Thriftstore Masterpiece

Thriftstore Masterpiece is not so much a band as a conceptual entity put together by producer Charles Normal. Dreamed up in 2000 after obsessing over Lee Hazlewood's 1963 debut Trouble Is a Lonesome Town, Normal wanted to put together a project where he and his musician friends re-recorded classic or overlooked albums, beginning with Hazlewood's classic concept record about an imaginary town called Trouble. Work began on the album in 2007 in Portland, Oregon, where Normal spent time when not living in Oslo, Norway, but the album was soon put on a back burner when his brother Larry Norman died of heart failure the next year. The project slowed for a while, but eventually saw completion in 2013, when Normal's six years of piecemeal work resulted in reworkings of the ten original songs featuring guest appearances by indie rock stars including Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, Pete Yorn, Frank Black, the late Larry Norman, and even an appearance by Normal's mailman Jerry, who acts as the album's narrator.