Third Annual Stephen Fredette Benefit

Fredette Benefit 2009 Lineup

2009-11-07T16:01:00.000-05:00

The Lizard Lounge

1667 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA, 02138.

(617) 547-1228

November 7, 2009, 6 pm- 2 am
Third Annual Benefit for Stephen Fredette

Live Recording Session

Free food served between 6:30- 7:45 pm

$12 admission - $ 10 before 9 pm

21 + admitted

(1:05 -1:45 am)
Drug Rug
http://www.myspace.com/drugrugdude

(12:15-12:55 am)
Morgan Nagler and Vanesa Corbala
from "The Whispertown 2000" [Los Angeles]
http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/press

(11:25 pm -12:05 am)
Nina Violet [Martha's Vineyard]
http://www.myspace.com/ninaviolet

(10:40-11:15 pm)
Lady Lamb The Beekeeper

[Portland,Me]
http://www.myspace.com/ladylambthebeekeeper

(10:05-10:30)
The Chris Brokaw Twelve String Guitar Trio
http://chrisbrokaw.com/

(9:30-9:55 pm)

Pony, featuring Stephen Fredette

http://www.myspace.com/thepony

(8:55-9:20 pm)
Jimmy Ryan Hayride !
w/ special guest Mary Lou Lord
http://jrmando.com/music.html

(8:20-8:45 pm)

Kelsey Bennett

[Brooklyn]

http://www.myspace.com/kbsongs

(7:50-8:10 pm)

Seana Carmody and Dave Norton
http://www.myspace.com/seanacarmody

(7:15-7:40 pm)

Sway

[Northampton]
http://www.myspace.com/swaymusicforever

(6:40-7:05 pm)
The Sheraton Commanders

featuring David Fredette and Richie Hughes

http://www.myspace.com/bostonoysters

(6:10-6:30 pm)

The New Black Magic Rainbow Trio
Featuring Jesse Gallagher of Apollo Sunshine
http://www.myspace.com/blackmagicrainbow

All proceeds from the door go to Stephen Fredette.

Supplementary donation is welcome, but not expected.
All performances will be recorded in audio and video.
Interest in, respect for and attention to the performers
is a presumption of attendance.

Readmission from the bar upstairs is available to those wishing to engage in substantive conversation during performances.

thank you
questions > essentuky_17@yahoo.com or (617) 497-6202

limited parking available behind Lizard Lounge
Cambridge cabs after the T closes -
Ambassador Brattle (617) 492-1100
Checker (617) 497-9000

Stephen Fredette

2009-11-02T14:08:00.003-05:00

http://www.myspace.com/thepony
http://www.myspace.com/stephen_fredette

http://www.jimsullivanink.com/content/view/1621/1/

From
Third Annual Stephen Fredette Benefit

Stephen Fredette - you may remember him from Scruffy the Cat, a roots-rocking '80s Boston band - has played a lot of benefits in his day. Musicians get sick, musicians lack proper insurace; musicians depend on a little help from their friends. That's the way it goes in this NO SOCIALIST MEDICINE FOR US! (WELL EXCEPT MEDICARE) country. But Fredette, who had a bone marrow transplant last winter, is battling lymphoma and it ain't cheap. He has insurance, yes, but, he says "there's a lot of out-of-pocket expenses and co-pays." Fredette's pal, longtime promoter-Boston music booster Billy Ruane, is putting on another benefit for his bud, this time Saturday Nov. 7 at the Lizard Lounge. Billy does not just put one a couple of acts. Nope, he packs the house and here we have Drug Rug, at the top of the bill, playing around 1 a.m. Before them: Morgan Nagler (in photo) and Vanesa Corbala (both from The Whispertown 2000), Nina Violet, Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, The Chris Brokaw Twelve Sring Guitar Trio, the Jimmy Ryan Hayride, Kelsey Bennett, Seana Carmondy (ex-Swirlies) and Dave Norton, Sway, The Sheraton Commanders (featuring Stephen's brother David on guitar) and the New Black Magic Rainbow Quartet. Each act will play about a half hour and a wide range of sound is promised. Some particulars: Doors are at 6 and free food will be offered between 6:30 and 7:30, which will probably include fried chicken and fish tacos. Now, there are no advance tickets. It's all walk-up and it costs $10 before 9 and $12 (both cheap) afterwards. For a profile of Morgan Nagler and what she and her band are up to - and a chat with Fredette about his life - click "read more." (The URL at the end of this piecee will link you to the acts' websites.)

One of the key acts is Morgan Nagler and Vanessa Corbala, the female and singing half of alt-country/folk/indy rock band The Whispertown 2000. Q calls Whispertown 2000’s music equal parts “wonder and darkness.” Uncut wrote of Whispertown 2000’s last disc: “Swim is the kind of record you wish people made more often: rural music played by suburban kids with an intuitive feel for the unruly punk heart of old-time country. Nagler’s expressive voice has a baleful twang that shunts these songs - some with the most minimal of arrangements, some like ragged revivalist hoedowns – into the same lugubrious territory as Bonnie Billy or Oberst himself. It’s a ploy that cleverly subverts itself on “Lock And Key” and “From The Start Jamboree”, where their own communal folk shanty is appended by a foggy mountain breakdown that’s part Bill Monroe, part Silver Jews. They’re experimental too, prone to sudden squalls of guitar, weird electronic bits and even weirder whistling noises that sound like some spectral tribe hooting an advance across the Virginia hills. In the case of “Erase The Lines”, all within the same song.”
We spoke with Nagler - who came to a measure of fame as a child actress back in the '80s - about what she and her band have been up to, its evolution and about this acosutic Cambridge gig.
Nagler started off playing solo, just acoustic guitar and voice. She called the project Vagtown 2000. Um …. “The whole Vag thing was really a terrible joke,” says Nagler. “At some point, when I heard the Whisper 2000 ad from the late-‘80s - it was something designed to overhear other people’s conversations …” Well, Nagler moved from Vagtown became Whispertown. “I was happy not to say the word ‘vag’ all the time,” she says. “This is perfect.”
“The band grew bit by bit. I started by myself and then Tod [Adrian Wisenbacker, guitar] and I started playing as an acoustic duo. Colt [Maloney, bass, no longer with them] came in in 2004 and in 2006 ‘Livin’ In A Dream’ came out, when Vanessa joined on drums. And then Tod’s brother Casey [Holden Wisenbaker, guitar] joined.”
It’s that group that made “Swim” and the new EP, “Done With Love,” out on vinyl in the UK and soon to be an iTunes download.” Whispertown 2000 is signed to Gillian Welch’s label, Acony.
What does she prefer? A semi-rocking band or solo acoustic? “It’s fun to play with a punch of people and rock out,” she says. “But acoustic is also great. We don’t normally do it, but Billy wanted a more broken down set. A totally acoustic show. We’ll do old material and new.”
Whispertown 2000’s songs are often somber, displaying various shades of sadness and emotional strife. “I feel songwriting for me is the best outlet for all of that stuff,” says Nagler. “A lot of people don’t know what to do with it. I like to think of it as a conscious thought-out process, but I like to think it’s closer to tapping into the subconscious, without being filtered. Those are the things that need to come, the pain and sadness. That’s not to say my life is full of pain and sadness. My songwriting is really about hope, acknowledging the pain and sadness.” Yes, she says, “people do get this impression” that she’s that woman singing the songs.
Whispertown 2000, she says, has been on tour in the US, UK and Europe constantly over the past eight months. She’s on a mini-break now where she’s writing songs. Which are coming from where? “The songwriting thing come in phases and right now I feel like coming from a viewpoint, I recently haven’t described yet. I believe in a soul. But I started to question the magic, and the idea that science is less amazing even if it’s not crazy supernatural. I’m looking at life from a different stand point in my mind Science used to be separate form spirituality. Recently, I’ve been looking at it as one
thing. … It may not be so obvious in the songs.”
Stephen Fredette, now 53, was diagonsed with mantle cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma in August of 2007. He's being treated at the Dana Farber Cancer Institue. He has undergone six rounds of chemotherapy and had a bone marrow transplant in April - the donor being, he believes, "a 20-year-old woman from Europe,
probably German, meaning I'm genetically female as my blood has XX chromosomes. I'm a chimera ... One good thing about chemotherapy, you have a clean slate. You can read things you read two months before" and not remember them. "One small boon." Fredette, who used to work in a book store, has thousands of books as companions.
"The bone marrow transplant was succesful and anti-climactic at the same time," he says. "I'm considered a whiz kid by my doctors. In a normal transplant, the body may reject the organs. In a bone marrow transplant, the transplant can reject you and there are horrible ways it manifests itself. And I have not had have a trace of that. It occurs in 80 percent of the cases, but I'm OK." He immediately jokes that now that's he's stated that, he's opened the door to a world of bad, coming any moment now.
"It's an incredibly rare form of cancer," Fredette continues. "They can rid of it, but it tends to come back right away. About 3000 people a year get it in this country. It's pesky. I came in on this cusp where a lot of work had been done [treating it] so I'm sort of breaking ground."
As you might be able to tell, the rocker has not lost his sense of humor. It's a coping mechanism, of course, but it's always been part of Fredette's life, so he's basically applied it to a situation he describes as being "inconvienced and annoyed."
How so? Well, he's on these immuno-supressant drugs until next April and until then he's essentially quarrantined to his Hull home. He doesn't even go to the attic or basement. Too much dust, dirt or mildew potential and a possibility of contracting a disease he can't fight off.
"I'm under restrictions," he says. "I have a far more effective bracelet than most crimials do. If I were to go out and pick up a stray virus, I would die. I can go our for a nice walk on the beach or in the woods, but I can't go shopping or to a club."
And that makes him feel ... "All cancer and no play makes Jack a dull boy," he says paraphrasing Stephen King's famous line from "The Shining," as memorably typed out by psychotic novelist Jack Nicholson in the movie.
This means that Fredette's band, the Ponys, won't be playing at the Lizard Lounge benefit Saturday. "I can honestly say that I can't be there, but I really would like to be there and see people and say hi and thank people." He recommends people greet him through his brother, guitarist Dave Fredette, who will be there.
As to Billy Ruane, the guy who's organized this cavalcade of acts for the third straight year, Fredette says, "Billy has been such a huge help. There is insurance paying for it, but the way insurance goes, there's a large out-of-pocket thing, and I've been unemployed for three years. ..."
How does he feel? "When I was first diagnosed there was a lot of pain. At the worst, I had my spleen removed a year ago - it had become really cancerous - and I was not feeling really good and lost tons of weight. Now, physically, I feel absolutely normal. I feel great."

http://fredettebenefit3.blogspot.com/2009/10/fredette-benefit-2009-lineup.html

http://fredettebenefit3.blogspot.com/2009/10/fredette-benefit-2009-lineup.html
1667 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, 617-547-0759 www.lizardloungeclub.com

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

2009-11-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

1) a few youtubes to start
2) bio & pics
3 ) hype & pics
4 ) press / blog reviews
5 a) The Tower of Sound performance space/ video locus
b) All Youtubes and MP3s ,
c) Youtubes with lyrics where available

INTRODUCTORY VIDS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_401Cy_7NE

" Dinosaur Song "( February 15, 2008 )

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyStOOXRmuw

" Sunday Shoes " at Dead of Winter Festival (January 25, 2009 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsDxAWSVSYk

" Sunday Shoes " , Tower of Sound (February 20, 2009)
*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7R8ilQPeQ

" Ghost/Walrus " ( Tower of Song )November 7, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YXr9JKcvKw

" Beluga ", Space Gallery (March 13, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2k1Q8AEwpE

"Penny Licks/The Nothing" , Space Gallery (March 13, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W8Ef27cQ5w

Comet Flies Over The Underbelly (May 23rd, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ni8LIf30I

" Until I Am Bones " at Mass Art (April 16, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3NZWy6HzZ0

Aly " Solar, Solar System " @ Indie Songwriters in the Round (July 24, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZnrW4kY45k

"Antique Shop " at Mass Art (April 16, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9PfIWBR1s

" You're Turning Violet, Violet Clementine! " Portland Phoenix Best of Awards Show (April 15, 2009)

#

bio / photos

http://www.myspace.com/ladylambthebeekeeper

CONTACT US: ladylambthebeekeeper@gmail.com

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/News/84068-What-are-the-odds/

May 27, 2009

Best New Act - Lady Lamb the Beekeeper [ RUNNER UP ]

Best Female Vocalist - Aly Spaltro, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper [ RUNNER UP ]

Discography:

" World Tour 2009 EP " (2009)

"Lady Lamb the Beekeeper on the Red Telephone Show, September 2009 " ( 2009)

http://theottersden.wikispaces.com/Lady+Lamb+the+Beekeeper

"Samples For Handsome Animals " (2008, Eternal Otter Records)

"The Tingly Circus" ( out of print )

"Someday We Will Levitate" ( out of print )

*

myspace photo album

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=229207601&albumId=1260857

^

individual pics

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=229207601&albumID=1260857&imageID=11910249

http://havefaithinworthlessknowledge.com/2009/01/dead-of-winter-09-introductions-aly-spaltro/

Dead Of Winter ‘09 Introductions: Aly Spaltro

How long have you lived in Maine?
I’ve lived in Maine (Brunswick) for 5 years.

When did you start playing music?
I started playing music about a year and a half ago.

I got a recorder before playing anything, because at the time,

I was interested in holding off playing guitar until I had the means to layer instruments one by one.

Who do you usually perform with?

I perform with my best friend TJ Metcalfe.

