Me, plus some other people. Currently I don't have a regular band. Would you like to play with me? My goal is to start a sober liquor rock band called the Thirsty Thurstons. (Holla "hi" if you get the reference.)
Influences
John Cage during his Kasenetz-Katz period meets John Cale during his cruciferous vegetable period, wanking together over a bunch of Pitchfork reviews of trust-fund hipster bands in, uh, Williamsburg, or wherever that added-coconut set hangs out.
Sounds Like
I dunno. Your ears are as good as mine. You figure it out.
The first four tracks here are some songs I recorded in 1996 at Gary Young’s Louder Than You Think studio east of Waterloo, which is a stop in the road east of Stockton, California and west of Linden. Gary played drums, Eric Westphal played bass, and both of those guys ran the board. Kelly Foley sang some background vocals. We probably would have recorded more, but we didn’t. I wrote all the songs, and that’s me singing lead and some backgrounds; that’s also me on the crummy guitar playing. If I recall, I played Eric’s Telecaster through a Twin Reverb amp I rented at Skip’s because it had this sweet tremolo effect I used on one of the songs, the one with "act like friends behave" in the chorus, which if I could redo it, it would be "act like friends again." Next time if I record anything heavy like "Tastee Freez," I’ll smarten up and play an SG through a Marshall stack or some rig with real oomph, because the Fender didn’t deliver the appropriate sludge.
As for why I don’t have a band, guess it’s because I never seem to be able to find people to play music with. Strike that; it’s more like I’m chronically unsure of myself, musically, because I tend to write music with kinda weird chord progressions, and it’s been my experience that blues-weaned players don’t like to mess with romantic pop with lots of minor and diminished chords. Pluse, I have a really hard time asking people if they want to play music with me; most of the musical situations I’ve been in have arisen because other people contacted me. Still, I do write new songs all the time. And someday, I hope to become slightly more "ept."
The fifth and sixth songs here are new; they’re demos I recorded for an album I hope to complete sometime before Jeb Bush is "elected" president. Hopefully, that won’t be too far off (the former, not the latter). There’s another song from this session, along with another tune I recorded in GarageBand, on another music site, which should be easy for those of you to find who know your Swedish cars, especially models that begin with "PV." Oh, and if you like my music, there are more songs at the "video" tab on this page.
We're stopping thru Sac twice on our West coast tour! Fri. Dec. 4th at Old Ironsides and Thursday, Dec. 10th at Fox and Goose! Please come out and support and help spread the love!! Happy Thanksgiving. I give thanks for YOU! xoxo - Astra
Hey! Dropping by to say whatup and let you know we are releasing our new EP called Down in Flames on September 11. If you are in the Sac are we'll be playing a CD Release show at Marilyn's Downtown on K Street with some other killer bands. Hope to hear from you or see you soon!
