Trunk Show

Artist Information

Biography

Originally formed on Valentines Day 2003 in Atlanta, GA, USA as "Blue Valentines", this group of singers started as an homage to the music of Tom Waits. They quickly gained a following as a band capable of uniquely re-inventing the songs they covered and making them their own. In 2005, the band re-located to Europe and has worked with an array of international musicians. In 2007, after much success, the band began developing its own original music under the new name Trunk Show and has been playing to packed houses throughout Central Europe.

A Trunk Show is a collection of costumes, trinkets, ornaments, props, bullwhips, facades, old boots, love-letters from lonesome ol' girl in Ft. Worth (the stationary reads "Bluebird Motel" and the pages smell of rose salve, gun powder and L'air du Temps; reeks of scattered optimism), leftover baggage, and forgotten characters. There's a hot plate, eggs, bacon, baked beans, bourbon-soaked bread pudding, and strong coffee....this is what the music sounds like.

Sounds include sheet metal, guitars, the jawbone of an ass, a banjo, assorted junk percussion including babydoll heads played over large cheese-graters, saxophone, three-part harmony, large skully clackers, organs, shadows of wild boys past and Mrs. Darling's lips....and the voice of Aileen Loy.

It's that little place that you can never quite touch; that small light, just a little flare, a match-head or kerosene torch.... something to light our way in the sewers, through and around the pitch and sludge of this world, to the electric glow of a station platform, waiting for a train going anywhere.

Instrumentation

Aileen Loy- Vocals/percussion
Marc Cram - Vocals/guitar/saxophone/percussion
Andru Davis - Vocals/banjo/guitar/organ/percussion
Gez Donnelly - Guitar
Patrick Blanke - Upright Bass

Discography

"STAY BAD" (Album, August 2009), available for purchase/download at Amazon.com and on Dovetail Records @ www.dovetailrecords.com

Links

• Dovetail Records
• MySpace
• Pearl (YouTube clip)
• If There Be Dragons (YouTube clip)
• Junk (YouTube clip)

Audio

• Pearl
  Listen  
• Ruby Slippers
  Listen  
• Junk
  Listen  
• Wishbone
  Listen  
• If There Be Dragons
  Listen  
• A Murder of Crows
  Listen  
• A Bottle of Whiskey and a Dull Kitchen Knife
  Listen  

Lyrics

• Pearl
• Ruby Slippers
• Junk
• Wishbone
• If There Be Dragons
• A Murder of Crows
• A Bottle of Whiskey and a Dull Kitchen Knife

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Ear Plugs Column [+ Show ]
  

  ...Next up was Blue Valentines (aka Trunk Show), a collection of talented folks doing a performance......Next up was Blue Valentines (aka Trunk Show), a collection of talented folks doing a
  performance of the Tom Waits album from which they took their name.
  The percussionist brought a kitchen cabinet for a drum kit, opened
  the drawers and pulled out whatever was in it. A couple of metal
  bowls, a bit of chain, a cookie tin, and proceeded to play them and
  the cabinet itself. A guy stepped up to the mike and did a fine
  gravely Tom Waits voice and in general I was enjoying the show. Then
  he gave the mike over to a girl with a smile so broad I thought she
  could unhinge her jaw like a snake, an image further ingrained in the
  way she slithered around then hiss and growled out the lyrics to the
  next song - fantastic. Someone in the crowd yelled out "I love you,
  scary girl!" She smiled and said "I'm not that scary." Her giggle
  takes the edge off but her eyes mesmerize and her voice spits like a
  cobra. Excellent stuff.

• Blue Valentines aka Trunkshow [+ Show ]
  

  A Tom Waits tribute band with a difference, thanks to lead singer Aileen Loy's amazingly deep voice,...A Tom Waits tribute band with a difference, thanks to lead singer Aileen Loy's amazingly deep voice, the Blue Valentines first played together in Atlanta, on Valentine's Day 2003, before relocating to Prague.
  
  The Valentines' theatrical live shows feature a bizarre range of instruments, including a doll's head rubbed on a cheese grater, miniature skulls with clacking teeth, a giant petroleum can, and an antique doll fitted with a music box.
  

• She's crafty, she's just my type [+ Show ]
  

  On WEDNESDAY, THE EARL hosted the return of the Blue Valentines, a group I'd enjoyed a few times bef...On WEDNESDAY, THE EARL hosted the return of the Blue Valentines, a group I'd enjoyed a few times before one of their members, Aileen Loy, ran off to Prague a year or three ago. Aileen is back from Eastern Europe, and she brought some new band members along for the ride. "Think of them not as a Tom Waits 'cover band' or a 'tribute band' but more of a Plagiarist's Society," read a statement in an announcement about the show. The act may be even weirder than a Tom Waits' show.
  
  The performance featured instruments from a musical saw to a bucket-and-broomstick bass to the jawbone of an ass. Aileen's voice is as deep and gravely as Waits himself. She crooned out the poetic lyrics, swaying and making faces that ranged from anguish to ecstasy. Unfortunately the midweek crowd was thin. You'd think more people would need something like the Blue Valentines to make it through hump day!

Setlist

Set changes from show to show and is normally about an hour, though we've done much longer on several occasions. Here's a list of songs.....

A Murder of Crows
Ruby Slippers
Junk
Second Building on the Right, Third Floor, Just Past the Free-Standing Toilet on the Left
Whatever You Have, I'll Take Some Too
Pearl
A Bottle of Whiskey and a Dull Kitchen Knife
Jesus Gonna Give Me Wisdom
Heartsick
Wishbone
If There Be Dragons
Cross You Over
Spartan Holiday
Ain't We So Proud

Basic Requirements

Calendar