Music

To the Roof of the Sky (Pre-Release 1)   Year: 1998 | Run Time: 70:40

©1998 Meat Market Records. Produced by Bill Mallonee, Tom Lewis, Mark Smith, Vigilantes of Love. All songs written by Bill Mallonee.

Track List

    1. Run Through My Veins [3:49]
    2. But Not for Long [3:01]
    3. Roof Of The Sky [4:28]
    4. Paralyzed [4:30]
    5. Here Comes The Avalanche [5:37]
    6. Doin' Time [3:44]
    7. Perishable Goods [3:38]
    8. This Time Isn't One of Them [4:10]
    9. Filigree [4:02]
    10. Proving Ground [4:40]
    11. The Opposite's True [4:20]
    12. Isadora Duncan [4:37]
    13. On the Verge [4:40]
    14. (Please) Leave Me the Bones [4:43]
    15. Farther up the Road [5:44]
    16. Rising Although Slow [4:16]

    About To the Roof of the Sky (Pre-Release 1)

    With less production than normal, To the Roof of the Sky remains a very popular work among VoL fans. Bill Mallonee calls it "a composite of noisy Neil Young-like garage rockers with songs of new beauty and innocence, and some 3 am stuff that is more like a prayer of Thomas... or maybe even Judas." Even though this was a low-budget indie recording without funding (or constraints) of a record label, To the Roof of the Sky became one of VoL's best-selling releases. It was recorded in December of 1997 at Full Moon Recording Studios in Watkinsville, GA. To the Roof of the Sky is the seventh full-length studio album from the Vigilantes of Love, and its release was revitalizing in many ways. The band went into the studio on schedule with a brand new set of songs, but this time they weren't signed to any label. The studio costs went onto Bill's credit card. Remarkably, the band didn't interrupt their musical evolution nor did they skimp on material—these 15 songs clock in at over 65 minutes and include a number of new signature tunes. The opening rockers could have been on any of the recent albums, but the title song is unlike anything they've recorded before, a gentle, melancholy trek to the summit in the shoes of George Mallory, "leaving God knows what down below." Kenny Hutson's beautiful dobro and pedal steel recall older VOL songs like "Sick of It All" from Killing Floor, but the sound is fresh. With the superstructure around them collapsed, the band sold this album at live shows and through this web site, shipping disks out of the Mallonee home, and surprisingly they sold more in the first few weeks of release than they had any of their major label albums. "Avalanche," "Paralyzed," the setting is cold, the footing is unsure, but the songs have a convincing hopefulness that is conspicuously absent from Slow Dark Train. "Checking out of this cheap motel with the wind all in our souls / God shows his face farther up the road. To the Roof of the Sky was released on May 16, 1998.

    Quotes from Bill Mallonee

    DATE UNKNOWN: This is hands down my favorite record we've made. I think there is the perfect blend of lyric re-inforcing ragged raw country-alternative rock music.

    DATE UNKNOWN: The record is a composite of noisy Neil Young-like garage rockers with songs of new beauty and innocence, and some 3 am stuff that is more like a prayer of Thomas... or maybe even Judas.

    DATE UNKNOWN: I wrote these songs during our last tour, at a time when the whole support structure surrounding the band, and particularly the relationship with our record company, was falling apart and failing us.

    Nov 24, 1997: We've been in the studio working on another one... (it's sounding fantastic... I know I'm biased, but it really is beautiful to see how this line-up has "owned" this material... and made it resonate with that passionate folk-rock abandon and fragile beauty... some noisy stuff... some 3am Bill and Kenny stuff... some beautiful band stuff like "Roof of the Sky" and "Avalanche" and a new one called "Isadora Duncan"... 16 songs in all...

    Dec 22, 1997: I'm in the studio today mixing the last three tracks for the new disc... it's all been so cool how it turned out... 16 songs... some noisy garage rockers a la Crazy Horse, some more "mature" pieces (like say "certain slant" and some acoustic 3 am songs kenny and I did... and some surprises... what a joy it was to make this one! (now if I can just figure out a way to get it off my credit card!)

    May 16, 1998: We ended up calling the record To the Roof of the Sky because we spent a lot of time looking up at the sky in the dead of many a night... after the wearying 3 a.m. load-out from the altar of whatever club or bar you'd just made your last confession...

    Jul 1998: The record thematically is about when all those superstructures are revealed to be just illusions, and they're kicked away, what are you left with?

    Jul 1998: We had just come off the road, and every wing and a prayer had been shot down, and we thought, "Well, we're gonna make a record!" And that's kind of where it went.... We did the record in two weeks, and then we did another week's worth of mixdowns.

    Jul 1998: I think the record has some deficits, though I think that one of those is a money thing. There should have been more background vocals. Kenny sings a lot more live. On the tracks, we had three or four songs in which he should have sung backup, but we just didn't have the time or money to put him in there.

    Jul 1998: I had this credit card sitting in my top drawer, and I thought, "You know, my wife and I think these cards are basically straight from hell, and we've never lived on them." But we did the math on it and thought, "If we sell 1,100 copies of this record—and we've got a 10,000 person mailing list—then we win—I mean, it's paid for.

    Oct 22, 1998: ...it's sold more in 16 weeks after its release independently than any record we did with a major label.

    Sep 2, 2005: Roof of the Sky is one of VOL's best... it was a sheer declaration of freedom... freedom from weird management, freedom from a label that was having real issues... but that was always life with us anyway... Roof is part reved up Americana that got real produced on Audible Sigh... and the somber acoustic tunes like "Farther up the Road" and "This Time Isn't One of Them"... these are some of my favs.

     

     

     

     

     

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