I play most of the parts in my recordings, live is another story:
2008 Summer Tour w/ Las Vegas Club:
Joe Kendall: guitar, bass, harmonica, accordion, mandolin, and singing
Matt Kendall: bass and singing
Wyatt McKenzie: drums, guitar, and singing
2007 US Tour w Deer Tick:
Joe Kendall: guitar, mandolin, Dr. Sample, and singing
John McCauley: bass, korg, and singing
Dennis Ryan: drums and singing
2007 Mini-Arizona Tour w/ Drew Danburry:
Drew Danburry: drums and saxophone
2006 "Band Nerd Love" Tour w/ Deer Tick:
Joe Kendall: guitar, bass, Mandolin, Dr. Sample, and harmonica
Alethia Una: drums, bass, and mandolin
2006 West Coast/NW Tour w/ Las Vegas Club:
Joe Kendall: guitar, korg, bass, Mandolin, Dr. Sample, and harmonica
Alethia Una: drums and bass
2005 NNF Winter Tour w/ My Sexual Dad & Weirdo Begierdo:
Evan George: guitar
Joel Black: drums
Evan Nicol-Johnson: bass
Annie O'Maley: keyboards
Jesse Smigel, Andrew Larson, Joe Webb, and a super-villain named "Dr. Bloodhammer," have also played with me on several shows/tours.
Influences
Specifically/Recently: Coyle & Sharpe, *Las Vegas Club*(Joe Kendall), John Prine, Paul Simon, Smog, The Mountain Goats, Deer Tick , Lee Hazelwood, Found Sound, Black Camero, New Mexico (The State), William Saroyan, A Crowd of Small Adventures, NatrixNatrix!!, Shivers, Longmont Potion Castle, and Jason Anderson, and French Quarter---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I can totally get behind the follwing (in no meaningful order): Tom Waits, Leo Kottke, Edward Lear, Daniel Johnston, The Shaggs, Karl Blau, Kenneth Higney and all "outsider music," Willie Nelson, The Books, Captain Beefheart, Viking Moses!!, Richard Farina, The Mapes, Pete Wingfield, My Sexual Dad, The Yearbook of Agriculture, TMBGs, The Modern Lovers, The Langley Schools Music Project, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Entomology, The Velvet Underground, GoGoGo Airheart, Kris Kristoferson, ELO, Little Wings, Tristeza, Dennis Driscoll, The Microphones, Angelo Badalamenti, Jim Reeves, Trans AM, Tortoise, Riders in the Sky, Charlemagne Palestine, Beachwood Sparks, The Skygreen Leopards, Bobby Birdman, Modest Mouse, Furry Lewis!!, Derrick Harriot, Lou Reed, Knife in the Water, Taken, Ornette Coleman, The Casket Lottery, Claude Bolling, Herbie Mann, David Bromberg, and Wes Montgomery...............
Sounds Like
Jacob Smigel with guitar strumming, children’s drums, bell piano, chord organ, and plaintive/angelic kazoo w/ reverb. Songs are gifts, and I shuffle along awkwardly to bear them. I like stories, songs that have stories behind them, and songs as stories. Sounds like BoomBox!! recording mixed with computer recording in a bedroom in the year 2003. Sounds like wooden music.
Please do sign up for my improved email list!!! (info regarding shows, releases, and more. Only good, never evil.)
Released for 2008 Summer Tour!!! "Band Nerd Love" (JS005 released 5/27/08)
Full Length CD-R in black or red paper sleeve w/ insert
---Band Nerd Love is the name I have given to a love letter cassette (recorded sometime in 1985) that I found at a thrift store in Las Vegas, NV in 2006. It was authored by Martin, a know-it-all music nerd who loves to hear himself talk. BNL is an amazing artifact from the life of an American teenager of the 1980's, steeped in the type of egoism, self-loathing, and suffering that typifies teenage existence. Guaranteed to make you cringe.
$5.00 (1st Class US Postage Paid)
$6.00 (1st Class Canadian Postage Paid)
$7.50 (UK/Australian/Other Postage Paid)
My new full length CD New Mexico is out now and available through my website www.jacobsmigel.com, at shows, and in select stores. New Mexico combines song writing, field recordings, spoken word, and personal research to celebrate (and tell the story of) my family’s mountain retreat: a run-down adobe cabin. The CD was pressed (not burned!!) in Las Vegas and the digi-packs are hand airbrushed and stamped by me. Limited to 500 copies.
$12.00 (1st Class US Postage Paid)
$13.00 (1st Canadian Postage Paid)
$14.50 (UK/Australian/Other Postage Paid)
I Always Wondered How They Were Made
RELEASED JULY 1st, 2006!!!!!!!! This is a full 80 minute CD of sound clips from 1946-->1990's (people talking mostly), culled from old cassettes found at thrift stores and yard sales over the past 4 years. The tracks come from tape-letters, audio-diaries, vacation soundtracks, children or retarded people playing with cassette recorders, recordio discs, etc..... basically a ton of sources and situations.
The album is a huge 6-panel digi-pack decorated with a found photo collage and includes a ~30 page booklet of detailed track notes, stickers and found scraps. Only $10 (postage paid) from WWW.JACOBSMIGEL.COM!!!!!
Eavesdrop Interview on ABC Australia for their show "The Night Air" which aired on June 24th, 2007. This meticulously edited episode is called "Collectors."