We’re the duo called Lady Lamb The Beekeeper

*

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/Music/74522-Rehearsing-their-choir/?page=2#TOPCONTENT

December 31, 2008

Nearly as charming as this 45-minute "sampler" .. is the duo's origin tale.

In short: Boy, 23 (T.J. Metcalfe), buys girl's record at a store in Brunswick; boy sees tiny girl (Spaltro, age 19)
wield a huge guitar and captivate an audience at a live show;
boy and girl become besties; boy sleeps on girl's air mattress;
boy and girl play music together and record songs in a basement.
An irony of that low-key tale is how organized and professional Lady Lamb's rollout into the consciousness of the local music scene has been.

The duo have, since May, played the monthly "Tower of Song" during First Friday Art Walks, broadcasting through much of the Arts District from a Congress Square apartment.

At a street-level table, friends of the band sell records, collect tips,and sell tickets to upcoming Lady Lamb performances,
of which there have been plenty:
the group recently debuted at the Big Easy and SPACE Gallery,
and they headline a show at One Longfellow Square on January 2,
with often-blistering local rockers Dead End Armory opening.

In the meantime, they've begun work on their first full-length as a duo,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_CnUiMvWjs

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/Movies/72339-Fabulous-flicks/?page=5

and found time to record a video
for their winsome song "Antique Shop," which won their manager,
Will Ethridge, a Best Music Video award at thePhoenix's Short Film Festival in November.

*

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/85567-Portland-Music-News-June-26-2009/

June 24, 2009

LADY LAMB THE BEEKEEPER are no longer a duo.

Chanteuse ALY SPALTRO will kick off the band's next phase
with a solo show (accompanied by a looping station) at One Longfellow Square June 25.

^

http://thepinehavencollective.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-friday-art-walklady-lamb.html

Low-fi, DIY, uniquely Maine-ish, grit pop pretty well describes their sound...

^

HYPE

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/74146-And-then-some/?rel=inf

And then some...
An addendum to the year in local music
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | December 23, 2008

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Handsome Animals (Eternal Otter Records)
Portland's hottest new indie duo that we just can't stop talking about
(we'll review this album next week),
TJ Metcalfe and Aly Spaltro just released this sampler of the band's early tracks and Spaltro's solo material at Bull Moose stores.
Spunky and sprawling, the group would be a force to reckon with even if the 19-year-old Spaltro hadn't already proven herself

Portland's most commanding new female vocalist in quite some time.
^

http://thepinehavencollective.blogspot.com/2009/01/pine-haven-collectives-wierd-weekend.html

[ excerpt ]

This blog may be starting to seem like the official Space Gallery fan club page, but that's hardly our fault.
The thing is that if Space would stop putting together killer shows, we'd stop writing about them.

That, however, doesn't seem likely in the near future,
as evidenced by the Home Town Heroes "Dead of Winter" show slated for Saturday (February 24, 2009) night.

Personally, I'd go if it was just going to be Aly from Lady Lamb the Bee Keeper alone on stage (not to beat a dead horse on that one, but yes, she's that good--

*

http://hillytown.com/news/lady-lamb/

Nov 13 2008 This Band Has Buzz

[excerpt]

If you have yet to see this fantastic duo of Aly and TJ,
come out tonight to see the band before their growing buzz makes local shows rare!

http://hillytown.com/news/photos-lady-lamb-the-beekeeper-paper-birds-at-meg-perry-center/

Tue. Feb 10 2009 Lady Lamb The Beekeeper + Paper Birds at Meg Perry Center

[ excerpts ]

It’s been a great streak for the band since we first talked about them in November, over which time they played at just about every venue around, packing just about every show.

Also of note was Aly Spaltro’s show-stopping performance
at the Dead Of Winter show at SPACE...

*

http://thephoenix.com/Providence/Music/75849-Music-Seen-Dead-of-Winter/?rel=inf

Music Seen: Dead of Winter
SPACE Gallery, January 24, 2009 By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Erin Sprinkle of Plains, working with Billy Libby as Seymour,
quietly proved why hers is one of Portland's most resonant and soulful voices;

ditto young Aly Spaltro of Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, except for the quiet part.

Her songs, so simultaneously impassioned and tremulous
you feared she might collapse, brought the house down.

*

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=277725

Music Q & A - Samuel James bringing blues back to basics

Best local show you ever attended?

The last Dead of Winter show, the second Aly Spaltro walked on stage.

*

http://eternalotterrecords.blogspot.com/2009/03/handsome-animals-lady-lamb-beekeeper.html

Handsome Animals - Lady Lamb the Beekeeper Live @ SPACE 3.13

After taking a little break from playing live
(with the exception of Tower of Song and a few guest appearances),
Aly + TJ of Lady Lamb the Beekeeper returned on Friday the 13th
for what might have been their best show to date.
It was a good crowd at SPACE gallery, and Montreal-based band Shapes & Sizes got us sufficiently warmed up for the face melting, heart tugging music to come.
The already climatic drumbeat stomp of former show closer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2k1Q8AEwpE
"Penny Licks" provided the groundwork for a re-imagining of "The Nothing" -
a deep cut from the self-released debut, The Tingly Circus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5HReSPyEs
They then somehow managed to top themselves
with a new song named for their miniature deer- "You're Turning Violet Clementine".
It ended in sort of a gender-reversed White Stripes rock out
with TJ pounding away at the drums while Aly shredded on the banjo.

This is the best band in Portland, and one of the best currently walking the earth.
And don't take my [Will Etheridge ] word for it.
Check out this post [ directly below] at the Pine Haven Collective.

http://theottersden.wikispaces.com/Lady+Lamb+the+Beekeeper (itunes linked )
And, if you haven't already,
head over to iTunes and get their album "Samples for Handsome Animals".

*

http://thepinehavencollective.blogspot.com/2009/03/speechless.html

Friday, March 13, 2009

Speechless.
Just got home from the Lady Lamb & Shapes and Sizes show at Space,

and I just have to say, Lady Lamb is the best thing ever, consistently mind-blowing.

Look out because those two are bound to take over the world soon, very soon.

The amount of talent that they collectively possess is unfathomable.

If you haven't seen them yet, go. Just go.

*

http://angioplastymedia.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/lady-lamb-the-beekeeper/

Lady Lamb The Beekeeper

Took a few listens to their tracks up on their page and really took a liking.

Constant plays while sitting at the office during the day time
with many a folks stopping in and asking who it was I was listening to...
Really beautiful electro/acousticy pop songs w. kazoos at times.

I received a package in the mail from them that was also stunning.
Gold envelope with a wax seal, iron on giraffe hanging from a tree emblem
for my favorite tee, and a beautiful new disc I believe.

*

http://hillytown.com/news/tower-of-song-fest-lltb/

*

May 22 2009
Tower Of Song Fest: Lady Lamb The Beekeeper

If you’ve been paying any amount of attention to the Portland music scene
(or, in particular, this site) for the past 6 months or so,
then you’ve probably become fairly well-acquainted
with the quirky experimental pop duo of Lady Lamb The Beekeeper.
They first caught my attention back in November and have only gotten better, more interesting, and way more popular in the time since.

One of the cornerstones of the Tower Of Song (including the Festival), they hold down the all-important lead-in to the final set of performances at tomorrow’s Festival, playing at 5pm.

*

http://theottersden.wikispaces.com/Tower+of+Song+Festival+Line-Up

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper:

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper have cemented their status as Tower of Song legends by playing almost every show since the beginning of the project's creation.

Therefore, the Tower of Song Festival would not be complete
without Aly Spaltro's commanding vocals and lyrics that always perfectly capture the moment

("I saw so many pretty people staring at their feet- look up! look up! look up!").

And Lady Lamb the Beekeeper would not be complete
without TJ Metcalfe and his arsenal of instruments and winning smiles.

Make sure to come down to Congress Square during their set,
you might just hear your new favorite band.

*

http://eternalotterrecords.blogspot.com/2009/06/lady-lamb-beekeeper-live-one-longfellow.html
SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2009
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper LIVE @ One Longfellow Square 6/25

Aly Spaltro played her first solo show as Lady Lamb the Beekeeper
since parting ways with TJ Metcalfe on Thursday at One Longfellow Square.

Although Aly admitted to feeling lonely up on stage,
she crafted a spellbinding performance that simultaneously
dug deep into the past while pointing towards the future. ..
The most startling revelation from the night
was when she played a slow-downed version
of The Nothing (the rap usually sandwiched into the middle
of the marching band stomp of Penny Licks) on banjo. I cried....
Aly Spaltro's a one-women army now.
She will open up and swallow you whole. But it will feel so nice upon your soul.
POSTED BY WTE AT 10:18 AM

#
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/88345-Music-Seen-Lady-Lamb-The-Beekeeper-at-Empire/

Music Seen: Lady Lamb The Beekeeper at Empire

By CHAD CHAMBERLAIN | August 19, 2009

It's easy for Portland to get behind an act
as well-put-together as Lady Lamb the Beekeeper.

Aly Spaltro takes to a new level a likeable Maurice Sendak aesthetic somewhat common to "indie-rocker scene" —
suspenders, knickers, face-paint whiskers, and a quasi-shy attitude.

But musically it is as if she seeks to contradict this childish image with insightful songs that share a world vision with the likes of Kimya Dawson.

From a narrative standpoint, she seems to encapsulate something nostalgic about young love;
she forces us to miss our summer-love melodramas of yesteryear.

We — the audience — are easily sold on this mix of visions
from our childhood storybooks and remembrances of love when it actually hurt.

#
REVIEWS

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/Music/74522-Rehearsing-their-choir/

[excerpted below - see url above for article in full]

Rehearsing their choir
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper are easy to find, easy to love
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | December 31, 2008

HEADED FOR ORBIT: Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, from their “Antique Shop” music video.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | December 31, 2008

Epically twee, and then simply epic, "Comet Flies Over the Underbelly" —
the fourth track on Lady Lamb the Beekeeper's Samples for Handsome Animals —
is, for a minute or two, almost unbearable.

Aly Spaltro, the duo's 19-year-old siren (you can take the term pretty literally;
hers is the most forceful voice local ears have heard in some time),
coos a fast-food order with a backdrop of jingly acoustic guitar:
"Hello/I would like a cheeseburger/With extra pickles please/
And a french fry/Oh make it a large."

Then she orders a Dr. Pepper, and just as you're ready to toss the song in the trash heap of Juno-generation pastiche,
Spaltro's voice hits an uncanny pitch of desperation.

At once tired, lonely, and urgent, her sighs of "I love you" and "I would never hurt you"
elevate all of those nauseating pop references into something raw and familiar...

You're tempted to call "Until I Am Bones" a showcase for Spaltro's specific, visual songwriting ("I love you/Until I am bones), until it breaks into an ebullient, ramshackle jam of bells and electric and acoustic guitars.

Handsome Animals plays like a B-sides collection in the best way possible:
it's the sound of an ambitious new band exploring their potential,
and running across gems of ideas at nearly every turn.
Be sure to check them out before they get too slick. And too popular.

*

http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2008-03-28§ion=4&id=6

" Aly Spaltro’s tender-trebled voice belts out ballads like Joanna Newsome."

[ excerpt ]

She writes her songs on her bed, according to her CD insert.
Accompanied by her rough yet sweet-stringed guitar,
as well as random instruments such as a borrowed glockenspiel,
she sings of the sky, which is, she says, like her Grandfather's eyes;
and of love, "which is all we have."

In addition to certain lines common to the indie genre,
her lyrics tend to be fresh and forward.
"I'm going to put you in my song and sing you loudly"
is an example of such bold declarations that reflect
a worldliness along without cynicism, an unlikely pairing.

Drawing inspiration from Bright Eyes, Amy Winehouse,
Broken Social Scene, and Camera Obscura, among others,
her raw vocals speak of years beyond her tender age.

*

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/Music/73572-Live-Lady-Lamb-the-Beekeeper/

[excerpted below - see url above for article in full]

Live: Lady Lamb the Beekeeper "Tower of Song," December 5

Aly Spaltro — whose voice, often simultaneously doo-wop and punk rock, i
s astonishingly forceful for her tiny frame and 19 years —
scats her way through a crisis of loneliness.
Below the window,
a friend mans a table with merchandise and upcoming concert tickets for sale.

Inside (a nice, comfortable apartment),
the duo spend a goodly amount of time rearranging an array of instruments(xylophone, keys, drum, harmonica, guitar) for the next song, as TJ Metcalfe interacts with the spectators outside from on high.

The successive songs cover a lot of ground —

the sad/cute indie-pop of the Moldy Peaches,
the structural ambition and brashness of the Fiery Furnaces, garage rock —
all impassioned, fun, and industrious, and a surprisingly universally appealing soundtrack for the First Friday crowd.

^

http://thepinehavencollective.blogspot.com/2009/01/follow-up-lady-lambs-got-me-all-little.html

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Follow Up: Lady Lamb's Got Me All Little Bo Peep.
If you want to see the future of the Portland music scene,
do it at the next Lady Lamb the Bee Keeper show--wherever and whenever it is.

These guys are a pretty serious find,
one that we'll almost inevitably hear more and more about in the coming months....

In fact, this unassuming girl-guy duo left me feeling
for most of the older more established Portland acts.

Here they were, on a Friday night headlining one of Vacationland's more serious venues, clearly articulating the future with guitars, drums, bird calls, kazoos, keys and the occasional bass part.

