Eric Bescak (banjo, vocals, presiding genius) lives in tentative harmony with his chubby cat in madison. guess what? he maintains a blog.
Brooke Jackson (vocals, fiddle, piano, guitar, bass, trumpet, Ms. Fantastic) is a stone cold multi-instrumental fox. Piano, fiddle, guitar, bass, and trumpet all willingly submit themselves to her virtuosity. Her classically-trained voice melts crusty marines. Endowed with a keen business sense, she as well applies her sense of economy to her art. To mankind's profit. Funky and sexy, she knows how to turn the party out. Compelling and subtle, she knows how to break you down. She hales from historic Atlantic, Iowa (a.k.a. HOT-lantic), where they only drink Coke products, sometimes jump off 70 ft. high bridges, and in December, wrap presents with elves.
Denim Heart (lap steel, electric guitar, atmosphere of dread)(ne Gully Dawn, aka DolphinQuest) washed up on the urban Chicago shore a fully formed man. He quickly adapted to his surroundings, clothing himself in business casual garments of his adopted home. While teaching his tongue to form the words of the inhabitants, he used a lap steel guitar (mysteriously engraved with the names “Joel” and “Diana”…Beloved parents? Abandoned children? Interior demons?) to mesmerize the inhabitants with the soulful sounds of his distant island home. He learned to defend himself with wicked Dick Dale-esque guitar licks from the wearthered Gibson six string he floated in on. No one knows for sure where he comes from, nor where he is going. Enjoy him while you can.
Influences
Bonnie “Prince” Billie, Band of Horses, Jens Lekman, Jolie Holland, Dresden Dolls, Quasi, (smog), JJ & the Pinetops, Decemberists, M. Ward, Waylon Jennings, Andrew Bird, Feist, Charlie Patton, Destroyer, Okkervil River, Baby Teeth, Magnolia Electric Company, the Handsome Family, the Silver Jews, Slayer, Split Lip Rayfield, Cat Power, Rev. Gary Davis, Chris Mills, Kelly Hogan, GBV, Califone, Gillian Welch, Clem Snide, Neko Case, Neil fucking Young, Japancakes, Blind Willie Johnson, Lambchop, Gogol Bordello, My Morning Jacket, Joanna Newsom, Broken Social Scene, Pavement, Sparklehorse, Iron & Whine, Devotchka, Lambchop, Low Skies, Shearwater, Son Volt, the Besnard Lakes, Pink Floyd
Sounds Like
The LVF Sound is a sum of many disparate influences, but an ineffable consistency runs throughout, just like you and me. At times it's a very tired Eef Barzelay fronting a very high Handsome Family; at others it's Neil Young on helium finding himself spending too much time with half of Gogol Bordello and then a crabby Dick Dale shows up; sometimes it's Paul Westerberg and Jim, Jenny and the Pinetops with Ariel Pink locked up in the trunk in the back; and at still other times it's a very unexpectedly upbeat Amanda Palmer trying to cheer up Jason Molina (who's also on helium); or it's a cut from the little known and very wrongheaded Willie Nelson/Phil Spector tapes.
With touches of folk, surf rock, punk, orchestral pop, prog, gothic americana, gypsy punk, and a positive manhandling of country (the "Holy-shit-Willie's-got-a-gun" kind, not the SUV-with-a-crying-bald-eagle-bumpersticker kind), Lion V. Fish is thoroughly felt-up with influences.
Eric is stubbornly committed to playing banjo like on every song, while Brooke and Denim Heart are both proficient and promiscuous with instrumentation, trading with abandon the lap steel, fiddle, piano, guitar, bass, and horn.
LVF song subject areas include (but are not limited to): masochistic preemptive breakup strategies; revisions to the official Georgia state map; speed-dating and the ensuing hilarity, depression; the inadequacy of language to fully convey one's meaning; booty-calls; the attraction between the thoroughly incompatible; addiction; gas; the perverse roots of affection; the loneliness/alienation required in creation; the widening income gap and it's corrosive effect on the rule of law; hard times with hard people; and online dating profiles.
Lion V. Fish have performed (and have not performed) under many nautically themed (and not-so nautically themed) names before happily settling down with the present moniker. They include Fudgy, The Whale; Dolphin Uzi Suicide; DolphinQuest (now Denim Heart's sonic side project); When I Say I, I Mean We; Fighting Tides; Hi, I'm Nice; Broken Eric; When I Say I, I Mean You; Jerry Grit and the Woodsy Men; Bierce!; Brain Erexxxion!; Wakefield; The Rolling Stones; Gaddis; Pickles and Her Super Friends; Committed to Excellence; The Beautiful Sounds of the High Strung; Snobs in Capes; Committed to Excellence; Love's Lonely Officers; Cottage; Burial Expense; Touchdown Jesus and the Huge-Assed Wolverines; Jif and the Choosy Moms; Tenderfoot; Okfuskee; Mirror Faces; Senior Pictures; Emoticon; and Prairienauts.
They love to perform. In particular, they love to perform for you. Let them, won't you?
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eric - nice! i dig the tunes. i didn't realize you were the singer! sounds great. we should do an acoustic show together in the fall. mother fools? montmartre?
