Over the Rhine

"If the last decade was a woman, then we ran our fingers through her hair and she swept us downstream and we seldom came up for air" - Linford Detweiler



"Now if you asked me where I'd rather be, I'd say nowhere."

- Karin Bergquist



Over the Rhine is currently celebrating ten years of music and recording, ten years of incredible insomnia, ten years of redreaming the world, ten years of show business - all it what you will. The songwriting team, that sprouted when the voice of Karin Bergquist and the words of Linford Detweiler first got into bed together, has grown deep roots in the shadow of the Ohio River and branched out far beyond.



In the last ten years, Over the Rhine's music has taken Karin and Linford (and the unpredictable array of musical nightwatchmen, metaphysical houseguests and guitar theologians with whom they surround themselves) around North America repeatedly, as well as to Europe for weeks at a time on six different occasions.



Over the Rhine has released seven full-length recordings and performed alongside a host of notable peers and mentors including Cowboy Junkies (100+ dates), Adrian Belew (21 dates), Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan (5 dates), Squeeze (37 dates), Jane Siberry and Bruce Cockburn among others.



Artist as established as Sarah McLachlan have sought out Karin Bergquist to express their admiration for her work. Emerging acts such as Sixpence None The Richer have cited Over the Rhine as an important influence.



GOOD DOG BAD DOG

When Over the Rhine began passing out copies of a collection of home recordings, playfully entitled, Good Dog Bad Dog, their lives changed forever. Their peers and the handful of critics that heard the songs immediately began referencing such defining records as Neil Young's After The Gold Rush, Joni Mitchell's Blue and R.E.M.'s Automatic For The People,among others.



When Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies heard Good Dog Bad Dog, he not only asked Over the Rhine to open for the group indefinitely, he asked Karin and Linford to join the Junkies' line-up for an extensive tour of North America, Australia and New Zealand, including appearances on David Letterman, Good Morning America and Sessions at West 54th with David Byrne. Although never formally released, Good Dog Bad Dog was profiled on CBS This Morning where Over the Rhine performed several songs from the collection. Karin and Linford also had characters named after them on a recent X-Files episode, replete with inside jokes about Good Dog Bad Dog,and Karin's fondness for all things canine.



Back Porch Records is proud to announce the national release of Good Dog Bad Dog.



Good Dog Bad Dog is dreamy, intensely lyrical and unmistakably Over the Rhine. Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler are inspired by the work of Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Chrissy Hynde, Lucinda Williams and Jane Siberry, but the band's personality and music owe as much or more to liteerary influences such as Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry and Carson McCullers. Good Dog Bad Dog is the definitive Over the Rhine record to date and strongly signlas the continuation of a band's story that is undoubtedly a long way from over.



LOOK FOR A NEW FULL-LENGTH ALBUM IN EARLY 2001!

For more information on Over the Rhine, please drop in for a visit to the Apple Orchard at www.overtherhine.com

Over the Rhine had already developed a large and intensely loyal following in its native Cincinnati, OH, before they independently released their first two albums, Till We Have Faces (1991) and Patience (1992). Their music, which they aptly dubbed "post-nuclear, pseudo-alternative, folk-tinged art-pop," is difficult to pigeonhole. They have been compared to 10,000 Maniacs, the Innocence Mission, U2, and Shawn Colvin, but the band's personality seems to owe more to their literary influences (which include Dylan Thomas, C.S. Lewis, and T.S. Eliot). They drew attention to their independent albums with their attractively arty CD packaging, and when IRS signed them in 1992, Patience became the first album in the label's history to be re-released with its original indie cover art. But 1994's Eve would end up the only album the band would record on an IRS budget (with the exception of a slightly touched-up re-release of Till We Have Faces in 1995). When the label was bought out in 1996, Over the Rhine escaped from its five-record contract, fearing a loss of artistic autonomy. By the end of the year the band had released two imaginatively sparse acoustic CDs on its own: Good Dog Bad Dog and The Darkest Night of the Year, a melancholy Christmas album. 1996 also saw significant personal changes for all four bandmembers: Over the Rhine's chief songwriters (bassist/pianist Linford Detweiler and classically trained lead singer Karin Bergquist) were married in October. In December, guitarist Ric Hordinski left to devote more time to his own band, Monk, and drummer Brian Kelley followed (before he changed his mind in 1997). The group issued Besides, a fan-club-only compilation of rarities, in early 1997; the official album Amateur Shortwave Radio appeared in 1999. The band's sixth studio effort Films for Radio appeared in early 2001. Two years later, Detweiler and Bergquist returned with Ohio. This double-disc set, which marked Over the Rhine's tenth album overall, reflected the band's Midwestern connections. Following a tumultuous year of heavy touring, the band returned to the studio (Bergquist and Detweiler's living room, to be precise) and recorded their next album, Drunkard's Prayer, which came out in 2005. They released a career retrospective, Discount Fireworks, in February 2007, followed by the all-new Trumpet Child later that summer. ~ Darryl Cater, All Music Guide