While the songs they played spanned from fairly standard New England singer/songwriter solo acoustic stuff to pound-a-drum-shred-the-guitar freakouts, Lady Lamb is at their best when driving musically and getting weird.

The fact that no one (never mind two) should have such a good voice
and solid grasp of the merits of sparse instrumentation at such a young age is moot.
These guys have both, and I hope they're here to stay.

*

http://poptartssucktoasted.blogspot.com/2008/09/band-of-week-lady-lamb-and-beekeeper.html

Band of the Week: Lady Lamb and the Beekeeper

My first impression lent me images of Fiery Furnaces and Moldy Peaches, but of course that's just lazy association thanks to the fact that they are all duos that feature a boy and a girl, they all have gentle acoustic guitars, and they are all too cute for their own good.

What separates Lady Lamb and the Beekeeper from the other duos
is their ability to revel in the good nature of small town folk,
to craft music that is happy and devoid of sarcasm, yet is still intellectually stimulating.

Call it the best of both worlds if you want,
but this folksy pop music is just the right amount of sweet without any fear of aural cavities.
Plus, it's pretty damn catchy stuff as well.

#

The Tower of Sound , Youtubes & mp3s , Youtubnes & Lyrics

a ) The Tower of Sound

http://theottersden.wikispaces.com/The+Tower+of+Song

[ jpg - outside the tower of sound - from where, inside and out, some of the vids below were shot. ]

http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/03/04/its-like-the-buildings-are-listening-the-tower-of-song-in-portland-maine/

“It’s like the buildings are singing”: the Tower of Song in Portland, Maine

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/Music/73572-Live-Lady-Lamb-the-Beekeeper/

“We thought, ‘Why don’t we open the windows
and point the PAs in the opposite direction to give people an impromptu concert?’”

“The Eastland Hotel and all the buildings around here act like this giant brick amphitheater,”
Johnny says. “The sound fills out. It’s like the buildings are singing.”

Inside, a few people clap and drink slushy, frozen beers
(Welcome to Portland, where the fridge warms up your beer).

The real audience is outside, walking around the eerie land of the frozen chosen,
with their hands buried deep in their pockets, listening to the live show.

A few hoot up at the show from the sidewalk.

*

http://theottersden.wikispaces.com/TOWER+OF+SONG+FESTIVAL

The Tower of Song Festival,
celebrating the 1-year anniversary of the Tower of Song Project,
will take place Saturday, May 23rd, 2009.

The festival will feature 9 of Portland's best bands and musicians
playing live from the top floor of the historic Schwartz Building overlooking Congress Square.
The music will be amplified to the streets below,
creating a massive concert experience that will reach
from the Portland Museum of Art to Monument Square.

We started the Tower of Song simply because we love Portland and all it has to offer,
and we literally felt like shouting our joy from the rooftops.
The Tower of Song was created by 3 individuals who love Portland and its music,
and it has grown because of the incredible musicians that come play,
and an amazing, art-loving community that supports us.

Did you name the "Tower of Song" after the Leonard Cohen song?
Yes we did. If you know Leonard Cohen, and he wants to play, please contact us immediately.

Music from a Tower? Why don't you play on the street?
We feel playing from the Tower allows us to present the music in a unique fashion,
and also brings attention to Portland's beautiful architecture.
The Eastland Hotel and Portland Museum of Art also acts as a sort of amphitheater that transforms the music into something more ethereal and resonant than you'd expect from a show in a club or bar. In fact, it sounds as if the buildings themselves are singing.
One young girl even commented that she thought the music was coming from heaven.

email theottersden@gmail.com for more information.

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W8Ef27cQ5w

Comet Flies Over The Underbelly (May 23, 2009) ( lyrics below )

http://www.dogandponymusic.net/episodes/lady-lamb-the-beekeeper/

http://canusetcaballionis.blogspot.com/2009/06/tower-of-song-episode-2.html

Tower of Song - Episode 2
[dog] and [pony] - Tower of Song Sessions
Episode 2 - Lady Lamb The Beekeeper
05.23.09
The Scene:

There is a glee - quiet and meditative at first,
then expanding outwards to fill the room, the corner, the street, the city.
The glee starts inside a person, or people - as it may be,
it spreads out through finger tips into instruments,
it flutters vocal chords and parts teeth as it gets picked up by microphones.
It vibrates ear drums and sternums and windows and wires.
It bounces off brick and tar and glass and bone.

That glee is music. It took over Portland toward the end of May.
It grabbed the microphone at the Tower of Song and wouldn't let go for hours.

That glee is Lady Lamb the Beekeeper. For about an hour, anyway.

Front woman - and currently the only member -
Aly Spaltro is the little girl with the big voice.
I remember the first time I heard her at Dead of Winter '09
as a watershed moment in Portland music - for me, anyway.
Tiny Aly Spaltro took the stage. Hidden behind an acoustic guitar,
Spaltro stood in front of a room of carousers,
drinking and conversing, making merry.

But they all shut up when she sang.

The room turned to absolute, cricket-chirping, pin-dropping silence
save for Spaltro and her voice and her guitar crashing around the room.
Spaltro's presence controlled the room
as a pebble dropped into still water controls the waves.

The silence was religious, awing. It was pure and real.

Lady Lamb will do that.

The songs are, at first, at least, simple little tales.
Naïve observations. But that betrays a purity at the core of the music.
Giggly pop delight abounds as Spaltro coos sweet nothings
to the fast food drive through box.
But beyond that, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper muses
on the simple things that you care about when you're younger.
These first values are true values - truer than many that accrue as years pass by.

The irreverence-at-first that shows through Lady Lamb The Beekeeper's music
is another facet of the Tower of Song.
The festival is a joyous celebration of Portland's music. It's a pop festivity.
Songs ring giddy down Congress street
as bands blast their music over the crowded square.
But that joyous celebration belies a deeper core.
The celebration is more than a simple get-together.
Just the fact that the Tower of Song exists
says something profound about the Portland music scene.
It is packed with talent. It is diverse.
It is brimming with celebration and passion for the scene.

The Tower of Song is ostensibly just a show. But look deeper and it's a community.
The festival had beaming organizers, rows of vendors, corporate sponsorship.
The festival had nine bands featuring dozens of performers.
The dedication, devotion and worship of a scene coming together
for something that is, superficially, just a rock and roll show is so much more.

So when Spaltro vacillates on what size fry to order,
she's singing not only about treating herself to a delicious and unhealthy snack -
she's singing about everything behind that decision.
She's singing about every moment of dread
about waistlines, dollars, and commitments to a greener living.
She's singing about the desire for a simple loved thing
and all the drive and yearning and satisfaction behind that.

The Tower of Song is a festival,
Lady Lamb The Beekeeper sings about ordering take-out.
But the simplicity of ordering a cheeseburger and Dr. Pepper is fallacious.
There's desire and anticipation.
And calling the Tower of Song simply a rock and roll show is a lie, too.
There's a community coming together beneath every note.
Every banjo-pluck and drum kick represents commitment and drive
on the part of the organizers, the band members, the vendors, the sponsors.

The performers at The Tower of Song had a level of anonymity.
The names, the music, that was there for everyone to witness.
But the performers remained locked up in the tower. There was no face to the music.
So when Aly sings into a faceless drive-through intercom,
she's experiencing that same level of anonymity.
She and her greasy paramour are just voices in the night
as she waxes romantic about the life they could have.

Eventually these performers will come face to face with their audience.
They leave the apartment and mill about in Congress Square.
They play a venue. They sell T-Shirts and CDs.
Eventually Aly will get her meal,
she'll hand over a wrinkled five dollar bill and exchange a look with her confessee. She'll get a burger and some fries and a Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper.

That's the final element, of course, is the interaction.
Putting musicians up in a Tower will separate them from the city physically,
but having them play ties them in spiritualy.
The musicians and the city are not oil and water.
Without the one there would not be the other.
Sure, Portland would exist without the scene, but not the Portland we love.
And sure the musicians would exist without Portland,
but they wouldn't have this community which breeds, fosters and foments their music.

So it's all give and take.
Spaltro sings sweet nothings and gets a meal.
Portland gives support, an audience, a base and gets art, pride and music.

Musicians give their sweat and blood and passion. Portland gets glee.
Posted by Krister Rollins at 00:07

#

B ) Youtubes & MP3s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_401Cy_7NE

" Dinosaur Song " Sweet Leaves Teahouse (February 16, 2008)

This is footage from my very first live set back in February as a solo performer.

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyStOOXRmuw

" Sunday Shoes " at Dead of Winter Festival , The Space Gallery , Portland, ME (January 25, 2009 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsDxAWSVSYk

" Sunday Shoes " at Tower of Sound, Portland, ME (February 20, 2009)

^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UirgugF96o

" Ghost/Walrus " at Tower of Sound [IV] (August 1, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7R8ilQPeQ

" Ghost/Walrus " ( Tower of Song ) (November 7, 2008)
*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u47Tuh1pQrM

" Until I Am Bones " at Tower of Sound (August 6, 2008)

http://angioplastymedia.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/02-until-i-am-bones.mp3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ni8LIf30I

" Until I Am Bones " at Mass (April 16, 2009)

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_CnUiMvWjs

" Antique Shop " music video (September 29, 2008 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZnrW4kY45k

"Antique Shop " at Mass Art (April 16, 2009)

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiW1WLcMVgA

Aly, Sontiago and dilly dilly cover Destiny's Child "Say My Name " (February 26, 2009)

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YXr9JKcvKw

" Beluga ", Space Gallery [I] (March 13, 2009)
*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5HReSPyEs

" You're Turning Violet, Violet Clementine! ", Space Gallery[II](March 13, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9PfIWBR1s

" You're Turning Violet, Violet Clementine! "
Portland Phoenix Best of Awards Show (April 15, 2009)
*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2k1Q8AEwpE

"Penny Licks/The Nothing" , Space Gallery [III] (March 13, 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL72vvRiT04

" Penny Licks/The Nothing " at Mass Art (April 16, 2009)
*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W8Ef27cQ5w

http://www.dogandponymusic.net/episodes/lady-lamb-the-beekeeper/

Comet Flies Over The Underbelly (May 23, 2009)

The last known filming of Aly Splatro and TJ Metcalfe
as Ladylamb The Beekeeper
at the first ever official Tower of Song Festival.

*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3NZWy6HzZ0

Aly " Solar , Solar System " @ Indie Songwriters in the Round (July 24, 2009)

#

Videos w/ lyrics where available

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=229207601&blogId=468246786

Lyrics! ( February 05, 2009 )

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=229207601&blogId=502877429

New Lyrics ( Wednesday, July 29, 2009 )

^

C ) Youtubes w/ lyrics & comment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_401Cy_7NE

The Beekeeper: Dinosaur Song (February 2008)

A Dinosaur Song

I'd like to tie today up in my hair, like to collect the hours
we still could dance for a jam jar on my nightstand.
I'd like to fly my spine like a kite, want to see you walk through that doorway
and into this room where I am waiting for you.

You like the sea. And how the sea began with a drop of sweat soaked into a cloth
swiped across the brow of God and how he wrung it out into sharp teeth to scales
and how the carnivore was born.
And how he flung us forward into day and night and how we floated down as if hot air balloons
with consciences like faulty landings. Our bodies skin thin and desirable, how I desire you.
Our bodies, thin-skinned and desirable how I, how I desire you.

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyStOOXRmuw

Aly Spaltro (Lady Lamb ) - " Sunday Shoes " at Dead of Winter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsDxAWSVSYk

Aly Spaltro (Lady Lamb ) - " Sunday Shoes " ( ToS )

http://havefaithinworthlessknowledge.com/2009/01/dead-of-winter-09-photos-and-video-from-you/

A lot of people I spoke with after the show seemed to agree that Aly Spaltro of Lady Lamb The Beekeeper was a surprise hit - I guess many of them hadn’t seen her band yet..

The whole room went dead silent about halfway through this song [ "Sunday Shoes" ] .

Sunday Shoes

You scuffed your Sunday shoes
When you leapt the fence
To chase the wolves from
Your baby sister
Who was eating dirt
In the flower bed
Near the house where
Your mother hung her head
And wept for the lord
To fill her up
Like buttermilk pancakes
At Sunday brunch

The town was swept away
In oceans of praise
With talk about how
We’re headed home
And how we’ll all be held in the arms of
The most selfless love
And the good that we have done
Is already written down
And we shall all become a phenomenon

You scuffed your Sunday shoes
When you leapt the fence
To save your sister from those hungry wolves
But you fell the wrong way,
Yeah, you broke your leg
And now
The animals are turning their heads
They’re turning-NO NOW THEY’RE TURNING BACK
THEY’RE TURNING BACK
To take you to their den and lick your bones
To take you to their home and kiss all on your bones
But don’t be afraid
To go with them
Don’t be afraid to be carried home
The sky will open up;
It will swallow you whole
But don’t worry my love
It will feel so nice
On your SOUL
So nice on your soul

And you will be laid to rest
By gentle hands
And you will be sorely missed by
Your absent father
And you, you will become
Your most favorite color
You, you will become your most favorite color
Imagine that
And you will become like the dinosaurs:
Discovered, and laid to rest
Like the dinosaurs
Puzzled over, then laid to rest
Like the dinosaurs
Pieced back together
Then laid to rest
So don’t, don’t you fret for your baby sister now.

