Silent Spike - The New Concept Album

COMING SOON- The Debut Album “Silent Spike”

First Single Release: March 2025

Album Release: Summer 2025

Silent Spike is a concept album that provides a meditation on the experiences of the “Railroad Chinese” (also known as the “Silent Spikes”) who built the first Transcontinental Railways in Oregon, California and Washington. It’s a story nearly a century long, starting with the first ocean crossings of the migrant workers and the building of the railway that made America a true two-coastal nation. Subsequent to the backlash that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Massacre at Dead Line Creek, the Sundown Towns where Chinese could be shot if seen after dark, and the expulsion of the entire Chinese community from La Grande, Oregon. The album concludes with a gentle meditation on the return of the remains of the Chinese buried in the Chinese cemetery in Baker City, Oregon to China.

Ken Woods wrote both the lyrics and the music. In telling the story of this largely forgotten piece of American history, Woods turned several years of historical research into seven poems which meditate on these key moments. “It was never my place as a 20th C. -born Anglo American dude from Wisconsin to speak for the Railroad Chinese,” says Woods. “Our actions and history robbed them of much of their voice. The workers on the first transcontinental railway alone sent over 250,000 letters to their families, but none have survived. Instead, most of these songs are about confronting what white America did to the Railroad Chinese and trying to understand how are acts might have affected them as fellow human beings. It’s about accountability and compassion.”

Musically, the album is a dramatic, guitar-oriented record that brings together Woods’ passion for all kinds of American music. In telling this 70 + year long story, the songs range widely in mood and style, from the roots rock of Sundown Town to the Psychobilly vibe of Ride the Rails. The harrowing story of the Lily White mine disaster is an all acoustic number, while the centrepiece of the record is the 21.5 minute long Dead Line Creek, named for the site of the worst atrocity committed against the Chinese. Conceived in part as a ‘cowboy music homage to Jimi Hendrix’s Machine Gun’ the song includes epic passages of collective improvisation from Woods and bandmates Joe Hoskin (bass) and Steve Roberts (drums) which each depict a different part of the dark story. Uniquely, collective improvisation from the three core musicians is used as a key means of storytelling. This kind of ‘narrative jamming’ gives drama, purpose and direction to improvised music.

Though the story of the Railroad Chinese has gone largely untold for nearly a century, it is one that resounds powerfully with the conflicts, challenges and madness of our own times: corporate greed, racism, xenophobia, gun violence, exploitation, drugs and economic depravation. “It’s not a pretty story, but there’s a beauty in the truth. And there’s beauty in the music. I feel deeply enriched by what I’ve learned writing this record,” says Woods “and I hope this story touches a few listeners in the way it has touched me.”

The Songs

1. The Voyage 15:38

To leave everything behind
Family, friends and home
To leave everything behind
All that you have known
To undertake the voyage…

2. Steel Stretcher 3:20

Steel stretcher
Mountain smasher
Stone breaker
Ditch digger
Through walls of stone and snow
Gonna build the iron road

3. Dead Line Creek 21:12

They did it. They did it for gold, and they did it for hate.
Set an ambush. And laid there in wait.
They traded lead for gold, and every life they could take.
Thirty-four dead men on the shores of the snake.

4. Sundown Town 4:44

Now that you’ve done
What they brought you here for
This is a place
You ain’t welcome no more

5. Lily White 5:43

Folks here tell stories ‘bout the old Lily White
About how the mine’s owner Paid in dynamite
They say he blew up the mineshaft, So his miners were trapped,
Then he covered the entrance, And took off with the cash.

6. Ride the Rails 5:29

September 24th in 1893, a terrible depression brought despair and poverty
200 angry men without a future or a job, took up guns and torches and formed a fearsome mob
And these townsfolk came together, full of anger and false pride
They marched forth like an army, that made their neighbours terrified. And they said:
“Ride the rails you made. Travel the tracks you laid
If you wanna stay in this here town, there’s a terrible price to be paid

7. Gather the Ghosts and Bones 4:13

Gather the ghosts and bones,
The last ship sails for home.
Open the graves and move all the stones,
It is time at last to go home.
Time at last to go home.

Production details

Recorded in Fieldgate Studios, Penarth, Wales.
Additional recording and overdubs, Andrew Road Music Room, Penarth, Wales.
Co-producer, engineer and editor – Andrew Smillie
Co-producer, composer and arranger – Ken Woods

The musicians

Guitars, cellos, keyboards, vocals – Ken Woods
Bass – Joe Hoskin
Drums and percussion – Steve Roberts

Backing vocals – Sam Woods
Violin and viola – Suzanne Casey