American Goldwing

American Goldwing is the sixth studio album by Portland, Oregon-based band Blitzen Trapper, released on September 13, 2011 on Sub Pop Records. Described by Rolling Stone magazine as "full of Dylan mysticism, spidery acoustic Dead jamming, tasty 1970s rock moves and evocations of high-plains drifters with itchy trigger fingers drinking from jam jars," the album went on to placing at #104 on the Billboard 200, #32 on Top Rock Albums, #20 on the Alternative Albums chart, #19 on the Tastemaker chart, and as high as #4 on the Folk Albums chart. It was the band's last album with label SubPop, which they had been with since their breakthrough studio album, 2008's Furr.

Conception

"I usually write songs pretty fast, in like 20-30 minutes," Eric Earley said. "For the new record [American Goldwing] I wrote them all in a month or so. I'm not a good deliberator, I get out a guitar and it comes to me." In his Sub Pop assessment of the band and his own songwriting, Earley indicates a tragedy, "a death of which I can’t speak," spurring on the writing and recording of the album. "Writing American Goldwing felt much ... like being pinned beneath a giant motorcycle, and its vision is that inescapable past, those feelings of being trapped in a small town, that fine line between the rural and the suburban settings that define much of America, that line between love and loss that occurs when you find yourself 'taking it easy too long / sticking around this lonesome town.' It’s me trying to hazard a true American nostalgia."