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u47Tuh1pQrM

http://angioplastymedia.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/02-until-i-am-bones.mp3

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper - " Until I Am Bones " Aug 6. 2008 ( ToS)

Until I Am Bones

Whether I have cucumbers over my eyes, or whether I have coins I love, I love you until I am bones.
Until I am bones. I have been waiting for you all my life. Wherever you are, go on and show yourself to me.
Whether I'm on my way to the city, or whether I'm headed home I love you, I love you in my bones!
I'm going to put you in this song. I'm going to sing you loudly, sing you loudly.
I'm going to put you in this song. I'm goin to sing you loudly, going to sing you loudly.
Gonna put you in this song I'm gonna sing you loudly. GONNA SING YOU LOUDLY gonna put you in my song.

And whether I have cucumbers over my eyes, or whether I'm on my way to the city.
If there are coins over my eyes, or if I'm headed, headed home.
You know I love you, oh, how I love you til I am bones.

I have been waiting for you all my life. Wherever you are, go on and show yourself to me.

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UirgugF96o

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper - " Ghost/Walrus " Aug 1, 2008 ( ToS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah7R8ilQPeQ

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper - " Ghost/Walrus " November 7 , 2008 ( ToS)

Walrus

I took a walk outside today. I took a walk outside today. I took a walk outside today, it made me late!
You took a walk into the sea. You took a walk into the sea.
I watched your cheeks go underneath; I walked away.

The trees look like my grandmother's fingers. The trees look like my grandmother's hands, you know.
The trees look like my grandmother's fingers when she takes off her wedding bands, oh oh oh.

I saw so many pretty people. I saw so many pretty people
I saw so many people staring at their feet. Look up! Look up! Look up!

The sky looks like my grandfather's eyes. The sky looks like my grandfather's eyes.
The sky looks like my grandfather's eyes when he's singing. Ladida-da-da-da!

I took a walk outside today. You took a walk into the sea.
I watched your teeth go underneath; I was too late!

But you look like you could be my friend. You look like you could be my greatest friend.
You look like you could be my friend--Don't go away. Oh, no no no. Don't go away.

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_CnUiMvWjs

[ Lady Lamb ] Antique Shop

Antique Shop

I walked into the local antique shop. They had a violin so I picked it up. I played a note.
I walked into the local antique shop they had a purple dress with polka dots. I tried it on.
I walked into the local antique shop. They had a statue of a mother.
I walked into the local antique shop.
On the wall was a map with many mountains. I thought about leaving the place I was living.

I grabbed my violin and I packed my dress. I hung the map in the van and I headed west.
With a cat-induced sickness; a jar of nectarine jam.

Been thinking about leaving the place that I'm living, been thinking about leaving the place that I'm in.
Been thinking about leaving the place that I'm living, been thinking about leaving the place that I'm in.
Been thinking about leaving.

*

http://thephoenix.com/Portland/Movies/72339-Fabulous-flicks/?page=5

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper's Antique Shop

Best Music Video: Antique Shop
Directed by Will Ethridge

Will Ethridge fell in love with Lady Lamb the Beekeeper's music

after the two-person band from Brunswick played live

on the Portsmouth Community Radio show Ethridge hosts.

The 25-year-old Portland resident, who says he derives

part of his creative inspiration from a loose filmmaking/music collective

he formed with friends across the country,

decided the boy-girl duo would be great fodder for a music video.

The result is Antique Shop — a giddy romp along Congress Street,

in a local apartment (it's Ethridge's, btw),

and into a surreal world filled with apples, exotic animal figurines, and graveyards.

The well-framed, colorful, eclectic shots reflect the lilting, stylized music,

and both band members appear comfortable

(not to mention attractive) seen through Ethridge's lens.

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper might be "thinking about leaving the place that [they're] in," but viewers will want to stay a while in the world Ethridge created.
*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YXr9JKcvKw

Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, March 13th 2009 @ Space Gallery, Portland, Maine (Part I)

Beluga

Beluga

I knelt before The Sky awaiting Her reply,
but she refused to pour herself all over me.

So I bowed my head in shame

The Sea was, she was hugging my waist
and mumbling words of encouragement that I would only forget.

And I wished for to unlearn, unlearn,
unlearn the alphabet.
So as to make the sounds slide off my tongue
in the shape, in the form of the Ancient Sun! ....

My song would make the earth a little warmer
and I would hope it would make it a little brighter.
And my song would go, it'd go: ladida da da.
Ladida oh oh oh oh oh. Lada di da da da di da

And I laid myself on down
and i drifted out out towards the center, towards The Lighthouse.

And I thought in only pictures in my head,
reverse every image to make it majestic.

And I began to sink into the deep, the deep Caress.
The heavy depth. The Honey Swell, The Honey Swell

and I, I wished for to become a beluga whale

to be that song that someone sings to the one they love
to send them off to sleep.
To send them off to sleep.
That one song that someone sings to the one they love the most.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh sleep
Drifting off to sleep Drifting off to sleep
Drifting out to sea.

Oh oh oh oh sea.
Drifting out to sea,
drifting out to see, oh do you still want me.

oh oh oh oh See?
Oh baby, don't you see
how I long to sing you to sleep.

baby beluga in the deep blue sea,
you swim so wild you swim so free
the heavens above and the sea below
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5HReSPyEs

You're Turning Violet, Violet Clementine!

Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, March 13th 2009 @ Space Gallery, Portland, Maine (Part II)

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2k1Q8AEwpE

Penny Licks/The Nothing

Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, March 13th 2009 @ Space Gallery, Portland, Maine (Part III)

Penny Licks

Maybe when we're gone, long gone. You can have our bedroom as your own.
And we can't seem to find a stable table, so we'll just take our eggs and we'll be on our way.
And when we pay our tolls, you should pay us a compliment like:
'You have lovely eyes' or 'Your bone structure is quite exquisite.'

WE WILL CRANE OUR NECKS. WE DO NOT WISH TO MAKE A BABY.
WE WILL CRANE OUR NECKS. WE WERE NOT BUILT TO RAISE THIS CITY UP.
WE WILL CRANE OUR NECKS. WE DO NOT WISH TO START A FAMILY.
WE WILL CRANE OUR NECKS. WE WERE NOT MADE TO BUILD THIS CITY UP.

The Nothing

Hands hold ankles taut soft while lips and tongue take breath into lungs
held to hold fork firm to eat from purple street. if you know what i mean.

Rain falls and snow melts and every day a baby doesn't make it.
King of Owls perches in my chest,
Was I made child by accident , you know i never asked for this
But every day a baby waits
and the struck match burns at the point of strike-sharp cut to blue and then the light.
oh, then the light.

Lip of a window, lip of a can, lips of your lover, the sea lipped on the sand.
Am I a pale attempt at a full-limbed lion; were we a travesty
To love in the jungle of our hearts so wild and tangled and pulsing
Oh won't you tell me? Tell me, please.

Cause we could be like Adam and Eve
We could take our clothes off right here
We could eat the food from the trees
you know it sounds so good to me .. how does it sound to you ?

We did not frolic like rabbits,
we ran like hares chased by hounds until we tripped and gone was our dignity .
But from the distance erupts a sound as loud as trumpets
hearts rise up in song to the surface.
I dare say, Build Your Love As Big As Buildings.

And don't hesitate to use the stairs
yeah take your time getting there.. up to your love.
because once you reach that door, you'll know it was worth the walk .

I bowed in her essence and when I rose
I found my face in my hands.
like a bent and swaying ocean, like a lonely ocean.

So, don't hold that dead bird in your hands
You will need them
to hold your family and friends when they are sad,
when they need you the most
yeah, make sure you pick up that phone..

Sobs can be heard from the highest heights
but don't turn your face skywards - after all, this, too, shall pass

Oh, but what grief it is to love someone, to love them as your own,
but watch them turn and walk away
too unhappy to speak a word or stay.
oh, stay..

This pain that decorates my chest,
is heavy as a piece of furniture that I must carry.
Yeah, it challenges, it weakens me

But just when I think that my spine might split,
you know the weight, it is lifted
and I'll rest, I'll rest, oh, don't you know I'll rest upon it.

Don't worry, friend .. you will find time for sleep
Cause the bees will not fail to seduce the flowers
They will make mothers out of every last one.

Don't fail to love your own mother
She loves you. like the sky loves the sun

and now,
there is something like a needle in our ears
but we are not fearful.

This is , you know this is the way that it is,
This is the only way
You must harness that pain..
Just rip it out and toss it away, toss it away ..

You'll amount to something,
You won't wash away .. if you just get out of bed,
If you use your legs
Whether you choose to leave, whether you choose to stay..

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9PfIWBR1s

Portand Phoenix Best of Awards Show 4/15/09 [ You're Turning Violet, Violet Clementine! ]

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiW1WLcMVgA

http://eternalotterrecords.blogspot.com/2009/03/say-my-name-video.html

Aly w/ Sontiago and dilly dilly "Say my name "

Sontiago, Aly and dilly dilly cover Say My Name- Destinys Child-Ukulele Style!

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W8Ef27cQ5w

http://canusetcaballionis.blogspot.com/2009/06/tower-of-song-episode-2.html

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper Tower of Song Festival June 16, 2009 [ Comet Flies Over The Underbelly ]

Comet Flies Over The Underbelly

Hello. I would like a cheeseburger with extra pickles, please. And a french fry. Oh, make it a large. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I'd like a Dr. Pepper. A Dr. Pepper, Doctor, please. That's my favorite carbonated beverage. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

One, two, three, four. Who's that knocking at the door? Don't get up or I'll slit your throat! Haha, I'm only kidding, no. Oh, I would never hurt you. I could never hurt you. And if we want we can find the spot where the skycrapers don't touch. We can blot out the moon with our thumbs when we get bored.

You're my greatest friend, that's why my pillowcase is your favorite shirt. That's why my pillowcase is your favorite shirt. That's why my pillowcase is your favorite shirt. And it's my favorite when I wash it and you where it home. It's my favorite shirt when I wash it and you wear it home ONE TWO THREE FOUR:

HEY STRANGER on the street! May I please have a piggyback ride? A piggy-back-back, piggyback, piggyback ride, Sir? Why thank you kindly! You're my new very nice friend; I like you alot! Let's get some lunch, let's have a talk!

She was standing up on the stage in her cowboy boots with a beat-up guitar! And I just wanted to WALTZ on up to her. And hand her my heart. But we had to leave. You see, we really needed to eat.
And so it goes...

Hello. I would like a cheeseburger with extra pickles please. And a french fry, make it a large. I'll take a Dr. Pepper. A Dr. Pepper, Doctor. Mmmm, and a cookie dough pie!
(Don't forget my napkins!!)

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3NZWy6HzZ0

Aly of Lady Lamb [ SOLAR, SOLAR SYSTEM ] July 24, 2009

Solar, Solar System

Don't Tell me your name
I'm okay
Just seeing you from where I'm standing
Don't tell me your name
I'm okay
Seeing you from where I'm
Standing

But do you ever feel like there's
A solar system under your skin?
..All your organs suspended
and doing strange things?
Is there a piano where you live?
(I don't have a piano but I wish that I did)
Now, you don't have to answer me
No, you don't have to entertain me
No you don't have to answer me
You don't have to entertain me

But the person asleep in your bed
Oh, they want you
Even when you're angry,
Oh, they want you
Even when you're quiet
Oh, they want you
But the only thing that matters
Is whether you want them too
Does your bed get big and boring sometimes?
Do you stay up all night?
Are you exhausted in the morning?
You don't have to answer me
You don't have to enterain me.

You don't have to
Answer me
You don't have to
Entertain me
But I'm afraid
From where I'm standing
And I'll still be afraid
To take a step
In your direction
cause there's this solar,
Solar system
and it is doing
The strangest things to me
And do you cry
At the movies?
Do you write
in the margins of your books?
You don't have to look
Look my way
You don’t have to stay

But I want you
Even when you’re angry
Oh, I want you
Even when you’re quiet
I
Want
You

Whispertown2000

2009-11-01T15:00:00.024-05:00

http://www.sorrylion.com/liad/
http://myspace.com/whispertown2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whispertown2000
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0619382/

From Third Annual Stephen Fredette Benefit

Morgan Nagler
http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/press/
http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/theband/
http://www.sorrylion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3
Whispertown2000 forum
^
1) Whipsertown 200 Discography and Bio
https://store.thewhispertown2000.com/
http://www.sorrylion.com/liad/buy.htm

WHISPERTOWN DISCOGRAPHY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whispertown2000
Discography
/ Livin' In A Dream / (2006)
/ Swim / (2008)

Members
Morgan Nagler - Lead Vocals, Guitar, Songwriter
Tod Adrian Wisenbaker - Guitar, Drums
Vanesa Corbala - Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Casey Holden Wisenbaker - Bass, Guitar, Drums

Former Members
Colt Maloney - Bass

History
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0784404/
A native of Oregon
who grew up in Los Angeles,
Nagler met and befriended fellow former child actor,
Blake Sennett,
in the mid-1990s.
Soon after he and Jenny Lewis formed the band Rilo Kiley in 1998, Nagler also began writing songs and singing.
In 2004, Nagler performed her songs before a live audience (with help from friend Tod Adrian Wisenbaker) as the opening act for The Elected
(Blake Sennett's side project from Rilo Kiley).
[1]

At that time, she referred to herself as Vagtown2000. Nagler credits Sennett and Lewis for giving her the support to record and perform her own songs.
[2]

In 2005, Nagler and Wisenbaker changed the name of their group to
Whispertown2000 and asked Corbala and Maloney to join. During the fall 2006 tour, Casey Wisenbaker (Tod's brother) also joined the band.
[3]
Maloney parted ways with the band in 2007.

