The Americana outfit Toler Gibson started when Kenneth James Gibson, a Canadian-born, Texas-raised, Los Angeles resident moved from LA to the mountains of Idyllwild. There he met Gavin Toler, a Seattle-born and raised Los Angeles resident who had moved to Idyllwild from LA three years prior. The two shared a love for Country, Folk, and Psychedelic music and immediately began playing together.
With experience performing in other bands such as Bell Gardens and Winter Flowers, the duo began performing, but eventually expanded when drummer Charlie Woodburn and bass player Rob Hume also arrived in Idyllwild from LA, lastly adding Drew Manne as their pedal steel player.
We are delighted to premier Toler Gibson’s new single, “One In The Grave”, here on Wildfire Music + News today, which will arrive on streaming services on July 1st, 2024 via the label Meadows Heavy Recorders. On this particular track, guest performer Marty Rifkin (Tom Petty, Dale Watson, Dwight Yokam etc) plays pedal steel.
The song lives up to Toler Gibson’s musical inspirations as it glides between Psychedelic and Country traditions like some of the more experimental moments from The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The mood becomes a key construction of the instrumentation, but that’s very much in keeping with the vocal style, which is almost ghostly, and the lyrics, which express uncertainty in terms of a traveler’s destination. A moody intro places us right in Psychedelic territory, but quickly becomes grounded in Country traditions at an unhurried pace.
Lyrical imagery of a person traveling by car, and reflecting on their hoped-for destination, “a light down in the valley”, could easily apply to a sense of exhaustion in life, attempting to find one’s way “home” or towards a place of greater security. Toler Gibson seem to run with that idea by leaning into the question of whether the speaker has a “soul that can’t be saved.” The mellow, reflective feel of the song leaves plenty of room for instrumentation to shine while carefully toeing the line between very specific imagery of a place the speaker recalls and more universal ideas of uncertainty in life. The duality of the song is deeply ingrained in the central image, where the speaker has “one foot on the gas, one in the grave.” Hope seems to remain as the only conclusion in this transitory state, but sometimes uncertainty leaves room for hope.
Gavin Toler shares about the song:
A song for strutting down Main Street, bar to bar. Walking and driving long miles through this weary world. Toler Gibson rolls on under the Sun’s melancholic smile, past happy cacti, down a lonely road towards a distant home they never seem to reach.
Toler Gibson previously released the album The Days Before in 2021, and the songs “River of Dust” and “Old Dark Spirit” in 2023.
Upcoming Shows:
7.05.2024: Toler Gibson Residency, Audiowild, Idyllwild, CA w/ guest TBA
7.07.2024: Grand Ol Echo, LA, CA
7.22.2024: 4th annual Idyllwild Honky Tonk, Rustic Theater, Idyllwild, CA
