Here's something you might be interested in.
"I dated a girl who was a schoolteacher and a yoga instructor for two years. She lived in Pacific Beach. I spent a ton of time down there. You could say I lived there for a summer," says a Los Feliz-area bassist named Alex Stiff. He's in a band called The Record Company which he describes like this: "'60s Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and John Lee Hooker."
Things have been going great for The Record Company. "We've only been around since January 2012," Stiff says, "and already we've been featured on over 40 music blogs, in a national Coors Light ad, and we played two major festivals in Canada."
The Record Company is on the verge of heading out on their first West Coast tour with The Whigs.
Here's another detail in Stiff's introductory email that caught my eye: "We record live using our absolutely crappiest instruments." If there is anything I love more than shiny new instruments, it would fall into the category of absolutely crappy old instruments.
For example, my newest horn is 47 years old. But my favorite horn? 89 years old. It was salvaged from a trash can. Granted -- stuff like that is hard to play, full of ghosts and problems and strange creaks, and as such is an acquired taste. How to explain one's affection for musical junkers?
"They're like an old, beloved, drunken uncle," Record Company guitarist Chris Vos says.
"I used to play in a psych rock band," he says by phone, "and I had a pedal board that looked like it could launch the space shuttle" But not any more. He's since traded away high tech for lo fi. He speaks of his current guitar, a Stratotone with great affection:
"It never stays in tune, but it’s the best guitar of my life. It coaxes out of you a little more effort and heart. An old cantankerous instrument that has a spirit all its own. And if you want to hear that particular tone, you gotta have that particular guitar, not some production guitar off the shelf."
He plays through an old Fender Deluxe amp with a single 12" speaker.
"The guy who owned the Stratotone before me decorated it with old leather belt buckle designs from the '50s. He put all these decorations all over the guitar. I saw it, and I almost went to my knees. And I thought how is it that this guitar is only $450 dollars?"
Vos had a residency last year at the Casbah on India Street as a pedal steel guitar player with a different band. "I was scared half to death down there, because planes are landing right over your head. This FedEx plane flew over and it looked like it cleared the parking structure across the street by 20 yards. Holy shit - I've never had a plane that close to me in my life."
With Marc Cazorla on drums, the Record Company's songs have the classic old blues tint for sure, but the chord structures sound as if influenced by the changes that Neil Diamond or Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were churning out during the '60s when they were anonymous songwriters in the business of crafting Big Hit Records for Other Artists.
It makes for an interesting blend of old and new, a factor that has gotten the band a lot of attention from college radio, which is essentially the proving grounds for conventional broadcast.
Good for the band, but possibly bad for the romance. Of the PB schoolteacher: "she moved to L.A. to be with me," says Stiff, "but it didn't work out. It must have been the magic in San Diego that kept us going."
The Record Company Wednesday October 17, the Griffin, 7:30 p.m., $12 (The Whigs and Family Wagon also perform)
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/oct/01/32619/
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/oct/01/32620/
"I dated a girl who was a schoolteacher and a yoga instructor for two years. She lived in Pacific Beach. I spent a ton of time down there. You could say I lived there for a summer," says a Los Feliz-area bassist named Alex Stiff. He's in a band called The Record Company which he describes like this: "'60s Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and John Lee Hooker."
Things have been going great for The Record Company. "We've only been around since January 2012," Stiff says, "and already we've been featured on over 40 music blogs, in a national Coors Light ad, and we played two major festivals in Canada."
The Record Company is on the verge of heading out on their first West Coast tour with The Whigs.
Here's another detail in Stiff's introductory email that caught my eye: "We record live using our absolutely crappiest instruments." If there is anything I love more than shiny new instruments, it would fall into the category of absolutely crappy old instruments.
For example, my newest horn is 47 years old. But my favorite horn? 89 years old. It was salvaged from a trash can. Granted -- stuff like that is hard to play, full of ghosts and problems and strange creaks, and as such is an acquired taste. How to explain one's affection for musical junkers?
"They're like an old, beloved, drunken uncle," Record Company guitarist Chris Vos says.
"I used to play in a psych rock band," he says by phone, "and I had a pedal board that looked like it could launch the space shuttle" But not any more. He's since traded away high tech for lo fi. He speaks of his current guitar, a Stratotone with great affection:
"It never stays in tune, but it’s the best guitar of my life. It coaxes out of you a little more effort and heart. An old cantankerous instrument that has a spirit all its own. And if you want to hear that particular tone, you gotta have that particular guitar, not some production guitar off the shelf."
He plays through an old Fender Deluxe amp with a single 12" speaker.
"The guy who owned the Stratotone before me decorated it with old leather belt buckle designs from the '50s. He put all these decorations all over the guitar. I saw it, and I almost went to my knees. And I thought how is it that this guitar is only $450 dollars?"
Vos had a residency last year at the Casbah on India Street as a pedal steel guitar player with a different band. "I was scared half to death down there, because planes are landing right over your head. This FedEx plane flew over and it looked like it cleared the parking structure across the street by 20 yards. Holy shit - I've never had a plane that close to me in my life."
With Marc Cazorla on drums, the Record Company's songs have the classic old blues tint for sure, but the chord structures sound as if influenced by the changes that Neil Diamond or Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart were churning out during the '60s when they were anonymous songwriters in the business of crafting Big Hit Records for Other Artists.
It makes for an interesting blend of old and new, a factor that has gotten the band a lot of attention from college radio, which is essentially the proving grounds for conventional broadcast.
Good for the band, but possibly bad for the romance. Of the PB schoolteacher: "she moved to L.A. to be with me," says Stiff, "but it didn't work out. It must have been the magic in San Diego that kept us going."
The Record Company Wednesday October 17, the Griffin, 7:30 p.m., $12 (The Whigs and Family Wagon also perform)
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/oct/01/32619/
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/oct/01/32620/