Nick Gangel: percussion Lauren Bernozzi: percussion Forrest Mulerath: rototoms, clapping Jonas Emmanuel Fricke: drums Jeremy Bernozzi: drums, percussion, vocals Ruth Garbus: vocals, clarinet, violin Mikey Cham: double bass Sequoyah Leaf: noise, clarinet Timothy Findlen: noise Ron Schneiderman: noise Caitlin C. M. Senni: accordian Icarus Grover Wittman: dogchain Flash-C: trumpet Jeremiah Morelock Brown: vocals, acoustic
electric and bass guitars, ukelele, piano,
synthesizer, percussion, tympani, bells,
chimes, gamelan, noise
Influences
phil ochs, neurosis, beethoven, queen, david bowie, neutral milk hotel, mary o'hara, shotakovich, godspeed you black emperor, bob dylan, cat stevens, johnny hobo and the freight trains, john lennon, beatles, his hero is gone, mantits, radiohead, in/humanity, green day, hatebreed, sick of it all, bright eyes, pixies, magnetic fields, nick cave, tom waits, kimya dawson, moldy peaches, nomeansno, citizen fish, subhumans, ramones, screeching weasel, madball, schubert, led zeppelin, black sabbath, guns n' roses, kodo, red army choir, louis armstrong, bessie smith, miles davis, king crimson, sex pistols...etc.
Sounds Like
a cathartic nostalgia fantasy of clunky childhood thunder twinkle
Jeremiah wrote a series of songs for acoustic guitar and voice that seemed to demand a different presentation. Soon Mikey and Jeremy joined and the three got recording preliminary tracks with which to experiment, under the auspices of Forrest and his generous hospitality. Being without a piano player, Jeremiah set to learning the instrument. A search went out for various select humans/musicians and those that bit and stayed gnarled were the rest of the group.
About a year and a half later the final tracks were done, after many hours of transcribing guitar chords down a fourth and making grids of chords construction/progression and critiqueing notes for being the slightest bit off key or out of rhythm and editing hundreds upon hundreds of soundbites, and finally editing and mixing crouched on the floor in a hot attic, inflaming back pain, in a mad dash that resulted in a project just barely ready in time for the mastering studio. Saturn agreed to do the cover art and the mad creation was complete within a couple of months.
To order a copy of the Pretend You're Happy CD, click on this fancy rectangle:
Many memorable moments took place along the way, from Mikey throwing his bow in frustration, to Forrest converting to kombucha, to the abstract conducting of Jonas, to Jeremiah's accidental driving expedition halfway up to Maine.
The only thing left to do was to amass a live version. This is the current phase of the project...
here's the brief: so, i went about baking your cookies, it turned into a night and i turned out a ton of cookies. i drove to brattleboro to give them to you. i got antsy and left, fully intending to return. the cookies were in a tuperware container in the trunk of the rental car. i went to maine, shit went haywire, i did not return to vermont. when i returned the rental car i forgot to retrieve the cookies. after the thanksgiving madness this week, i will make a fresh batch and mail them. i'm sorry to have broken our date, seeing as i was so looking forward to being around you for the first time in years. soon, i promise. the cookies were milk chocolate chip, cashew, oatmeal. i hope the guys at avis enjoy them. xoxo
we've been working on a bandit music project and will send ya a copy and maybe if ya like it we can try some stuff together. PYH is amazing and my favorite cd in a very long time.
i appreciate how unapologetically over the top you are you catchy compact disk, you. it appeals to the high school rock opera nerd in me. now get out of my head! and my pants!
Shit sounds really good man! I like the fullness and the dropping out..and the return of fullness...Very ORchestral in a powerful way...nice work guys and girls..
