Pepi Ginsberg

Artist Information

Biography

Pepi Ginsberg was born in CT in the early summer. She lived in a clapboard house on Clapboard Ridge Road with her mother and father and dog. When she was seven her father died in a plane accident and later her mother remarried a kind, gentle man. Pepi was named after her grandmother, a resistance fighter in WWII, who, with the help of her grandfather, whom she would later be introduced to at the Copacabana in NY, organized the refugee ship Exodus to usher holocaust victims to safe harbor in Palestine.

This Pepi attended local high school, picking up the post of editor in chief of the school's literary magazine, a role Truman Capote once filled. When it came time to leave, Pepi packed her bags and headed to West Philadelphia to attend college where she continued to work on both visual art and creative writing, the latter of which manifested itself in the form of a novella, written at age 19 called "No Name, Colorado."

Luckily, Pepi found great like minds within the city, and spent the last years of school haunting the warehouses, drawing and playing songs with friends. A spot on a local Philly music compilation soon followed and with the support and help of friends she recorded her first album Orange Juice:Stephanie/Stephanie by the spring of the following year.

The next fall in 2006, Pepi moved to Brooklyn and recorded a second record, Sometime Momma/Sometime Babe, in the tub of her apt bathroom. When the record was finished Pepi hit the road and headed west, driving the coast of California with friends to play shows.

Upon returning home, Pepi found a bottle with a note in it at the foot of her apt door. The return address was from Philadelphia musician Scott McMicken(Dr.Dog) who had written to Pepi asking if she woud like to come down to Philly and record a song.

As Pepi tells it . . . "I went down and it was just good vibes from day one. We recorded The Waterline and it came out just great. I went back a few days later and we did In My Bones and then I just never left. I had all these other songs and the general feeling was- damn, we have three and a half weeks, I have the songs, so lets just do it. We created a schedule and the Brown Chair, White Room Manifesto which was a collection of our ideas on what we thought was a good way to approach an analogue record and stick to basics, no reverb, no plug-ins, just music and spirit. We stayed up all hours, smoked too many cigarettes, washed up in the sink, and slept on the couches so we never had to commute. On top of that, hanging out was just so fun that I don't think either one of us was too interested in doing anything that wasn't recording or talking, including sleeping and eating. There were late nights that we went a little silly, we called these times our non-tage moments, laying on the floor with Scott's amazing dog Zimba starring at us as if to say 'Oh man . . .' Then we'd get stranded at the studio and the nearest place to get a real sandwich is a twenty minute walk which meant dinner one night was salt and pepper on packing-peanuts from a box of recently delivered records. We snuck into the building's staff fridge and brought ice cream sandwiches into the fort we built in the studio, but I'm probably not supposed to tell that! We took a trip to Toby's grandparent's house in York, PA to record Nothing More outside at night with the crickets as our backing soundtrack, The whole time was magic, better than a dream."

Red was joyfully recorded in three and a half weeks. "We never looked back," Pepi said. "There wasn't time." It was a blessing and now the record is here to share.

Instrumentation

Pepi Ginsberg - Guitar and Vox
Jon Guez - Bass
Amnon Friedlin - Guitar
Matt Scarano- Drums

Discography

LP: Red (Park the Van), 2008
LP: Sometime Mama/Sometime Babe, 2007
LP: ORANGE JUICE:STEPHANIE/STEPHANIE, 2006

Single: "The Waterline" from Red. Radio play on college and independent stations.

Streaming (on Myspace & pepiginsberg.com):
"The Waterline"
"In My Bones"
"Ghosts of Perdition"
"Son"

Audio

• The Waterline
  Listen   Download
• In My Bones
  Listen   Download
• Ghosts of Perdition
  Listen   Download
• Son
  Listen   Download

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Pepi Ginsberg: The Waterline [+ Show ]
  

  NPR.org, May 14, 2008 - Pepi Ginsberg has a distinctively mournful voice with a remarkable range. O...NPR.org, May 14, 2008 - Pepi Ginsberg has a distinctively mournful voice with a remarkable range. On her latest CD, Red she croons with a weathered and passionate warble about her inner demons (real or imagined), sleeping with strangers, getting high, and starting anew. She's a kind of troubadour for the 21st century, gracefully channeling '60s psychedelic pop and folk and retooling it to fit her own imaginative stylings.
  
