for himself. This is definitely a new chapter not only in the artist's life, but also in the music of Denton itself

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