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A short bio
I was born in 1980 in Las Vegas, NV. My mother played vinyl records a lot, and my father restored model A and model T Fords. I grew up in downtown Las Vegas and worked for a private ambulance company as a EMT-Intermediate for four years. I have also worked in other allied health positions: as a phlebotomist, Direct-care-staff for the mentally handicapped. I will be attending medical school beginning August 24th, 2007 and will be recording and touring much less.
I have played music since I was about 13 but only released music semi-commercially starting in 2003. I self-released a CD called "Animal Diseases" in 2003, a 15-track album on which many of the songs are legitimately about animal diseases. STILL AVAILABLE FROM WWW.JACOBSMIGEL.COM!!! It was recorded (in mono) in Las Vegas on my brothers computer with a primitive USB-interface, over the period of 10 months or so. I played all the parts on the album and designed the album art. I made several hundred copies and distributed them freely to friends and anyone who was interested.
Some friends of mine who got the album (and dug it) were Britt, Amanda, and Joel who started the DIY indie-label called Not Not Fun Records. NNF released my second album called "Full Grown and Talking About Fountains," which came out in 2004. A companion 7" followed several months later, which fulfilled my curiosity about what my music would sound like on vinyl. This year was full of drastic changes for me. Until this point I had only given my music away and I had not played more than a few live shows. I began playing shows in Las Vegas and LA, and then went on a West Coast Tour with two other bands on the Not Not Fun Label.
I also play in another band called *LAS VEGAS CLUB*. Not Not Fun Records released our "Whiskey Flats," album, which took us about a year to make. LVC is the musical project of my close friend (and band-mate) Joe Kendall. He has played music with me for years (including Jacob Smigel live shows) and I returned the favor by drumming in and recording the first three LVC albums. WHISKEY FLATS is an instrumental soundtrack (movie-score) to a non-existent 1960s Western Film. Meaning that it is an odd Joe Kendall Folk/Space/Rock/Western album written with scenes of a movie in mind. It is very moving, and unique. It is a CD-R in a DVD case with aged-paper art, with comic book, track notes, and stickers for only $8 (postage paid), and is still available through my website (www.jacobsmigel.com).
In July of 2006 I released an album of found sound called "Eavesdrop: a wealth of found sound." Eavesdrop is a collection of anonymous recordings found at thrift stores, yard sales, and in trash bins over the past four years. These unaltered tracks come from audio or micro-cassettes, 8-Tracks and home-recorded records. Many of the clips are segments from audio diaries, tape-letters, the sound of road trips, fights, crying, family moments, telephone conversations/messages, or the amusements of children or the mentally handicapped.
A minimum of editing or manipulation was used in the making of this album. I did not add music to the tracks (or mash them up), but instead served as preservationist (or curator) to present the listener with the most powerful recordings in their natural state. Some are funny, some are ridiculous, others make no sense. A few are so perfect I cant believe I actually found them.
Eavesdrop is a scattered documentation of what I call "the golden age of personal recording (1965 - 1986)." It is about the wonder that is putting our experiences, feelings, and lives down on tape. The album's ~80 minutes is spread over 40 tracks. The album includes 28 pages of track notes, transcripts, background information, and additional resources. Album art is a collage of found photos collected over the past two years, and each CD comes with unique "found scraps." In addition to this, six of the album s tracks spawn whole other albums that are available as hand decorated CD-Rs. EAVESDROP is only $10 (1st Class postage-paid) through my website (www.jacobsmigel.com).
I try hard to play shows with the bands or people that I like: Deer Tick, Las Vegas Club, Drew Danburry, Dreaming of Lions, and Black Camero, so check them out if you get the chance.
Upcoming: (depending on when you read this)
-Begin Medical School August 24th, 2007.
-Summer 2008 Tour of Central US
-Special CD-R Re-issue of my "Band Nerd Love" found cassette (June 08')
-One-off show with DEER TICK in Las Vegas, NV on Aug. 22nd, 2008!!!
I have historically had very little access to videos of my live shows, so I am blessed (thank you Kristen) to have this fine video of me playing "Broken Record." Filmed at the KGPA in Las Vegas, NV on June 22nd, 2008.
Matt was so kind as to send me several mix CD's recently. The collection consisted mostly of some choice Willie and Mr. Bob Wills, and then in there he snuck the mix CD you had made. He warned me in advance that was a neat odd surprise somewhere toward the middle, and needless to say that I was totally floored once I heard you singing in a song that, initially, I thought no way in heck was one of yours. Way to go. Totally and thoroughly cool and different, and yeah - the pillbug song is pretty genius, Jake.
MIAMI LOCO! Open Saturdays and Sundays, 11am to 7pm at MIAMI ART WORKS, 509 Sullivan St. Miami AZ.
CALL 928-273-7679 for by appointment.
(Closing reception is during the Miami Boomtown Spree, April 16, 17, 18, 2009. Miami Loco is a group show of some interesting local artists, and the closing party will be an all out show down. )
TEAPOT TOTEMS AND POEMS @ THE FIREHOUSE artspace 1015 N 1st Street, DOWNTOWN PHOENIX - Opening Reception 1st Friday, APRIL THIRD
9PM reading by Ken Boe of his epic poem Tatterdemalion Day Dream
It's me, John. Dennis and I have been jammin' out to New Mexico for awhile. We're at "Funeral of Enkidu" right now and loving it. Also, check your email cause I sent you something...
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