Their debut album, Whispertown2000 - /Livin'
in a Dream/ was finished in 2006 and is available online and at their shows. Their album was produced by Blake Sennett and Jimmy Tamborello
(of Dntel
and The Postal Service).
Additional performers include Jenny Lewis,
Blake Sennett, and Johnathan Rice.

On October 21st, 2008, the band released their second full-length album,
"Swim" on AconyRecords.
Along with this new release, the official name of the band changed to The
Whispertown 2000.
^
http://www.sorrylion.com/liad/history.htm

Here's the history of Whispertown2000 according to Morgan:

well, I used to just play by myself.. then Jenny [Lewis, of Rilo Kiley] kept trying to encourage me to get a band and play! So she told Tod he should play with me and me I should play with Tod, and so he and I met up to play and it worked great!
So Jenny played key board with us until we were on our feet.. then I happened to meet Colt socially and he and Tod had played in a different band together, he loved iron will and said he wanted to play bass..and so tod, colt and i played.. then I started writing songs on my 4 track like wishing well and stuff with many back up vocal parts and thought it was sad because I could never do them live!
And Tod said Vanesa, his girlfriend, had a great voice! So, knowing her a little, I said.. Vanesa, you're in the band! Before ever hearing her.. and it worked out great!
and, so, that's the long and short of it!
love, morgan

The band used to be called Vagtown2000 when they started out, but that name was kinda silly and got embarrassing for Morgan after a while. I think it wasn't till around early/mid 2005 that she changed it to Whispertown2000 (no space!). The inspiration for the (new) name came from a device called the Whisper 2000
( http://www.sorrylion.com/liad/whisper2000.jpg)

which is a sound amplifier for the hard of hearing that also just so happens to have the number 2000 after the name. The band has put out one CD so far, / Livin'In A Dream / , which was self-released in early 2006. Tod's brother, Casey Wisenbaker joined the band later that year. Colt parted ways with the band in late 2007 as they began recording their second cd, due out in 2008.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Sign The Whispertown 2000

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings recently founded Acony Records. In addition to
releasing their efforts, the new label also will issue the work of select
artists as well.
Acony's first signing is The Whispertown 2000. The Los Angeles-based quartet
features the songwriting of Morgan Nagler, who Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley)
describes as "my favorite songwriter. Period."
The Whispertown 2000's Swim
/ was produced by Tom Monohan (Devendra Banhart,
Vetiver) and is set for an October 21 release.

2)
Videos/ Youtube by album (or off album) and therein, by date

from " Livin' in a Dream "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq7tT4X3oaQ

Whispertown " Iron Will! " ( 05/05/06 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeCkHUZilEc

Whispertown " Intentions" Fan Video ( August 21,
2006 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWX-TMS4YTQ

Whispertown 2000: "Hello Wishin' Well" ( November 14, 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN-ooAKZV2M
Whispertown 2000 - Restless (live) (march 31, 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thYLxjXuxqU
b) Whispertown 2000 - Restless (live) (November 17, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCGfRkAOQxI
c) Whispertown 2000 - Restless (live) (02 Jun 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flnGpU3NbGQ

" lean back " ( March 31, 2007 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnqYuCDf7nw
" through a hole
"
(June 4, 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NesFqUu2yOg

" which way's the wind?!" (cover of "through a hole" - May 29, 2007) from " Swim "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-iWxhIhcgo
Whispertown 2000 - "Ebb and Flow" (November 17, 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVliTGS3GsU
Whispertown 2000 - "Done With Love" (3/31/07)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOce9Iy3-SA
Whispertown 2000 - "Old Times" (November 2, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Kb80kK7wE
Whispertown 2000 - "Old Times" Official Music Video (January 06, 2009 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXRzGSP4xNM
the whispertown 2000 "103" ( November 03, 2008 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHyWsi1slzY
whispertown 2000 - erase the lines ( November 17, 2008 )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1xRbfSGW0g
whispertown "Lock and Key" ( March 23, 2009 Live at SXSW )
unreleased

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZgZHf00AlI
whispertown 2000 - "Hometown " at Tangier 1/2/08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3xSfG0M61w
whispertown 2000 - "Time Will Welcome Anything" (September 19, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6UcYU1s9nI
Whispertown 2000 - "Time Will Welcome Anything" ( November 22, 2008 )

#
4 ) Press

http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/press/

http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/images/press/Q0209article.jpg

Q Magazine (February 2009) by Andy
Fyfe
" [Nagler's] childlike vocals create a nursery-rhyme world half wide-eyed wonder and darkeness, rendered timeless by ragtime reels and skeletal acoustic accompaniment.

So, if things get too playful on '103''s quest for love, there's allways its crushing flipside 'No Dope': "No dope, no pill, no drink'n'thrill/ Can tow this ton of tears."

If it's Hollywood or bust, chances are it's Hollywood. "

http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/images/press/MOJO0209article.jpg

Mojo (February 2009) by Phil Sutcliffe
"Nagler sings of love, dope and life/death'[s positive/negative balance wit Appalachian front-porch lonesomeness while garagey drums crash along and assorted guitars veer from bluegrass breakdown to psychedelic echo and distortion.

But the track that really commands attention is 'Atlantis', wehrein the
longing for heaven on earth we all feel sometimes gathers into haunting harmonies- augmented by [Gillian] Welch and Jenny Lewis-calling, to whom it may concern,
" Atlantis, let me in/ I will live free of sin."

http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/images/press/RELIX1108article.jpg

Relix (November, 2008) by Randy Ray

"Stepping outside the indie folk-rock crowd by writing flashpoint lyrics with a a methodically obtuse bent, The Whispertown 2000 delivers an enjoyable splash with 'Swim'..." [The] quartet offers ambient dreamscapes ('Atlantis' featuring a chorus of Nagler, Corbala, Gilian Wlch and Jenny Lewis), surreal country blues ('No Dope' and 'Done with Love'), deep river ruminations ('Pushing Oars'), beautifully pensive travelogues ('Erase the Lines', 'Old Times' and 'Mountain') and a ragged lo-fi anthem ('Ebb and Flow').

The 11 tracks offer complex, subdued imagery of a confident band as the wit and weariness of Nagler's songstakes on on an unpredictable ride upstream against the currents of modern pop. "

http://community.livejournal.com/hellowishinwell/2445.html
It's like a laser beam, laser beam.
[Monday July 31st, 2006 at 8:13am]
xjustkidding

So, at first I hated Whispertown 2000.
Then I found myself visiting their myspace page so I could listen to "On The Move" every once in awhile. Then I sort of liked them, but mostly because Morgan made me feel like I can sing.
And now I'm wondering why the hell I haven't bought their CD earlier, because these four songs on Myspace aren't cutting it. Where is my debit card? And I'm also pretty upset that the whole Whispertown 2000 thing for 200 bucks isn't extended to Massachusetts.
6 http://community.livejournal.com/hellowishinwell/2445.html

http://sircharliepalmer.blogspot.com/2009/08/livin-in-dream-whispertown-2000-2006.html

Livin’ In A Dream - Whispertown 2000 (2006)
A perfect blend of acoustic guitar, loveable raspy vocals and smooth harmonizing. There are some instances where the music jumps into overdrive, almost a westernized version of the Breeders with a pair of female voices up front over a simple yet booming sound, but just as quickly things cool down.
Posted by Sir Charlie Palmer at 08:00

http://burritotree.blogspot.com/2009/04/and-morgan-says-interview-with.html
MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2009
And Morgan Says...: An Interview with The Whispertown 2000's Morgan Nagler

First as Vagtown2000, then as Whispertown2000, and now, finally, as The Whispertown 2000, LA singer-songwriter-guitarist, Morgan Nagler has been pleasing ears and melting hearts with her honest lyrics and folky blues tunes for over five years.
Encouraged in the beginning by musician friends on the LA scene, like Jenny Lewis, Morgan has brought her introspective songs from the quiet bedroom to the stage with the current lineup: singer-drummer-harmonica-ist Vanessa Corbala, and brothers Tod and Casey Wisenbacker on drums/guitar/harmonica and drums/bass respectively.

http://thefirenotefiredrills.blogspot.com/2008/11/whispertown-2000-swim.html
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2008
The Whispertown 2000: Swim
Acony Records [2008]

/ blazing hot ( 4 fires )
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HtplvgCGL._SL500_AA240_.jpg
Fire Drills Review:
The Whispertown 2000 represent everything that is good about music. The band is signed to Gillian Welch’s label Acony records and Swim is a perfect batch of modern alt-folk that has all the pieces such as catchy sing along tracks and the surreal quietness of pure singing. The Whispertown 2000 offer the fresh dual vocals of Morgan Nagler and Vanesa Corbala, which ultimately gives the record a vibrant and quality mix which does the genre proud!
#
http://www.blurt-online.com/blogs/view/1999/
Whispertown 2000 Embark on Tour on Maria Taylor
03/18/2009
Morgan Nagler, lead vocalist/guitarist/co-founder of The Whispertown 2000 is another in a series of musicians that consider Lewis and her Rilo band mate Blake Sennett musical muses. The duo not only provided long-term encouragement, but performed on Whispertown's 2006 debut "Livin' in a Dream," which Sennett co-produced. Plus, Whispertown was given opening slots when the artists toured.

But don't think the folk-tinged hypnotic music of Whispertown 2000 is a musical stepchild. The four-piece band has rightly won critical kudos and a devoted fan base that includes Lewis who has publicly said,

"Morgan Nagler is my favorite songwriter. Period."
#

http://anikainlondon.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/interview-the-whispertown-2000/

Interview: The Whispertown 2000

http://anikainlondon.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/interview-the-whispertown-2000/

Posted by anikainlondon on May 12, 2009

The Whispertown 2000 are easily one of my favourite bands, and they have been for a long time. I think they’re absolutely brilliant and I am so excited to catch their first ever UK show tomorrow.

http://b7.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00493/79/13/493803197_l.jpg

Do you ever read the reviews of your live shows/albums? Why or why not? Yes. for punishment. So not that often. Usually anything anyone says can be taken exactly both ways, (that’s what she said), for example, one review read that my voice initially sounds like a drunk 6 year old… insult? Or awesome… ?

You’re signed to Gillian Welch’s label, Acony Records, how did that come
about? I have an old MP3 of you covering / Miss
Ohio/ live…
Yes, we were big fans, and not knowing we had friends in common, covered “MissOhio” on our first tour. Then, due to our sweet friend Jason Boesel, Gillianand the amazing David Rawlings, caught our set opening for the beautifullymagical Jenny Lewis. We ended up making friends. I spent a good portion of lastyear writing with them, and learning so much. We’d just recorded our new album“Swim”, .. They ended up putting it out, and we couldn’t be more grateful andhonored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Kb80kK7wE
I love the video you put out for /Old Times/. What was it like filming that? Filming the /Old Times/ video was a blast. We filmed the day after Halloween,so we were all a little tired, to say the least =). But, yeah, we had a vagueconcept, which went out the window.
We had the best time “smelling the roses” of our surroundings in Ojai, Ca. It was exactly as it looks. We were blasting music in the high school parking lot, my Mom and my best friend were doing double dutch, roller skaters practicing routines, and that stuff wasn't even filmed! It was so great watching those kids playing football in the rain, and exploring, and having ideas. The makers did such a great job.

#
http://laist.com/2007/01/26/laist_interview_morgan_nagler_of_whispertown_2000.php
Who are your influences/inspirations?
Bobbie Gentry, Elliott Smith, The Beatles, Notorious BIG, and Bobby (Dylan)
What new things is Whispertown 2000 working on?
Our new Record!! It's going to have a strong Death metal influence... /Back to the Future/,
with a hint of / The Great Gatsby /.
#
http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/2008/10/new_from_acony_records_the_whi.php

New From Acony Records: The Whispertown 2000's
Swim/
By D. Patrick Rodgers in Whatevs
http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/whatevs/

Thursday, Oct. 23 2008 @ 9:40AM
But I must say, /Swim/ isn’t bad.
While it occasionally hovers dangerously close to the upbeat, lyrical whimsy of
twee, blatantly dark songs like “No Dope” ground /Swim/ nearer to the anti-folk set (Mirah, et cetera).
Imagine if She & Him’s debut/Volume One/ was a significantly more substantial, idiosyncratic listen with intermittent hints of Nashville flavor.
Plus, you’ll probably never hear Zooey Deschanel start off a song with a line like “I can’t goddamn believe this shit.”
#
http://anikainlondon.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/review-the-whispertown-2000-at-luminaire/

Review: The Whispertown 2000 at Luminaire
http://anikainlondon.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/review-the-whispertown-2000-at-luminaire/

Posted by anikainlondon on September 20, 2009

The best part of the set, for me, was the encore. I wondered what they would do
and I thought about requesting/Through A Hole/, but I thought that they could
do literally anything from their catalogue and I would love it… so I just
waited.
Morgan said ‘we’re going to try and do an old one… if I can remember it’. She
played the C chord and I was like YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! WOO. I
know that C chord! I love that C chord! I nudged my friend in my excitement and
did a little swoon.

Morgan was like ‘do you know it?’. Of course I know it! She and Casey beckoned me onto the Luminaire’s stage to sing with them. Normally, when I am rational, I would say NO. But, I was excitable and jumped up on stage and sang along to one of my most favourite Whispertown songs: THROUGH A HOLE. So special. There’s a part in the song that goes ‘ who’s that knockiiin? (/CLAP CLAP /) two in the mornnnnin/‘”.
The clap-clap part is one of my favourite things to do, in any given situation. Whenever I hear that song, I clap. I always clap. Even if it’s in the silent office at work, I’m going to clap. So, I sang and clapped with one of my most favourite bands ever and had a wonderful time. I hope to see Whispertown every time they play London, I love their music so much and their shows make me so happy.

