STRAND OF OAKS: SURVIVAL OF THE FICKLEST
“Everything that happened, happened for a reason.” -Timothy Ross Showalter
Words by Jasper Willems
After arriving at Amsterdam’s Backstage Hotel, Timothy Ross Showalter playfully yanks the Tim Duncan jersey I’m wearing. "Yeah, The San Antonio Spurs!" he raves, rejoicing a sense of familiarity within these somewhat foreign confines. The Spurs have six more games to win in order to redeem a heartbreaking Finals loss to the Miami Heat a year ago. Eventually, my Spurs would defeat Miami in five games and triumphantly bring the trophy back to the Riverwalk. Not only a fulfillment for a team that was presumably down for the count (a year ago, I felt completely, utterly thrashed), but a victory for all purists of team basketball.
Turns out that Showalter is one of those purists.
It’s no coincidence he hails from Indiana, one of the true strongholds for the game of basketball. From Larry Bird to the Hoosiers, the fans are downright rabid down there. Not surprisingly, Showalter once had hoop dreams of his own, before eventually embracing a life of writing and performing music under the moniker Strand Of Oaks.
His fourth album, HEAL, embodies a comparable journey to my Spurs: the album’s title presents a ‘tough love’-mantra that spurs (oh, most definitely pun intended) Showalter to pick up the pieces of his - often fickle - existence. It’s a wonderful, charming record: earnest, self-effacing, vulnerable, funny. And at specific moments, kind of dark. For one, the direction of the album was incited by a near-fatal car accident that involved both Timothy and his wife Sue. But despite its grimmer moments, HEAL consolidates all of Showalters past and contemporary heroes, making them palpable and often endearingly tacky.
In a way, HEAL is more Wes Anderson than Lars Von Trier, with its off-beat kind of depth and vividness: even when Showalter is down for the count, he’s never a complete downer. Opener ‘Goshen ‘97’ is instantly buoyant, thanks to J. Mascis’s signature guitar spasms. To offset the songs initial wide-eyed sentiment, Showalter wistfully sings ”I don’t wanna start all over again.” Isolation, indeed, takes on a different meaning once you turn 32, as opposed to when you’re a teenager.
Needless to say, listening to HEAL really gives a sense of getting to know Showalter intimately, which made the transition to interviewing him all the more natural. He’s not into that ‘tortured mysterious artist’-shtick. Nope. He’s the kind of guy you want to take out for a beer and unabashedly share conspiracy theories with - without being frowned upon.
Above all, whether it’s on the hardwood or on stage, Timothy Ross Showalter is the kind of guy you want to root for.
So were you any good at playing basketball?I was a pretty good ball player. But eventually, I got horrible joint problems.
Rheumatic?Yeah, I had rheumatic arthritis. It’s okay now, but back then I went from being the star in my hometown to just being…well, for one I couldn’t walk! So when I couldn’t play basketball anymore, I decided to try my luck with music instead.
Nonetheless, you’re subjecting those digits of yours to some abuse there. Exactly, exactly. Like I said, quitting basketball is the only reason why I play music now. My brother played basketball and my grandpa was a basketball coach.
Did your family encourage you to play music at first?No! No, my family is not musical at all! It was really weird. Nobody gave me records…some people have their dad’s vinyl that they can listen to and stuff. My dad didn’t really like music. He likes what I’m doing right now, but at the time he didn’t. He was like: ‘Why are you dressing weird?’ All of a sudden, I was like a punk rock kid. I basically went from basketball to punk rock, I just started changing the way I dressed. It took a long time. I’m 32 today and just now my parents are starting to think of my music as something pretty cool. We’re very close, but they still don’t know why I chose to do this. I got a text from my mom saying: ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ And I text back saying: ‘Well, I’m visiting Amsterdam!’ But yeah, the basketball thing is funny. I never talk about it, but it’s such an integral part of my life. Every summer I went to basketball camp. Did you ever see the movie Hoosiers?
But of course!Marvin Wood [whom Gene Hackman’s character Coach Norman Dale was based on] actually coached my dad for one season. My grandpa was a good friend of his actually. Okay, let’s go even deeper: the guy who always gets in trouble because he shoots before he passes [Jimmy Chitwood in the movie; real name Bobby Plump], he was my dentist! Shawn Kemp was from my hometown as well, I used to see him play when I was little. My hometown had mostly short white kids playing pick-up games in the gym, and then 6’11 Shawn Kemp would show up doing 360° dunks. He actually broke a backboard once. We had never seen a player like that up close up to that point. Ever.
