joe woodard, musician-at-large
Out Now Dept.:
Joe Woodard, The Fine Art of Forgetting
(Household Ink Records, 2025, HI-168)
Joe Woodard; solo guitar and compositions (except “Music, Boxed,” by Claire Woodard)
Track listing: Music, Boxed, Song with a View, Palimpsest of Snow, Sweet Time, Disappearing Nightly, Thought-Gathering Mission, Convenient Memory (is a Gift from God), Fractured Valentine, Four Nights of Dreamer, Words Escape, No Point Beyond this Alcohol, Thought-Gathering Mission, Slight Re-turned, A Dream I’ve Yet to Have, Life in Progress, Music, Boxed (reprise)
links:
Digitalia: bandcamp, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Soundcloud .
For CDs: Discogs, Amazon, Household Ink Products page
Joe Woodard steps out of the shadows and the back lines of bands to unleash his second solo guitar album, The Fine Art of Forgetting. The newest solo guitar chapter in Woodard’s musical cabinet of wonders and oddities first went public with Wedding Album (On this Day), released in 2022 and mostly comprised of noodly pleasantries performed at the wedding of his daughter Claire and her now-husband John. Voila, Woodard, a guitarist/songwriter/sometimes singer/record company micro-mogul (Household Ink Records)/situationist embarked on a new series of albums under the “ambient dinner music” banner.
The Fine Art of Forgetting is a collection of compact guitar pieces both vintage and freshly-cooked, connected by a loosely-spun theme of inspirations drawn from dreams and memoryscapes.
Some tunes come from the mysterious creative ether. Others have more specific origin stories. “Song with a View” was written on the mountain/distant ocean-endowed back patio of Claire and John’s remote house above Pescadero, California. The view was to die for and to write about. (Claire’s conceptual handiwork is at hand with the tweaked music box bookmark tracks, Music, Boxed.”)
“Thought-Gathering Mission—” and its psychedelic doppelganger “Re-turned” track–concerns the transition phase after disorientation or lucid dreaming. “Four Nights of a Dreamer” refers to the dreamy Dostoevsky-inspired film by Robert Bresson. “Sweet Time” banks on its apparently sweet disposition. “Words Escape” bears a title which describes the sounds.
Speaking of which, never mind the words, here comes another blue plate special of “ambient dinner music.” Enjoy safely, or otherwise.
Joe Woodard’s list of bands and situations over the years has included Headless Household, flapping, Flapping, Dudley, Lucinda Lane, Tableaux Sonique, A Mother Country, a growing body of work under his own name, and other side tripping. By day, he’s also a writer/journalist, with three books out-–jazz books on Charles Lloyd and Charlie Haden, and the satirical novel Ladies who Lunch.
Press notes:
Santa Barbara Independent review, by Eric Larson, here
From Jazziz, November 2025 “Downloads” section:
https://jazzizdiscovery.com/downloads/discovery-downloads-november-2025-2/
Joe Woodard, “Song With a View,” The Fine Art of Forgetting (Household Ink)
The byline “Josef Woodard” will be familiar to longtime JAZZIZ readers. Joe’s been a treasured contributor to the magazine for decades and continues to pen album reviews for our Auditions section. In addition to sharing his critical acumen and deep knowledge about jazz — he’s written books about Charles Lloyd and Charlie Haden — the Santa Barbara, California-based Woodard’s also an accomplished guitarist and composer. He released his first solo album, 2022’s Wedding Album (On This Day), which celebrated the marriage of his daughter, Claire, to her now-husband, John, and follows it up with The Fine Art of Forgetting, another set of self-penned solo pieces for guitar. In his typically deft way with words, Woodard describes the album as “a collection of compact guitar pieces both vintage and freshly cooked, connected by a loosely spun theme of inspirations drawn from dreams and memoryscapes.” However, the quietly effervescent “Song With a View” was developed more consciously, inspired by the view from Claire and John’s back patio in Pescadero, with mountains and ocean providing a beauteous backdrop. Woodard articulates emotions beyond words with his impassioned finger-picking, as he impressionistically limns the landscape and the feelings it conjured within him.
–Jazziz
“…These are still waters that run deep. The tempos are mostly slow, and often loosely stretched, as in speech. The harmonies are equally free, a palette of rich and complex colors that shift from dark to light like shadows under a tree. The melodies are deceptively simple, sometimes past even before you knew they were upon you. All of these give the album a kind of floaty feel. Understated, whispering, sometimes even mumbling; never insistent.
Woodard himself calls the album “ambient dinner music,” and indeed it’s perfect for alt-holiday listening before a warm fire. But there’s a lot more to it than that, and these pieces amply reward deeper dives on repeated hearings. You may not come away humming the tunes, but the album’s wistful mood will linger long.”