#
http://www.daytrotter.com/dt/whispertown2000-sharing-borders-with-bottled-excitement-some-yell-and-some-gossip-since-2005-concert/20030061-3737489.html

Whispertown2000
Sharing Borders With Bottled Excitement, Some Yell And Some Gossip Since 2005
Feb 8, 2007
by Sean Moeller

What awes you?

MN: Open space, outer space, and really
old tall trees. And new
perspective.

Whispertown2000, we offer, as an exception to meaningless names everywhere, to monikers that are indefensible and woefully non-descriptive. So the name is still meaningless, the numerical suffix pointless, but in cahoots with songs that become miniature nests for lazy, lilting dream sequences that never get too far-flung, tabernacles for those hankering to toss a ring around the neck of the feeling of everlasting comfort -- which seems to rush by like a comet or a flash -- the name cuts a striking and fitting form.
The songs on the self-released (soon-to-be released in Europe) debut album Livin' In A Dream/ come lay at your feet with soft tongues and expressive smokiness that is only visible during the points of a night when the babies are put down for their nightly slumbers and the creaking of a floorboard being walked across can sound like a single explosion of cannon fire, singeing through the silence.

The songs aren't babied in the least and they're not really precious. They just tug on your sleeves, hoping to be held just cause they enjoy the closeness. Nagler's voice is all girl, but aged like a grape plucked from a vine. They say that a grape draws out the history of the earth it's grown in - the lives formerly lived in that area, the taste of maple from the neighboring trees - and it's this that makes wine such an expressive drink. It gives wine its unique vocabulary. Perhaps Nagler benefits from the same sort of process because within the songs she writes comes history and a naked feeling of life that's gone, life that's here and life that's soon to be, though she can't very be in three places at once and bringing them together is a logistical nightmare.
There are restless old souls, pleas for hints at what the future brings and yet there's no hurry to get there. She's inundated with the minutia that gives our palette something to do when it's bored and lazing. She would make a terrific wine. Her songs make a terrific wine. You'll run your tongue over your lips and around the insides of your cheeks, cheerfully grabbing all of the stowaway imprints that are meant to enrich the experience.
#
/
http://pontifikate.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/lean-back-wine/

LEAN BACK, WINE.
April 14, 2009, 5:49 pm

http://www.anotherformofrelief.com/images/whispertown2000.jpg

Roommate and myself, having been longtime fans of indie-rock-woman-thrush Rilo Kiley/, have followed the band in a near biblical way since they first graced our ears back in the early years of collegedom. Having frequented many a show, we soon became privy to their comrade band Whispertown 2000 http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/, a raspy, melodic grass-roots ditty fronted by Jenny Lewis’ longtime compadre Morgan Nagler. Having witnessed the near-birth of the band, we opined that the folksy quartet made for a kitschy guilty pleasure, but that the sparse and waivering vocals, tweedle-dee-picked guitar, and sloppy instrumentation colored the band green and a bit wet behind the ears.

However, there was something there – something underlyingly wonderful to it all, something that made you tap your toes in bed at night and mimick Morgan’s flustering blustery voice. We quickly shed all notions that Whispertown 2000 was not a band to be taken seriously, and we began to listen to them with the car windows down for all the world to hear....

Their songs spoke of woe and hope, death and depravity – both haunting and sweet. The intertwined voices of Morgan and songbird Vanesa Corbala creep out of clarity bell to the sandy soot of New Mexico and echo off the Rio Grande. It was a beautiful poison that sank into our ears for that short half an hour – and their appearance, an adorable candid Polaroid of Morgan flexing her musical marksmanship, and a delectable sliver of Maxwell’s fried brie made the trip more than worthwhile. Throw back a six pack in the afterlife!
#

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/whispertown2000

Livin' In A Dream
Love it.
author: Ashli
Great CD. Heard them live but didn't have the money to get the CD right then and there. Can't wait for the next one. For my boyfriend he is hesitant, but I'm convincing him that if he see's them live he will understand because the girls are adorable to watch. Love listening to it while I drive.

Scrumptrellescent.
author: Emily Winkler
I had heard a few of whispertown's songs and fell in love on the spot. When I bought the cd, I wasn't expecting to love every song as much as the first I had heard and lo and behold, I DID! Whispertown2000 kicks ass and takes names, for real.

Lovely
author: Andre'
Morgan really sings like she means it, and you can feel the genuine energy from each song...not to mention the chilling harmonies.
#

http://www.comfortcomes.com/2008/12/16/the-whispertown-2000-swim/
The uncoordinated harmonies and simplistic lyrics in “103? and “Pushing Oars” were reminiscent of Daniel Johnston’s “Ain’t No Woman Gonna Make a George Jones Outta Me,” although the piano was nice on the latter.
By the time the band reached “Erase the Lines” it had agreed on what notes to sing; this song and “Atlantis” would not be out of place beside Shivaree’s “Good Night, Moon.” “Lock and Key” has a “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room” feel and it is my favorite song in this album.
“From the Start/Jamboree” begins with harmonica which transitions to dirty guitar before really picking up the pace with a blend of as clapping, banjo, guitar and cowbells(?) in addition to some fine hillbilly singing.
#

http://wearsthetrousers.com/2008/12/01/the-whispertown-2000-swim-2008/
THE WHISPERTOWN 2000: SWIM (2008)
December 1, 2008, 2:56 pm
The open-armed accessibility of / Swim / is similar to being ushered into an exclusive late night lock-in, wherein the urge to dance to these eleven ramshackle yet endearing songs might prove compelling.
At the very least, you’ll be on the edge of your seat as Morgan Nagler’s appealingly raw lead vocals add a touch of worldly rebelliousness to the mix. A little bluesy, a little alt-country, a lot like a drunken howl at the moon, /Swim / makes for a highly entertaining listening experience. Its introverted side is orchestrated best on the reckless but contemplative ‘No Dope’, and contrasted by the cheerfully wistful ‘Old Times’.
“Nothing’s gonna get me like the old times,” Nagler croons on the latter over irresistible handclaps with drummer Vanesa Corbala adding perfectly imperfect harmonies in a sing-song fashion.

The Whispertown formula is a generally simple but effective equation. Where songs are not stripped bare to sweetly mingling voices, guitar and the odd bit of percussion and keyboard, they occasionally dabble with noisy crescendos, such as on ‘Erase The Lines’ where a mantra of sinister calm is built up through whistling before the song erupts. Then there’s the brooding ‘Ebb & Flow’, which triumphantly staggers towards the edge, clinging on for dear life, as the room stops spinning for a while.

A definite highlight is ‘Atlantis’, a wonderful yin to the yang, as sweet as a pondering soul could hope to be through a drunken haze, unfurled over a spacious piano melody as Jenny Lewis and Gillian Welch chime in on harmonies. ( / Swim / is the first outsider release on Welch’s Acony Records.)

Elsewhere, The Whispertown 2000’s ‘one for the road’, ‘From The Start / Jamboree’ is potentially a rip-off of Starland Vocal Band’s ‘Afternoon Delight’, but most certainly rivalling it in the urge to sing it stupidly and gleefully again and again stakes, not to mention those high kicks returning for the brilliant finale of duelling guitars.
Overall, / Swim / is as completely fulfilling as a much-needed night out on the tiles, and if ever the time has come to let the proverbial hair down, it is now. Embrace your inner drunk.
#
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/p825

The Whispertown 2000
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/ff5060a5-8d1f-4516-9592-0252a065fb00
/ Swim / Review
"Naylor's chameleonesque vocal persona soon begins to work its magic."
Jon Lusk 2009-01-27
On first listen, this LA-based indiefolk band's second album sounds like a half-arsed, ramshackle mess fronted by a woman who can't hold a tune. Persevere, because Naylor's chameleonesque vocal persona soon begins to work its magic, and her inventive way with melodies starts making sense. It's hardly surprising the first band to sign to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Acony label should have an ear for semi-acoustic alt. country, and even backwoods hoedowns, but Whispertown 2000 also revel in light touches of psychedelia.
Get past the throwaway playground chant of 103, and that becomes apparent in the backwards guitars and dreamy backing vocals of Done With Love. Naylor has a distinctive and appealing way of toying with words, first evident on the phrase, ''tell everyone I'm done with love'. Erase The Lines takes the wiggyness further, with surreal lyrics (''spotted tiger spotted me''), unhinged whistling and a percussive crescendo. Both this and the carefree country strum of Lock And Key suggest an affinity with (fellow Californian) Ryan McPhun's band The Ruby Suns.
On the electric soul/blues gumbo of Ebb And Flow, Naylor's shrill tones seem to echo blue-eyed soul firebrand Laura Nyro, while on Mountain she's closer to an extra-sulky Cat Power offering a twisted take on The Rolling Stones' Love In Vain. So yeah, the 1960s live on in the 2000s.
#
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/01/review-whispertown-2000-swim

Neil Spencer

The Observer,
Sunday 1 February 2009

1. The Whispertown 2000
2. Swim (Acony)
There's a buzz about this LA quartet, whose mainstay, aspiring actress Morgan Nagler, numbers celebrity admirers like Conor Oberst. Their lo-fi indie rock comes laced with antique country flavours and front-porch harmonies, a mix that gels to quirky appeal on, say, "Pushing Oars".. Nagler can certainly write a song - opener "103" is a droll comment on ageing and "Atlantis" yearns for a state of grace to a simple, stately piano - but a touch more rigour wouldn't undermine her authenticity. Country stars Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, whose label signed the band, should know that.
#
http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/whispertown_2000/reviews/12659

ALBUM REVIEW: WHISPERTOWN 2000 - SWIMWhispertown 2000(Acony)Second LP from much-fancied LA quartet
Fast forward to early 2008 and Whispertown 2000, now a four-piece, had opened for Rilo Kiley and Bright Eyes across the US, self-released a decent-selling debut LP and impressed Gillian Welch so much they became the first signings to her Acony label. Lewis calls Nagler her favourite songwriter and Conor Oberst, another uber-fan, has likened her angular, country-leaning songs to “old Chinese proverbs”.

A cursory listen to this second album is enough to realise it’s not just mere hype. / Swim / is the kind of record you wish people made more often: rural music played by suburban kids with an intuitive feel for the unruly punk heart of old-time country. Nagler’s expressive voice has a baleful twang that shunts these songs - some with the most minimal of arrangements, some like ragged revivalist hoedowns – into the same lugubrious territory as Bonnie Billy or Oberst himself.
It’s a ploy that cleverly subverts itself on “Lock And Key” and “From The Start Jamboree”, where their own communal folk shanty is appended by a foggy mountain breakdown that’s part Bill Monroe, part Silver Jews. They’re experimental too, prone to sudden squalls of guitar, weird electronic bits and even weirder whistling noises that sound like some spectral tribe hooting an advance across the Virginia hills. In the case of “Erase The Lines”, all within the same song.

Nagler’s more famous chums are here too, albeit in subtle form: Lewis and Welch adding hushed harmonies to the icy, piano-led ballad, “Atlantis”. But this is a disquieting, spiny record that ultimately stands on its own. 2009 may well be a big year. #

http://laist.com/2008/10/26/laist_cd_review_the_whispertown_200.php
LAist CD Review: The Whispertown 2000
Whispertown 2000 is the first band to be signed to Gillian Welch http://www.gillianwelch.com/news/index.htm and her musical partner David Rawling's Acony Records. Their debut album, Swim/ moves effortlessly through the Alabama back country with slow drawl country ease and back toward big city drums. It is an achievement of sizable proportions from a quartet that has already garnered big name fans, from Welch to Conor Oberst to Jenny Lewis...
It would be easy to chalk up Whispertown as the next Rilo Kiley.
There are, of course, strong similarities (sterling voiced female leads, back up male vocals and too many songs about love), but where Rilo Kiley has failed of late, Whispertown takes up the slack.
"Swim" boils over with attitude and eclectic feats of subdued imagery. Its 11 tracks, for the most part, show a timeless, care-free longing for good times and friendship that are as much an anthem for our every day lives as any generations.
On “Done with Love," Nagler sings with a fatalistically somber tone that guides the more bluesy track. If “103” showed a blissful hope for eternal love, “Done with Love” seeks to prove Matt Groening correct: Love is hell http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/lovehell_5.html.

But sad can be gorgeous (just ask anyone who's listened to Elliott Smith) and Nagler—accompanied by an array of instruments and voices – seems to understand this perfectly. For example, third track “Pushing Oars” sings about an existential sea journey with walls “falling away” and boats swaying on the rocky sea. It is backed up by Tilly & the Wall keyboardist Nick White on piano, a guest musician theme that Whispertown rides throughout the album.
Through sadness and isolation there are signs of hope, mostly through 2:52 of the album's unequivocal zenith: “Erase the Lines,” a group hug of a ditty with a majestic build and crescendo in the vein of Radiohead's You and Whose Army. It starts off softly, with both Nagler and Corbala sharing lead vocals. Tod Wisenbaker enters the refrain with a broken voice of deep symbolism who once again gives way to the women, synthesized whistling and two minutes of beautiful raucousness calling on the incredible capacity of each band mate.
#
http://www.culturebully.com/interview-with-morgan-nagler-of-whispertown-2000

Interview with Morgan Nagler of Whispertown 2000
Submitted by Chris DeLine on October 30, 2008
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Eqm-3_-Y_XGfK6Xjbr0b2A
/

From Fredette Benefit 3

photo by Autumn de Wilde

CD:
How did you approach Swim/ compared to Livin’ in a Dream/? When you started recording thenew album did Swim / seem like a distant memory?

