Green Cookie records

Schwindy’s indie music spotlight: Graves Brothers Deluxe

February 26, 5:07 AM | Orange County Music Examiner Gary Schwind

Orange County Music Examiner rates this: 4/5

Let’s start this off with a little quiz. Choose the best answer. You know you are an indie music artist when:

a. You play a gig for a dozen or fewer people.

b. You sell your merchandise from the back of a van.

c. You end up on a Greek record label.

OK, I don’t know exactly how Graves Brothers Deluxe ended up on Green Cookie Records from Thessaloniki, Greece. However, it’s not surprising to me that the band couldn’t find a label in the US. This is a band that plays the antithesis of 3-minute pop songs. San Malo is a collection of songs that includes a lot of heavily distorted, hypnotic guitar, and skronking saxophone. Oh, and lyrics that sound like they should be recited by some beat poet smoking a French cigarette and topping off an all-black outfit with a black beret. Either that or Captain Beefheart. A couple examples of the sort of far-out beat feel are “Splinters” and especially the last song on the album, “Song for Mating Mailmen.” Yes, someone wrote a song for mating mailmen. (It’s about time.) And yes, it’s easy to imagine this song being the backdrop for someone’s poetry reading.

But that isn’t even the song I would classify as the most unusual on the album. That designation belongs to “Papio Papio (the Swamp Ape Again).” This song has tremendous energy. And tremendous discord. This is not the sort of song you play for people who enjoy the Grammys. Well, it is if you want to chase that person away. Trust me, I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean, quite simply that this song is the perfect antithesis of all things Grammy and pop.

I have never seen your music collection, but I think it is fair to assume that you don’t have many albums like this in your collection. According to the one-sheet, this is a “post-Katrina retelling of St. Malo, Louisiana, a swamp village founded in 1763 by Filipino deserters of Spanish galleons.” All I can say is that if this is the soundtrack of a village, it must be one really unusual place. WARNING: This album will take some getting used to. It’s not one that you can sit down with and immediately start singing along. But if you ask me, it’s this sort of album that makes music worth exploring. The musical world would be pretty dull if every band played easily digestible pop songs. Graves Brothers Deluxe most certainly does not. If you are looking for something different, and a little challenging, give this album a try. I think you’ll find it’s worth the challenge.

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February 20, 2010

NEW MUSIC REVIEW: THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE San Malo CD

Filed under: Album Reviews, Reviews — russelforster @ 12:01 pm | Pirate Cat Radio 87.9 fm, USA

THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE / San Malo CD / Green Cookie Records / 2009

Brilliant bad-attitude rock expertly produced by L.A. legends Geza X and Paul Roessler. World-weary in a totally pissed-off way that’s also very funny, with some of the tastiest slide guitar I’ve heard in years. BONUS: Features PCR ace DJ STOO ODUM on stringed instruments, vocals, and way-offbeat songwriting.

SOUNDS LIKE: RADIOHEAD, NOMEANSNO, GUN CLUB

SUGGESTED TRACKS:

1 “San Malo National Anthem” (instrumental goodness)

4 “Five Foot Category Five” (ambivalence defined)

6 “My Heart Burned Down Today” (catchy and danceable – a hit!)

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The Graves Brothers Deluxe, “San Malo” (Green Cookie Records) Rating: 4 TCB’s ****

I kept scratching my head on this one. I love it, no question about it, but I was puzzled at why I was so drawn in. Then it hit me. The stripped down, beat driven arrangements and haunting lyrics remind me of the late great Mark Sandman and his jazz/experimental work with Morphine. If you can imagine a musical stew of Morphine, Beck and Wall of Voodoo with a pinch of Gang Of Four and the Sex Pistols thrown in. Now picture Frank Zappa stirring the pot then you’re about halfway there.

This album is the musical re-telling of a swamp village in Louisiana founded in 1763 by Filipino deserters of the Spanish galleons. Heady stuff indeed but these guys not only pull it off, they’ve created an album that the listener can really sink their teeth into for years to come. This isn’t disposable music that loses its flavor after a few listenings.

“Five Foot Category Five” has an eerie swamp groove that will have you checking the skies and battening down the hatches. “My Heart Burned Down Today” sounds a bit like the Sex Pistols “Submission” covered by a young Talking Heads. “The Ballad Of San Malo” is a mesmerizing personal favorite. Highly recommended stuff.

