Last time we heard from Jim Kilpatrick, AKA Shotgun Jimmie, was in
2007 for The Onlys, an endearing collection of indie gems
recorded with friends at Marshwinds Farm, outside of Sackville, New
Brunswick. Warm in sound like sun-steeped tea, the album spawned the
lovely lo-fi duet “Bedhead” with Ilse Kramer.
It’s appropriate that Jimmie’s follow-up is called Still
Jimmie, released on the newly formed You’ve Changed Records (Baby
Eagle, The Luyas, Adam & the Amethysts). Recorded far away in
Ontario with touring buddies and label mates Attack in Black, Still
Jimmie, available on vinyl and digital download, actually benefits
from a rocked out, full band sound. Like Chad VanGaalen, Jimmie is a
bit of a shape-shifter. Rather than smothering Jimmie’s lo-fi
sweetness, big drums and guitar only accentuate his sharp songwriting
and quirky vocal delivery.
In the country-guitar rocker “I asked cupid,” a conversation with
the god of love, he observes, “I guess you need steady hands for steady
plans.” Jimmie shows empathy in “treadwater” for the “record industry
ninjas with their evilest of evil plans,” who are just surviving too,
in “the vast ocean” of indie music “of millions and billions of bands,
so many of them, I worry that they might drown all the fans.” Shotgun
Jimmie need not worry, this album won’t float away any time soon.
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2009.
