Green Cookie records

THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE: reviews

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:47:07 +0000

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

PAINTED AIR: gigs

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:41:11 +0000

RECORD RELEASE PARTY support The Magnificent Brotherhood

17 February 2010 @ Molotov club (Hamburg {St. Pauli} Germany)

PAINTED AIR: “Come On 69″ cd

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:33:58 +0000

OUT NOW !!!

[ release date: 27 January 2010 ]

PAINTED AIR “Come On 69″ cd, GC023

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RECORD RELEASE PARTY support The Magnificent Brotherhood

17 February 2010 @ Molotov club (Hamburg {St. Pauli} Germany)

THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE: “San Malo” cd

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:32:46 +0000

OUT NOW !!!

[ release date: 20 January 2010 ]

THE GRAVES BROTHERS DELUXE “San Malo” cd, GC020

“San Malo” cd | GC 02o | 2010 | one-sheet | reviews

“SAN MALO” RECORD RELEASE PARTY

WHAT: “San Malo” record release party with Winston Tong, the Graves Brothers Deluxe, + Mark Matos & Os Beaches (a Pirate Cat Radio co-presentation)
WHERE: Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF
WHEN: Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 9pm (doors at 8:30)
HOW MUCH: $8, 21 and over
PRESS/ INTERVIEW INQUIRIES: Stoo Odom, misterodom@gmail.com, 415-642-5724

It’s been over four years and one giant levee failure since the last full Graves Brothers Deluxe album, and they’re back with a vengeance. Produced by Geza X (Germs, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Elliott Smith) & Paul Roessler (45 Grave, the Screamers), “San Malo” is the Graves’ musical tale of the real-life fishing village of St. Malo, Louisiana, founded by escaped Filipino indentured servants in 1763 and destroyed by hurricane in 1915. As a New Orleans native and San Francisco resident, Graves frontman Stoo Odom found this story of the USA’s first Asian-American settlement particularly compelling in this post-Katrina, post-modern, post-lumpia world.

Far from lazy for the past four years, the Graves Brothers Deluxe have been busy scoring films; writing; recording; collaborating with members of Acid Mothers Temple, the Boredoms, and 60’s icons the monks; making TV appearances (most recently Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations); plus touring Japan, Mexico, and the USA in their spare time. “San Malo” will be released January 20th on Greece’s Green Cookie Records.

Headlining the bill is former Tuxedomoon frontman WINSTON TONG, performing for the first time since 2008. Winston is best known for the song “In a Manner of Speaking,” covered by (among others) Nouvelle Vague and Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore. Joining the SF cult legend onstage are guest artist LX RUDIS and members of the Graves Brothers Deluxe themselves. MARK MATOS & OS BEACHES (Porto Franco Records) open the show.

The event is brought to you by the Bay Area’s favorite radio rogues, Pirate Cat Radio.

More info:
www.gravesbrothers.com
www.myspace.com/thegravesbrothersdeluxe
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Graves-Brothers-Deluxe/195063714889?ref=mf
www.winstontong.com
www.myspace.com/markmatososbeaches
www.bottomofthehill.com
www.greencookie.gr
www.piratecatradio.com

NEWS

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:12:25 +0000

OUT NOW

[ release date: 14 December 2009 ]

THE GONKS “Float Yer Boat” cd, GC021

[1] S.M.S. [2] Grounded [3] Tomorrow My Love [4] Does It Look Like Rain [5] Not Goin’ Out Of My Way [6] Golden Days [7] Throw Me A Line [8] Not Enough Hours In A Day [9] Hey [10] Life’s Parade [11] Just A Man [12] Free As You Wanna To Be

“Float Yer Boat” cd | GC 021 | 2009 | one-sheet | reviews

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OUT NOW

[ release date: 16 December 2009 ]

THE WADADLI RIDERS “Made in Antigua” LP, GC022LP

(limited edition 300)

[A1] Dwell At 10 [A2] Caribbean Vibes [A3] The Killer Wave [A4] Brown Recluse [A5] Calm Before A Storm [A6] Kawaramachi [B1] JBL D-130F [B2] Mozipel Twist [B3] Hurricane Season [B4] Going My Wave [B5] Rockula (bonus track feat. Daddy-O Grande)