Words by Jasper Willems
After arriving at Amsterdam’s Backstage Hotel, Timothy Ross Showalter playfully yanks the Tim Duncan jersey I’m wearing. "Yeah, The San Antonio Spurs!" he raves, rejoicing a sense of familiarity within these somewhat foreign confines. The Spurs have six more games to win in order to redeem a heartbreaking Finals loss to the Miami Heat a year ago. Eventually, my Spurs would defeat Miami in five games and triumphantly bring the trophy back to the Riverwalk. Not only a fulfillment for a team that was presumably down for the count (a year ago, I felt completely, utterly thrashed), but a victory for all purists of team basketball.
Turns out that Showalter is one of those purists.
It’s no coincidence he hails from Indiana, one of the true strongholds for the game of basketball. From Larry Bird to the Hoosiers, the fans are downright rabid down there. Not surprisingly, Showalter once had hoop dreams of his own, before eventually embracing a life of writing and performing music under the moniker Strand Of Oaks.
His fourth album, HEAL, embodies a comparable journey to my Spurs: the album’s title presents a ‘tough love’-mantra that spurs (oh, most definitely pun intended) Showalter to pick up the pieces of his - often fickle - existence. It’s a wonderful, charming record: earnest, self-effacing, vulnerable, funny. And at specific moments, kind of dark. For one, the direction of the album was incited by a near-fatal car accident that involved both Timothy and his wife Sue. But despite its grimmer moments, HEAL consolidates all of Showalters past and contemporary heroes, making them palpable and often endearingly tacky.
In a way, HEAL is more Wes Anderson than Lars Von Trier, with its off-beat kind of depth and vividness: even when Showalter is down for the count, he’s never a complete downer. Opener ‘Goshen ‘97’ is instantly buoyant, thanks to J. Mascis’s signature guitar spasms. To offset the songs initial wide-eyed sentiment, Showalter wistfully sings ”I don’t wanna start all over again.” Isolation, indeed, takes on a different meaning once you turn 32, as opposed to when you’re a teenager.
Needless to say, listening to HEAL really gives a sense of getting to know Showalter intimately, which made the transition to interviewing him all the more natural. He’s not into that ‘tortured mysterious artist’-shtick. Nope. He’s the kind of guy you want to take out for a beer and unabashedly share conspiracy theories with - without being frowned upon.
Above all, whether it’s on the hardwood or on stage, Timothy Ross Showalter is the kind of guy you want to root for.
So were you any good at playing basketball?I was a pretty good ball player. But eventually, I got horrible joint problems.
Rheumatic?Yeah, I had rheumatic arthritis. It’s okay now, but back then I went from being the star in my hometown to just being…well, for one I couldn’t walk! So when I couldn’t play basketball anymore, I decided to try my luck with music instead.
Nonetheless, you’re subjecting those digits of yours to some abuse there. Exactly, exactly. Like I said, quitting basketball is the only reason why I play music now. My brother played basketball and my grandpa was a basketball coach.
Did your family encourage you to play music at first?No! No, my family is not musical at all! It was really weird. Nobody gave me records…some people have their dad’s vinyl that they can listen to and stuff. My dad didn’t really like music. He likes what I’m doing right now, but at the time he didn’t. He was like: ‘Why are you dressing weird?’ All of a sudden, I was like a punk rock kid. I basically went from basketball to punk rock, I just started changing the way I dressed. It took a long time. I’m 32 today and just now my parents are starting to think of my music as something pretty cool. We’re very close, but they still don’t know why I chose to do this. I got a text from my mom saying: ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ And I text back saying: ‘Well, I’m visiting Amsterdam!’ But yeah, the basketball thing is funny. I never talk about it, but it’s such an integral part of my life. Every summer I went to basketball camp. Did you ever see the movie Hoosiers?
But of course!Marvin Wood [whom Gene Hackman’s character Coach Norman Dale was based on] actually coached my dad for one season. My grandpa was a good friend of his actually. Okay, let’s go even deeper: the guy who always gets in trouble because he shoots before he passes [Jimmy Chitwood in the movie; real name Bobby Plump], he was my dentist! Shawn Kemp was from my hometown as well, I used to see him play when I was little. My hometown had mostly short white kids playing pick-up games in the gym, and then 6’11 Shawn Kemp would show up doing 360° dunks. He actually broke a backboard once. We had never seen a player like that up close up to that point. Ever.
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