Review by J.R. Oliver | Ear Candy magazine  http://www.earcandymag.com/reviews-0210.htm

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The Big Takeover > essays

Nara Denning (featuring Stoo Odom of The Graves Brothers Deluxe), Part II

by Chris Stroffolino | 16 January 2010

The Graves Brothers Deluxe were one of the first three rock bands I got into when I moved to the Bay Area, the only one not named after a front-man (in contrast to Kelley Stoltz and fellow Mississippi Exile, Hudson Bell), and the only one for which I jumped around in an Apesuit, on our package shows for the now defunct Good Forks record label (before my accident).

Always one of the most danceable of the Bay Area bands, the band’s first release in 5 years, SAN MALO, and their first on Greece’s GREEN COOKIE records (an implicit commentary on the paucity of quality/viable Bay Area independent labels), has even tighter grooves, from the rhythm section of Marco Villalobos and Stoo Odom, while
stepping their “noise rock” jams up a notch; the glorious melodic cacophony of Willie The Mailman’s (ex-Residents ) sinuous and jagged guitar/saxophone lines recall Albert Ayler, as “backed” by the rhythm section of The Minutemen, if not Firehose). Perhaps it’s a result of 5 years of touring since 2005’s FILTER FEEDERS, or their work on the MAHIKARI album (Birdman 2008), with Japanese noise-rock legends SEIICHI YAMOMOTO and MAKOTO KAWABATA, but many of the tracks on SAN MALO have a much more expansive instrumentalization, while the words —never a central aspect to GBD— take even more of a backseat. Perhaps because GBD’s singer is first and foremost its bassist, the words are usually only important insofar as they call attention, often playfully, to the inadequacy of words, as on FILTER FEEDER’s “…And The Conversation Turned To Sex” or SAN MALO’s “Noisy Kind Of Nothing.”

At the same time, San Malo is the most melodic, and tuneful LP in the GBD’s catalogue —not that melody was ever that important for GBD. But, with the addition of Allison Lovejoy on keyboards, many of the new GBD compositions are much more “college radio” friendly, without sacrificing anything about what makes them such an engaging live band. I recently sat down with Stoo Odom to talk about GBD and his work with Nara Denning. Here’s some videos.

“It came from the Id,”

Interview, with Stoo and Nara

And here’s the information about their San Francisco Release Party
Pirate Cat Radio co-presents: “San Malo” CD release party!
WINSTON TONG (ex-Tuxedomoon) & LX RUDIS
THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE
MARK MATOS & OS BEACHES+ original films by Winston Tong and Nara Denning

Wednesday January 20, 2010
8pm, $8, 21+
Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., San Francisco, CA USA

GBDLX’s long-awaited 4th full-length album comes out next week! It’s (almost) a full-on rock opera about the village of St. Malo, Louisiana. The Asian-American experience began there in 1763 when Filipino indentured servants escaped Spanish galleons and founded the town in the remote swamps east of New Orleans. GBDLX retell the village’s isolation, struggles, and eventual destruction-by-hurricane through a post-Katrina, post-lumpia filter. Beautiful violent art by New Orleans institution Bunny Matthews graces the CD cover.

Headlining the show is legendary Tuxedomoon frontman WINSTON TONG, performing with LX RUDIS and members of the Graves Brothers Deluxe themselves! Porto Franco Records artists MARK MATOS & OS BEACHES open the show, and original films by Winston Tong and Nara Denning will punctuate the evening.

“San Malo” is brought to you by Greece’s GREEN COOKIE Records. It’s available in the USA through Super D Distribution (www.sdcd.com) and CDBaby (cdbaby.com/all/mikesurf); in Europe through Clearspot (www.clear-spot.nl), Soundflat (www.soundflat.de), and Hands & Arms (http://handsandarms.com) – and very soon through www.gravesbrothers.com …

Thank you! More info:
www.winstontong.com
www.markmatos.com
www.bottomofthehill.com
www.piratecatradio.com
www.greencookie.gr
www.gravesbrothers.com
www.myspace.com/thegravesbrothersdeluxe
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Graves-Brothers-Deluxe/195063714889

It Came From The Id…

Director Nara Denning’s vision of the Liberation of the Subconscious, as it would be told by Norman Rockwell and H.P. Lovecraft over a bowl of seaweed soup. The Graves Brothers Deluxe provide the talent (actors) as well as the music (“Song for Mating Mailmen”).

The Graves Brothers Deluxe performing “Vulture Sing” and “Splinters” on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”

Travel Channel’s No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain visiting San Francisco.

For more infos about Anthony Bourdain and the greatest running travel show visit:
http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelch…
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows…
http://www.youtube.com/user/TravelCha…

For older episodes of No Reservations check out:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ArcApex

Kudos to the Travel Channel for allowing all the No Reservations videos to stay online. This fantastic travel show is of course best viewed in full HD at the Travel Channel.