“Made in Antigua” cd | GC 022 | 2009 | one-sheet | reviews

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[ release date: 1 September 2009 ]

the DADDS “Idées Choc & Propos Chic” cd, GC018

[01] De musica mediocrita [02] Comme quoi parfois la démographie… [03] Les filles, le jerk & les motos [04] Sexe à pile [05] London eye [06] L’Amour avec Fénelon [07] Passe-moi ton carnet [08] Le bel incompris [09] Ibère hiatus [10] Are you waiting for me ? [ the LP version will be released by Groovie records with different artwork and track order ]

“Idées Choc & Propos Chic” cd | GC 018 | 2008 | one-sheet | reviews

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[ release date: 1 September 2009 ]

the JUMPIN’ QUAILS “What’s Your Jump Like?” cd GC019 |

[01] Contis [02] Pet So Beat [03] Moonatic [04] Little Hours [05] Les Sucettes [06] Liza [07] Carnival Riot [08] Blue Hot Sauce [09] Ginger Quail (Agitato Non Mescolato) [10] Tricks In Your Head [11] Your Fault [12] Werewolves In The Sun [13] Breakin’ The Glass [14] Merry-Go-Round

“What’s Your Jump Like?” cd | GC 019 | 2004 | one-sheet | reviews

PAINTED AIR: photos

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:05:19 +0000

PAINTED AIR: mp3’s

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:04:10 +0000

WADADLI RIDERS: “Made in Antigua” lp

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:31:21 +0000

WADADLI RIDERS

“Made in Antigua” cd | GC 022 | 2009 | one-sheet | reviews

THE GONKS: “Float Yer Boat” cd

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:30:45 +0000

THE GONKS

“Float Yer Boat” cd | GC 021 | 2009 | one-sheet | reviews

THE WADADLI RIDERS: reviews

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:07:33 +0000

“This should be well-received by surf fanatics around the world; all the essential ingredients are here – lotsa reverb, clever tunes, tight arrangements and solid playing throughout. Good job!”
Paul Johnson – Belairs, Surfaris (www.pjmoto.com)

“Made in Antigua truly rocks! The songs are unique and original and masterfully played by a band that really understands surf music. I recommend this album!”
Danny Amis aka Daddy-O Grande (www.daddyogrande.com)

“I’ve listened to the new CD several times. Nice job and something all of you can be proud of. I like “Kawaramachi” and, even more, “Hurricane Season”. Anybody who loves drippy, reverbed guitar will enjoy the album.”
John Blair – Jon & The Nightriders, Eliminators

“What can I say abou the new CD from the Wadadli Riders? They may be from the Caribbean but their style of surf music is like taking off on a glassy ten foot wave at the Huntington Beach Pier. Each song is like screaming across the face of a mammoth wave locked in the curl. You can feel the spray in your face listening to this CD. If you want instrumental surf, this is the real deal.”
Tim Ferrill – Eliminators’ management

“Made In Antigua is a splendid release from Wadadli Riders, the only surfband in Antigua. There are a number of really superb tracks here. The sound is very traditional, but the melodies are influenced by the locale. Wonderful.”
Phil Dirt – ReverbCentral.com (check out the review track by track)

“I’ve been listening to this CD all week, and enjoy it more on each spin. It is like an early 1960’s release with great playing, and great sound! Lorenzo and Niki pay tribute to a lot of great players on this record while making it sound totally fresh. Highly recommended.”
Rev Hank – Urban Surf Kings

“(…) The first title Dwell At 10 is a big clue, and the reverb control must indeed have been set to max as this is a great surf blast with a melody to match. With its cascading runs and tremoloed chords it harks back to the best of the vintage surf classics and is the album’s ‘hit single’. With similar ingredients JBL D-130F does come close, but the rest of the tracks were never going to match it. However, they all have plenty of that great guitar sound and are well up to standard album fare. The Killer Wave and Hurricane Season bubble away neatly, Calm Before A Storm has a mellow start before launching into a blizzard of double-picking and there’s a gently surf ballad to close with in Going My Wave.”
Alan Taylor – Pipeline Instrumental Review N. 81