MN: Swim/ was approached very differently. On Livin’ in a Dream/ I played the songs and then everyone else made up parts on the spot, for the most part, and also we recorded in various locations at various times. For Swim / the songs were all totally worked out and rehearsed (for the most part), and recorded in a consecutive block of time. We were much more developed as a band, and continue to morph into ourselves. Yes, Livin’ in a Dream/ seems like a distant memory, or dream, if you will. I’m fond of beginnings... CD: Livin’ in a Dream / featured guest appearances by Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett as well as Jonathan Rice. Did anyone outside of the band join you in the studio this time around?

MN:
Yes, Jenny Lewis, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings joined us in harmony on “Atlantis;” Nick White, from Tilly and the Wall, played lovely piano on “Pushing Oars;” Jason Boesel and Rawlings joined us on “Jamboree,” Rami Jaffee played organ and piano and Jake Bellows, from Neva Dinova made vibed out contributions. Our friends are so nice, talented, funny, cool, and good looking. And smart.

CD:
Two of those names were fairly influential in your musical career. How tightly knit are you with a lot of bands in the Los Angeles area?

MN:
We’re very tightly knit with our friends in Los Angeles, and all over the country, really. We admire and appreciate their art and kindness and support.
#
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/12/the-whispertown-2000-goes-with-the-flow.html

href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/system/images/thumbs/articles/2008_12_01/whispertown2000_300x278.jpg?1255554418">http://www.pastemagazine.com//system/images/thumbs/articles/2008_12_01/whispertown2000_300x278.jpg?1255554418

The Whispertown 2000 Goes with the Flow
Album: Swim/

Hometown:
Los Angeles
Band Members:
Morgan Nagler (vocals, guitar), Tod Adrian
Wisenbaker (guitar, drums), Vanesa Corbala (vocals, percussion), Casey Holden Wisenbaker (bass, drums)
For Fans Of;
Cat Power, CocoRosie, Rilo Kiley

Whispertown 2000 frontwoman Morgan Nagler travels with an inflatable mattress. She used to live in a two-bedroom tent in her mother's back yard. She slept under a dining room table when the band shared a Los Angeles apartment, and she currently calls a converted laundry room home.
Even her drawl is versatile and free-flowing, shifting a line like “tell everyone I’m done with love” from nonchalance to concern with a fluid change of timbre.
Nagler formed the band—which inflects her lo-fi folksongs with grubby country-soul—at the encouragement of Rilo Kiley’s Blake Sennett and Jenny Lewis. Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel produced an early track. And after hearing their harmony-laden cover of “Look at Miss Ohio” at a Nashville show, Gillian Welch signed the band to her label Acony Records.
Fans partake in the lovefest, too.
The band’s cozy living-room shows once earned a thank-you package of tequila, John Fante books and a 1977 Martin acoustic guitar from a grateful host—a gesture Nagler recognized as fitting encouragement. “When things like that are happening,” she says, “you really know you're on the right path.”
#

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-the-whispertown-2000-swim/
Music Review: The Whispertown 2000 - / Swim /
Author: Sarah C. Culver — Published: Oct 20, 2008 at 4:18 pm,
http://blogcritics.org/archive/2008/10/20/

Headed up by founder and lead singer Morgan Nagler, The Whispertown 2000 boasts pedigreed associations attracted soon after the band’s inception in 2005. Tours with Bright Eyes and Jenny Lewis testify to the potential of this new band. Their first album, Livin’ in a Dream /, borrowed producers Jimmy Tamborello from the Postal Service and Blake Sennett of Rilo Kiley, but remains only available online and at live shows.

The mutual statement made by Gillian Welch’s choice of The Whispertown 2000 as the first band other than her own to represent Acony records and the band’s identification with folk icon Welch set both band and label squarely into the still nebulous genre of indie folk. Clearly drawing inspiration from traditional folk and paying full homage with rowdy songs such as "Old Times," The Whispertown 2000 sparingly adds updated synthesized elements to their rootsy guitar strums. The resulting album, Swim /, has all the catchiness and sing-along draw of folk music reimagined for a new generation.

Nagler’s chameleon voice, backed by band mate Vanesa Corbala, sets a slightly different mood for each song so that at one moment you might mistake the vocals for an airy Radiohead ballad, another song recalls the half speak of Tori Amos, one could be the crooning of Cat Power, another evokes a modern remake of a Grease style number. Even the melancholy songs such as Atlantis, with Gillian Welch contributing haunting background vocals, are pervaded by an enthusiasm and optimism that brings one of the best traits of folk music to its marriage with indie rock.
^
http://www.nme.com/images/09126_173411_whispertown.jpg
http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=15&p=5610&more=1&c=1

Whispertown 2000 - Jenny Lewis' Favourite Alt-Country Balladeers
26/01/09
If you're one of the cult of NME readers that bow down at Jenny Lewis' silky hot-panted altar of nouveau-roots shmindie, you may already know this alarmingly peachy-cheeked four-piece.

I for one thought that all alt-country bands consisted exclusively of men that dress in gnat-ravaged plaid, have cowboy boots with spurs encrusted with sand grains from the original Wild West, and sport the kind of facial hair that conceals ravaging vultures feasting on the dried remnants of last Tuesday's breakfast grits. Apparently not so.

These guys are Whispertown 2000 . They play country-influenced bluesy ballads that make you wanna tie an apple, a lump of cheese and a crusty cob roll up in a gingham napkin, stick it on the end of a twig and march off into the blood-red sunset, whistling something about railroad maintenance.
^

http://ohinvertedworldclub.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/whispertown2000/
Whispertown2000
September 14, 2009

Whispertown 2000 were apparently brought together by href="http://www.myspace.com/jennylewismusic">Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley and solo fame) which is a nice story. Their drummer is also “Smiths-obsessed” which is another nice fact about WT2000, and they’ve had lots of impossibly nice words written in the likes of NME, Mojo, Uncut, Rolling Stone… But let’s cut to the important stuff, and that is that they actually write some ace tunes and have a great EP that came out last week.
http://www.thewhispertown2000.com/download/

As a taster, here’s a track that’s only available on the limited edition 6-track EP (instead of your regular kind of 4 tracker) called “When The Day Is Done”. You can get it for free from the official Whispertown website too, just click HERE.

http://thelockandkey.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/the-whispertown-2000-part-deux/

THE WHISPERTOWN 2000, PART DEUX

http://thelockandkey.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/the-whispertown-2000-part-deux/>

October 22, 2008, 5:47 pm
So again, this is off topic, but I just received my “pre-order” of The
Whispertown 2000’s new album, Swim, and it has some gorgeous packaging. Seriously, this isn’t some jewel-case major-label crap.
Plus, it comes with the lyrics, which is a major bonus for someone like me who
can’t tell “lawn” from “loft” (in “Old Times”).
Anyway, the real reason I wanted to talk about Whispertown was because I’m in love with their song “Erase the Lines” right now, and I had to share the lyrics, because they’re so fitting for this particular political climate we’re stuck with right now (I mean, seriously, can we please stop the middle-school trash-talk?). Morgan’s description of the song is: “This is a song about prejudices in our history and of today I wish for One Love.
And believe it’s true.”
/
/
/Once a pine, in olden times, not far away from now,
He let down a single bow, and gave himself a crown./
/
He said I’m tall and you are small, to clover on the ground,
So clover spread himself around
And covered pine tree up and down./
/
This is my side of the mountain
Only youth would share his fountain
Only you can see the green leaf turn from red to brown./
/
The spotted tiger spotted me, an all white bird with a yellow beak.
He stared me down, he wouldn’t speak,
He let me go ’cause I was weak./
/
Hide I did, did never seek, I perched upon the tallest peak,
And all the birds would flock to me, to live in bird like harmony.../
^
#
http://www.frontandcenterrock.com/interviews/whispertown2000.html
Well, that's all I have for you unless there's anything else you'd like to share? Vanessa?
Vanessa: Something to share?
Morgan: Vanessa said she did 8 pull-ups today! So that's impressive.
Casey: And check out our Tumblr, cause it's pretty cool. That's it? We have nothing genuis to say?
Morgan: Why don't you tell your joke you made up?
Csasey: Oh, I did make up a joke today! Why did the bagel stop being friends with the croissant?
I have no idea...

Casey: Cause he was kind of flaky.

Nina Violet

2009-11-01T05:57:00.000-05:00

1) relevant myspace pages
2) discography
3) photos
4) bio
5) videos/ youtubes
6) mp3s
7) press - a) live concerts and b) cd reviews

1 ) relevant myspace pages

http://www.myspace.com/ninaviolet
http://www.myspace.com/cofarrows

#

2) discography

http://cdbaby.com/cd/ninaviolet

Nina Violet - " Lose Strife " (2008)

*

http://cdbaby.name/n/i/ninavioletio.jpg

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ninavioletio

XX

Nina Violet " Nina Violet and the Invisible orchestra " ( 2006 )

http://www.amazon.com/Nina-Violet-invisible-orchestra/dp/B000QK2B5Q

" Nina Violet and the invisible orchestra "

MP3 Downloads ( 9 ) or the album as MP3 download

*

- with Willy Mason

" If the Ocean Gets Rough" (2007)

Nina Violet (Piano), Nina Violet (Cello), Nina Violet (Viola), Nina Violet (Vocals)

#

3) photos

http://images.google.com/images?q=nina+violet

*

http://www.thebandroom.co.uk/violet.html

XX

*
http://james-hill-photography.smugmug.com/gallery/5472093_kd3QR

" Nina Violet and the Invisible Orchestra playing on the River and Grove Stages at the 2007 Festival for the Eno. " [ gallery]

*

http://www.last.fm/music/Nina+Violet/+images

http://www.last.fm/music/Nina+Violet+and+the+Invisible+Orchestra/+images/495155

4) bio

http://www.last.fm/music/Nina+Violet+and+the+Invisible+Orchestra

Nina Violet and the Invisible Orchestra

“I sing, play viola, maybe some banjo/mandolin/electric and acoustic guitar… I don’t have a bio written, but we’re (Willy Mason and band) all from the same home-island, and we’ve all been playing together for seems like forever in different incarnations.

I’m a farmer/gardener when I’m not playing music, and my whole family plays as well: my mom is on her way to play on my new record I’m making at this very moment at old soul studio with my sister Marciana Jones, Sam Mason, and Colin Ruel.

My influences are the Masterpiece Earth, especially the ocean and the woods, my family and Willy’s family, and the community on the island. I guess that’s about it. I love to sleep outside, especially in my tipi.”

^
http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/calendar/2008/12/24/music-nina-violet.php

Music : Nina Violet : Finding the right words

December 24, 2008

Music is one of Nina Violet's earliest memories. From playing with the pianos her parents were rebuilding, to learning viola at the public school string lessons, Ms. Violet has always surrounded herself with music. But when she took up the guitar in seventh grade, music moved beyond a pastime and became a salvation from the difficult years of middle school...

When she was 11, her older brother took her to a Second Power band practice. Seeing musicians who were having fun playing together gave Ms. Violet new inspiration. She soon took up guitar and started a band of her own. The fierce, hard-edged sounds of rock and roll resonated with her...

Ms. Violet's efforts on guitar resulted in a standing ovation at the Tisbury School's talent show in eighth grade - a huge confidence boost.

By the time she was in high school she was taking music lessons off-Island, and touring with Kahoots...

Ms. Violet put off college indefinitely to pursue music, and without any major financial obligations she set out to pursue a career as a performer.

She first headed for cities, busking (playing music on public streets) in Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston. She earned rent money by playing viola in the T stations.
But after growing up on Martha's Vineyard, cities seemed too crowed and dirty, and Ms. Violet decided that the toll city life was having on her, compared to the opportunities it created, just didn't balance out.

She came back to Martha's Vineyard in her early 20s, and started playing with Willy Mason, doing a weekly gig at Offshore Ale in Oak Bluffs...

Fingers ruffling through her hair as she talks, Ms. Violet reflects on her choices. "Musically, I have no idea what I'm trying to do, I just do it," she says. "If I thought about it, I'd probably screw it up. I started with the electric guitar. When I stopped playing with the band and started playing alone, I picked up the acoustic guitar. That's when everyone started accusing me of playing folk music. At first I thought it was a dirty word, but after a while I got comfortable with it."

Although she listened to music that was, "good and loud," she always focused on the lyrics, and that brought her towards folk music.

"Think back to what Woody Guthrie did in the Depression," she says. "He alleviated the suffering of people by singing their suffering aloud. When everybody was thinking these down thoughts and then a charismatic man showed up and sung the thoughts back to them, it made their suffering real and it made it okay.

"Music has always been an expression from people to God, or to each other or to themselves about the things that they suffer and the joys that they feel...

"It's good to find things that are both musically and lyrically poignant," says Ms. Violet. "The writing part of the song has always been really important to me. Lyrics are not about showing how well you can sing or giving your mouth a vehicle or giving a reason to play your guitar riffs... it's really about the lyrics for me."

^

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Mason

In 2004, [Willy Mason] toured the United States.

After many live appearances throughout 2004 and 2005, culminating with a performance at the Glastonbury Festival, Mason took time off and returned to his family's home on Martha's Vineyard.