–Eric Larson, Santa Barbara Independent
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Joe Woodard, Wedding Album (On this Day)
(Household Ink Records, 2022, HI-157)
Wedding Album (On this Day) is an EP consisting of instrumental guitar pieces by Joe Woodard, as played at the wedding of Claire Woodard and her betrothed John Pemberton, on June 21, 2022 at Greens in San Francisco. For the occasion, Claire asked if Joe might play pieces from his large book of what he called his “pleasant, noodly” guitar instrumentals at the event. As a summer project with a cause, Woodard recorded these numbers at Would-Be Studio.
Ambient Dinner Music? Could be…
The title tune “On this Day” (heard here in both instrumental and vocal versions) was played while the father guided the bride to the ceremonial destiny of a couple destined to be conjoined connubially. Salutations to the happy couple, on that day and into the wild blue future.
Woodard is still in the sentence construction business by day, but also avidly plugs away at various original music projects. He released a solo album, Goleta Electric, in April, 2022 (which introduced the EP’s song “Freedom in Kentfield,” in vocal clothes). Generally, he prefers to fold into group settings, such as Headless Household, flapping, Flapping, Lucinda Lane, Tableaux Sonique and more to come. (More to Come is not a band name, although, hm…)
Track listing: On this day, Claire-ity, Holidazed, Afternoon into Evening, Lulled, Page from the Past, It’s Wintertime, Topple the Morning, On This Day (vocal version), Found Weekend, Freedom in Kentfield.
Available, in digitalia and CD forms, in a lot of the usual outlets… Bandcamp, Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, Amazon, Discogs, Apple Music, iTunes, the Household Ink Records products page, and more to come.
–Read Callie Fausey’s article in the Santa Barbara Independent, 11-9-22 here
–“Creative Community,” with David Starkey on TVSB (public access TV, Santa Barbara) here
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Joe Woodard’s latest “faux folk” album, Goleta Electric. 18 tracks in various shades of folkishness, recorded during the hunkerdown, with multiple guests flying in tracks… after a “soft release” of Woodard’s humble mixes, the master musician-sound magician Jesse Rhodes set to work on “remixes–” now officially “real mixes.” CDs and digitalia now available, at usual and unusual places.
Bio here.
Sample: opening track, “Falling in with the Out Crowd,” linked here. First single, “Freedom in Kentfield,” here.
links to album in the digiverse: bandcamp, soundcloud, youtube, Apple Music, etc.
CDs: Household Ink Products page, Amazon, Discogs
Read Charles Donelan’s review in the Independent here.
“Prolific arts writer and longtime musical collaborator Joe Woodard steps out as a neo-folk songwriter on Goleta Electric. The album, which was recorded at the artist’s home studio during the pandemic, features musicians Jim Connolly, Zach Gill, Chris Symer, Brian Mann, and Bill Flores along with backing vocals by Ellen Turner, Allegra Heidelinde, Julie Christensen, and Shelly Rudolph. Quirky, literate, and uncompromising, Woodard’s tunes will appeal to listeners who favor the dry end of the 21st-century folk scene. Recalling similar intimate solo efforts by such artists as Jay Farrar and Jim O’Rourke, this is music for winter nights by the fire with a glass of something equally precious and well distilled. Credit Jim Connolly in particular for enhancing the album’s gorgeous sonic palette. Listen here on Bandcamp.”
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joe woodard: between
HI-130, 2002= $12/CD (ppd) products page
bio Spotify bandcamp soundcloud YouTube channel myspace page facebook
guitarist-songwriter-sort-of-singer joe woodard, who has traversed multiple byways of a blurry musical personality, comes home… or at least one home, as a self-described “faux folkie.” in-between working with groups Headless Household, flapping, Flapping, Dudley, Ballroom, and other projects, woodard has been working on between, for eight years. guests: glen phillips, bruce winter, ellen turner, allegra heidelinde, tom lackner, chris symer, dick dunlap, sally barr, bill flores, nate birkey, gabe lackner, robinson eikenberry…
“In the best tracks, Woodard, guitarist in Santa Barbara’s Headless Household, combines thoughtful, unexpected guitar playing, intellectually twisted yet painfully honest lyrics and heartfelt singing.” ~Jennifer Kelly, splendid e-zine
“songs of quiet loneliness, yes, but always with a twist in the tale.”
~Ted Mills, Santa Barbara Independent
1. its merry path 2. lots of time 3. between mp3 4. anthony robbins mp3 5. grown men cry 6. the strangest thing 7. drinking in earnest mp3 8. (cartilage: inverted light) 9. the having known mp3 10. news flash ( toronto blues society) 11. the seven-year itch mp3 12. (cartilage: birthday, slight return) 13. otherwise 14. the beauty of caving in 15. sweet pain 16. the birthday 17. the unbearable art of traveling light
(all songs by joe woodard, copyright 2002)
last modified: September 27, 2025