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Jeffrey Dean Foster - Live on Deaconlight

Jeffrey Dean Foster makes a live appearance on Deaconlight at ErrorFM.com Wednesday, September 19, 2007! I'm hoping he will bring his guitar and sing some songs, and maybe bring some records to play as well.

Tune in at ErrorFM.com - free Internet radio - live and worldwide from Deaconlight's Den with DD, starting at Noon ET, 9:00 a.m. PT, and 1700 GMT.

Deaconlight's Jeffrey Dean Foster Record Essay

• Jeffrey Dean Foster - Million Star Hotel: Released 2005
  Commentary - 24 December 2005
   

Deaconlight's Also Recommends

• Jeffrey Dean Foster - The Leaves Turn Upside Down: Released 2002
  At Amazon
   

Jeffrey Dean Foster Links

• Jeffrey Dean Foster's Web Site
  www.jeffreydeanfoster.com
• Jeffrey Dean Foster at MySpace
  www.myspace.com/jeffreydeanfoster

Press About Million Star Hotel

The Day - New London, CT - Thursday April 6th 2006
by Rick Koster

Million Star Hotel Angel Skull Records

On the one hand, you wonder how many folks like Jeffrey Dean Foster are lurking around out there, of zero interest to major record labels (presumably because they're good and have something to offer other than a jaw line or a resume in a reality show). On the other hand, as demonstrated on this consistently excellent CD, Foster occupies some pretty rarified air. While effortlessly conjuring pleasant aural images of Neil Young, the Byrds, Brian Wilson, and Chris Bell, Foster, over the course of a few listenings, admirably establishes his own identity as a literate songwriter for whom hooks fly off his fingertips like a magician tossing glitter over a room full of awe-struck kids.

Magnet Magazine - March 2006
by Fred Mills, Associate Editor

Jeffrey Dean Foster - Million Star Hotel (Angel Skull)

While it's common to cite the early-'90s ascendancy of the Chapel Hill scene (Merge Records, Superchunk, Polvo, Archers Of Loaf, etc.) as evidence of a golden era for North Carolina, longtime residents know that the mid-'80s was an equally fruitful period. One of the greats was unquestionably the Right Profile, hailing from Winston-Salem (yes, that same geographical-artistic gene pool that gave us the dB's and Let's Active) and specializing in a riveting, drenched-in-emotion brand of rootsy power pop.

Sadly, the vicissitudes of the record biz conspired against the quartet: A deal with Arista failed to yield a long-player and the band was history before the decade was out. Drummer Jon Wurster, of course, subsequently earned fame with Superchunk, while guitarist Jeff Foster went on to work with Don Dixon, the Carneys and the Pinetops.

Foster eventually tested the solo waters in '02 with the live-and-lo-fi The Leaves Turn Upside Down, and he now returns with his first full-blown solo studio effort, Million Star Hotel. The album is elegantly stoked by co-producers Mitch Easter and Brian Landrum to spotlight Foster's honey-sweet high tenor, his classic-rock-leaning arrangement skills and his feel for rescuing poetic truths from longing, heartbreak and reflection.

Highlights include the Ryan Adams-esque "Lily Of The Highway," twinkly power-popper "The Summer Of The Son Of Sam," brash anthem "Lost In My Own Town" (with its outrageous Move/ELO "Do Ya" steal) and the piano-and-trumpet meditation "Milk And Honey" (a veiled anti-war tune recalling Tom Petty circa Southern Accents). If Ryan Adams had been humble (and smart) enough to distill the best 14 songs from his three recent records onto a single platter, we might have Million Star Hotel.

Incidentally, even if the name Jeffrey Dean Foster isn't familiar, it's likely his face will at least register on a subliminal level: He was the guitarist in William Shatner's house band for that classic string of P! riceline.com commercials featuring Captain Kirk's, er, estimable talents at the microphone. [www.jeffreydeanfoster.com]

Pop Culture Press - March 2006
by Andy Turner

JEFFREY DEAN FOSTER - Million Dollar Hotel (ANGEL SKULL)

Jeffrey Dean Foster releases don't come around too often, but when they do, they're always worth your time. Since the early '80s, his work with the Right Profile, the Carneys and, more recently, the Pinetops, has put Foster among North Carolina's elite musicians.

The five-years-in-the-making Million Star Hotel (slang for being homeless), put together with help from Mitch Easter and Brian Landrum among others, is his most ambitious effort yet. Foster says correctly that it sounds as if it could have been recorded "in the last or the next 35 years." Merging classic rock, roots music and pop experimentation with Foster's reliably brilliant songwriting, the album recalls the likes of Big Star, Wilco, Neil Young and even the Flaming Lips. "The Summer of Son of Sam," in which "the devil left his mark and the freebird hit the ground," is a wonderfully realized remembrance of youth, with Foster's sweet tenor positively perfect. The achingly beautiful "Milk & Honey," recorded at 4 a.m. with Mercury Dime's Cliff Retallick on piano and organ, is a stunner.

While mostly low key, the album does rock out occasionally and effectively ("Little Priest," "I Know How Your Broken Heart Feels"). At 14 songs and more than 65 minutes of music, Million Star Hotel requires a bit of an investment, but reread the first sentence: worth your time. Foster does not disappoint.

This page was updated June 23, 2008.
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