He began writing new songs and put a band together, featuring Nina Violet on viola and backing vocals, and Zak Borden on mandolin.

In the spring of 2006, they began touring the U.S. and Europe, along with other musicians. So far he has supported Beth Orton,KT Tunstall, Radiohead, and Sondre Lerche.

^

http://www.mvtimes.com/vineyard_visitor/2007/10/25/entertainment_island_musicians.php
Young Island musicians make waves in music
By Julian Wise - October 25, 2007

Island native Willy Mason (son of folk singer Jemima James) is making a big musical splash. Called a "heavyweight talent,” in a national review, his music has been dubbed "masterful and poignant,” and with comparisons to John Lennon and Tom Waits, his midtempo, Americana sound is securely established.

In 2006, he landed the coveted spot opening for Radiohead, introducing his music to thousands of new fans across Europe and North America. Willy and his band — Sam Mason (Willy’s younger brother), Nina Violet, Colin Ruel and Mike Mackey — have been touring the country in support of their latest record, "If the Ocean Gets Rough” (2007, Astralwerks Records).

^

[ Nina has toured with Willy on and off since 2005, only just (October 2009) having returned from England where she played in accompaniment. She, Colin Ruel (who was to be the co-leader with Nina of Chorus of Arrows) and Willy's brother, Sam Mason formed Willy's back up band in 2005- 2007, including the tours opening for Radiohead and Beth Orton.

From 2006 into 2007, while releasing "Nina Violet and the Invisible Orchestra" (2006) on which Nina played all instruments, Nina was part of a trio with Colin Ruel and her sister Marciana Jones. Colin, Marciana, Sam Mason and Matthew Cullen, who came to be the bass player in Chorus of Arrows played on the Cullen- produced second Nina Violet album "Lose Strife", released in September 2007.

Nina, Colin Ruel, Mike Mackey and Sam Mason formed "Chorus of Arrows" in the spring of 2007. After the release of "Lose Strife", Cullen replaced Mackey in the band which toured England in January/February 2008, where the players were already well known as Willy Mason's support band, Mason having been turing England already since 2004, touring with the members of Chorus of Arrows since 2005.

Chorus of Arrows broke up in late January 2009, Colin Ruel leaving the band and Sam Mason moving to England. Never theless a full forty minute set played by the band at TT the Bear's in Cambridg Massachusetts in December, 2008 is available atthe Chorus of Arrows myspace page and at the respective individual youtube sites indicted in the video/youtube section below.

As Nina was the predominate writing partner (together with Coln Ruel) in Chorus of Arrows, those videos , as two out of three of the youtubes from the winter of 2008 house concert tour in England, feature Nina on vocals as the principal songwriter and singer.

Since the breakup of Chorus of Arrows, Nina has been touring the Northeast and south as far as Philadelphia playing solo shows. This fall, she has reconstituted the trio format of 2006- 2007 with her sister Marciana on drums and Matthew Cullen replacing Colin Ruel in that configuration. Presumably, Nina will be playing shows alternating between the solo and trio format for the forseeable future. ]

#

5) Videos/ youtubes -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AyNjHDCgn0

" Chorus of Arrows - Can’t Carry The Weight ” (February 08, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKHyjbOr-Zo

" Chorus of Arrows - Kiss That Blade " (February 06, 2008, houseconcert)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxHbhQRz1Uk

"Chorus of Arrows - When You Leave Your Body Home (January 30, 2008- house concerts, york )

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztPGTTWSVMg

Chorus of Arrows at T.T.'s the Bear's Place (1) January 10, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1uA6wiYAo

Chorus of Arrows at T.T.'s the Bear's Place (2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbYwfaduZfA

Chorus of Arrows at T.T.'s the Bear's Place (3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By3x3ojv53I

Chorus of Arrows at T.T.'s the Bear's Place (4)

#

6) MP3s

http://mybigmouthstrikesagain.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-big-album-review-strikes-again-nina.html
My Big Album Review Strikes Again. Nina Violet and the Invisible Orchestra
The enchanting tracks on the self-titled album [buy] from Nina Violet and the Invisible Orchestra combine the classic folk rock of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez with the modern indie/chamber pop of Belle and Sebastian and The High Llamas --- introspective yet upbeat at the same time.

Painted on the Sky mp3

The Dog Tomorrow mp3

^

http://cdbaby.com/cd/ninavioletio

Nina Violet " Nina Violet and the Invisible orchestra " ( 2006 )

Many instruments touched by one lady, strings and things, old-timey new music.
I recorded this cd last winter with a pile of stringed, winged instruments in Anthony's Dig it All studio ( his tiny triangular apartment) just before I went on tour with my friend Willy Mason, where I ran about in the audiences after we played, selling them like a newsie in the crowds. I'm my own label, publisher, and producer (and band) on this record, which has thick string arrangments (I play the viola, mainly) barebones mandolin tunes with feet stomping in the shower, strange old 4-track experiments of mine.

( below 2 minute itunes samples available , all songs)

1 Painted On the Sky

2 Banged-up

3 Tin + Tiny

4 Old Man + the Mill

5 The Dog Tomorrow

6 From the Moon

7 Dreams Feel Real

8 Fighting Fish

9 Off the Fisticuff

^

http://cdbaby.com/cd/ninaviolet

Nina Violet - " Lose Strife " (2008)

electric/acoustic/orchestral/rock/songwriter-singer/folk/not techno/sweet/mean/analog

( below 2 minute itunes samples available , all songs)

1 Better Than to Bruise You

2 Way Down Washing Dirty Dishes

3 Burn the Bridge

4 Some Day We'll Be Alive

5 Yellow Flash

6 Kiss That Blade

7 Slow Me Down

8 My Brother

9 Tiny Seeds

10 When You Leave Your Body Home

11 Burn the Bridge

12 Cayuse

^

7) Press

7a ) Live Reviews

http://www.thebandroom.co.uk/violet.html

Feb 3 , 2007- Nina Violet, Sam Mason & guest Willy Mason

" [We]..contacted Nina to see if she'd like to play here one day and to get hold of a copy of her album NINA VIOLET + THE INVISIBLE ORCHESTRA ( available here.)

We have since found ourselves having a bit of difficulty removing it from the CD player...such is Nina's mesmerising vocal and very modern-sounding fusion of country, folk, roots, blues and jazz... punctuated, and then some, by experimental Beatles-style string arrangements and the occasional Bluegrass, Appalachian or Celtic wig-out...

We haven't quite worked out who Nina reminds us vocally. Like all class acts she reminds you of several people at one and the same time but the whole thing is so seamless that you have your work cut out to identify them and she just ends up sounding like herself....

Buf if we say there are similarities to AIMEE MANN, ALISON KRAUSS, ROSANNE CASH, GILLIAN WELCH and LUCINDA WILLIAMS...well you get the picture.

^

http://festivals.drownedinsound.com/event/view/23137

http://drownedinsound.com/gigs/23137/reviews/2013447-

Willy Mason Date: 12/05/2007

" The highlight of the evening, however, arrives when Willy is off fixing his guitar. Dreadlocked violinist Nina Violetbriefly takes centre stage, swapping violin for guitar. The one song she has time to perform is unexpected, and completely gorgeous.

"A bit like Scout Niblett, but more sane and in tune, Nina Violet causes a united hushed silence (well, I’d like to remember it that way), providing three precious minutes of folk perfection. What should have been a lull in the show in fact turned out to be its highlight. "

^

http://www.theyorker.co.uk/news/music/1230

Nina Violet live at Basement Bar 29/01/08

" Violet’s raw and solitary vocals conjoured up the requisite images of smoky American diners in lung-blasting belters. The Massachusetts girl displayed a much deeper and more interesting voice than most of your classic seventies female folksters - making even Joni Mitchell seem angelic.

A quick listen to some of the studio tracks (studio = Willy Mason’s basement) reveals moments of startling voice control in the emerging Violet.. But when Chorus of Arrows actually played as a band, something special happened.

For “Can’t Carry The Weight” they gave up on the folk ballads with spectacular brilliance and stunned everyone by giving birth before our eyes to a marching, folk-indie fusion. Forget Elliott Smith or Devendra Banhart – this song was indie folk with attitude... [If] they continue this miracle of birth, then the sweaty teenagers in City Screen will soon become a huge throng of cult followers."

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http://www.egigs.co.uk/index.php?a=12082

Chorus Of Arrows / Tom Reeve

City Screen Basement, York on Tuesday 29 January 2008

[ 4 pics of band w/ review article, from which excerpts below ]

Having travelled to the UK from Martha's Vineyard in the US, this small group of friends called the Chorus of Arrows have combined a small venue tour with a house tour (I know, as they played at my house last week).

Those of you who checked out Willy Mason on his tour last year will recognise three of the four members; violist/guitarist Nina Violet, guitarist Colin William Ruel and drummer and younger brother Sam Mason. Joined by bassist Matthew Cullen these childhood friends exude talent; you get the feeling they were born to perform music.

Their close bond shines throughout the set, and this, their first venue stop of the tour, sees them more relaxed than I witnessed at my house (though you have to take jetlag into account, as that was their first UK house show).

Confident and chatty from the beginning, the foursome are really tight in their musicianship, with no mistakes, and tuneful vocals that draw you in. Whether it’s Colin's softly sung melodies or Nina's broad range of vocals, you're hooked on their sound. It doesn’t matter whether they’re thrashing their overly distorted guitars, or playing solo acoustic songs, it really hits you...

Colin's vocals are haunting on songs like 'Strength of A Woman' and 'Tiny Little Blue', with a whispered delivery. You can feel the emotion in Nina’s voice (speaking for all people who have ended a relationship in as nice a way as possible) in 'Better Than To Bruise You'. People are literally transfixed at this point...

There are heavy, rock-like even moments with 'Willow Tree', and upbeat moments like The Dog Tomorrow', with it's 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashion' style drum fill. Nina alternates between playing the guitar (for solo's 'Yellow Flash' and 'Slow Me Down') and viola ('Painted On The Sky).

Fans of Willy Mason will already love this I guarantee, but it's clear to see that Martha's Vineyard has some exceptionally talented musicians which remain unearthed...

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http://www.houseconcertsyork.co.uk/

http://www.kenspelman.com/house%20gigs/Ticketsnina.htm

Nina Violet, Colin Ruel, Sam Mason & Matthew Cullen - played an impromptu gig, arranged at 3 days notice, to a sell-out crowd - 30 January 2008

[ many pictures from the house concert ]

The multi talented singer-songwriter and Willy Mason collaborator NINA VIOLET has just arranged to play a House Concert here on Wednesday 30th January.

She is playing with Willy Mason's brother Sam, Matthew Cullen, and Colin Ruel - yes drums for the first time at a house gig ! They played lived on BBC Radio last Thursday...

So hints of Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams -
plus the outrageously engaging Sam Mason - and one great night promised.

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7b) CD Reviews

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/entertainment-reviews/music-reviews/2007/03/09/willy-mason-if-the-ocean-gets-rough-91466-18726903/

Willy Mason, If The Ocean Gets Rough
Mar 9 2007

Recorded at Long View Farm in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, it has an organic atmosphere thanks to the use of acoustic instruments which complements his relaxed vocal delivery and fluid songwriting.
Accompanied once again by his brother Sam on drums, it's a bit of a family affair with his mother Jemima James providing backing vocals on several songs and his cousin Zak Borden playing mandolin.
Fellow Islander Nina Violet injects some sympathetic melancholy with her viola on songs like Riptide and Simple Town, while country music royalty Rosanne Cash also puts in a guest appearance on the excellent We Can Be Strong.
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http://mybigmouthstrikesagain.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-big-album-review-strikes-again-nina.html
My Big Album Review Strikes Again. Nina Violet and the Invisible Orchestra
The enchanting tracks on the self-titled album [buy] from Nina Violet and the Invisible Orchestra combine the classic folk rock of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez with the modern indie/chamber pop of Belle and Sebastian and The High Llamas --- introspective yet upbeat at the same time.

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http://www.mvtimes.com/calendar/2007/09/06/music_wvvy.php
New, local CD benefits WVVY
By Julian Wise - September 6, 2007

Violist/singer Nina Violet unveils "The Dog Tomorrow," a studio track that mixes vocals, acoustic guitar, and violin to create the sound and feel of Americana roots music.

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http://theband.hiof.no/albums/lose_strife.html

Nina Violet: Lose Strife
Nina Violet's Lose Strife is the first release from Grandma's Basement, the new music label of Island-born singer/songwriter Willy Mason.

Lose Strife is an ambitious and earnest album, evidenced by its opening track, "Bruise." It is a love song of sorts in which Ms. Violet's plaintive vocals rise above her ambient guitar work, creating a contrast that manages to convey longing.

The album contains vast instrumentation - strings, synthesizers, organs, harpsichord, sitar, melatron, and electric guitars. Despite this collection of instruments, its tone is both personal and tasteful - no small feat. It is also a testament to Ms. Violet's skill as a self-produced artist.

The album's very present sound owes much to the thoughtful ear of sound engineer Matthew Cullen, who has worked with artists such as My Morning Jacket, Antony and The Johnsons, and Evan Dando, among others. This recording also features the genius of Garth Hudson (on accordion on "Burn The Bridge"), a former member of The Band.

All in all, this is a standout work that uses talent and feeling like a razor to cut through the void of false sentimentality and overproduction that plagues much of today's folk and rock music.

--Colin Ruel, The Martha's Vineyard Times, May 2008