  Red is full of off-kilter rhythms and unexpected instrumentation. Spare violins dance woozily with bleating trumpet lines and shuffling rhythms. Fuzzy guitars take a walk with reedy organs. The mood is melancholy one moment, joyous and celebratory the next. The mix is sonically ambitious without overwhelming the heart of the songs, due in no small part to producer Scott McMicken, frontman for the Philadelphia-based psych-rock group Dr. Dog.
  
  When Ginsburg arrived home from a tour last Summer she found a note in a bottle on her doorstep from McMicken, asking if she'd like to record a song together. What initially started as a one-off recording turned into an entire album. "The Waterline" was the first track they did together.
  
  "It was just a composite of things that were brewing in my head as I walked around the city," says Ginsberg. "It's a really city-centric song, feeling an affinity for St. Mark's church, I'd walk by there and some girl (was) tripping on some kind of acid jaunt outside there with her hands held up. She was on a whole other level and I don't know what she was doing. It's a little bit of an adventure story. It's not necessarily about water but the idea that things could be overwhelming, but you're going to feel the pull of it whether you're drowning or staying afloat."
  
  Red is Ginsberg's third release. Her debut, in 2005, was the self-produced and recorded Orange Juice:Stephanie/Stephanie. She followed with Sometime Momma/Sometime Babe in 2006, an album she recorded in the bathroom of her Brooklyn, NY apartment.
  
  Ginsberg has been writing feverishly since completing Red and is currently touring in support of the album.
  
  Download this song in the Second Stage podcast.
  
  By Robin Hilton
  
  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90449506

• Pepi Ginsberg: Red [+ Show ]
  

  Pepi Ginsberg comes on like a memory you can't quite place. Her voice is familiar yet new. Her lyric...Pepi Ginsberg comes on like a memory you can't quite place. Her voice is familiar yet new. Her lyrics are timeless, and if you told me she awoke from a 50 year slumber having not aged a day, I wouldn't bat an eye.
  
  Her emotive and story-telling qualities are evident from the opening track, "Son", when she sings:
  
  Last night
  I had to make it with a man
  Just to get high
  Tonight
  I don't try to understand
  What I do to get by
  
  In an album of wonderful songs, this one will require repeated listens, but so does "Nothing More" and the most danceable track, "White White White," which has a Velvet Underground feel. The single, "Waterline," is simply gorgeous and is the best example of the album's handiwork.
  
  Produced by Dr. Dog's Scott McMicken, Red (Park The Van) is uncompromisingly alive and captures both the sounds and essence of this labor of love. Ginsberg is a voice we can believe and her observations ring with the weight of the Everywoman. She takes delight in language and melody, and her vocal performance is passionate and sincere. And the cameos McMicken makes throughout the album enrich an already wonderful experience.
  
  2008 has brought several interesting and good albums from actress/indie rock albums such as Zooey DeChanel and M. Ward's She and Him, Volume 1 and Scarlett Johansson's Tom Waits cover album, Anywhere I Lay My Head (which was produced by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio), but neither sounds as authentic as Pepi Ginsberg for the simple reason that they aren't.
  
  Be careful when you put this album on, because it will bring you to another place and you will yearn to walk down a Brooklyn street, thoughts racing through your mind as the seasons change and time unwinds.
  
  http://www.jambase.com/Articles/14206/Pepi-Ginsberg-Red

• Pepi Ginsberg: Red [+ Show ]
  

  When Pepi Ginsberg opens her mouth to sing, countercultural throwback signifiers come spiraling out...When Pepi Ginsberg opens her mouth to sing, countercultural throwback signifiers come spiraling out: rose-tinted glasses, patchouli clouds, gypsy skirts, lungfuls of dope smoke, Janis Joplin. This 25-year-old Brooklyn singer/songwriter's beanbag tunes exude a refreshing sense of freedom and possibility, even if she comes across as extraordinarily leathery: Natalie Merchant-husky vocally, sub-Dylan lyrically. She tackles the 12 tracks on Red with a breezy confidence beyond her years. On "The Contortionist," all flashing-siren organs and fuzz-bass pow, Ginsberg transforms an emotional and financial swindle into a bouncy garage-rock party. "Nothing More," a campfire folk number suffused with chirping-cricket samples, explores political dissatisfaction, head-in-the-sand ignorance and unrequited love for a best friend: a downer trifecta. But it's "Ghosts of Perdition" that encapsulates Ginsberg's carpe diem appeal. As pianos whump like dancing feet, she sings, "There used to be a year, you say, when people didn't write/They showed up on friend's doorsteps late in the middle of the night/Said, 'Let's go to the West Side, catch a movie, maybe we get ourselves high." Just live life already, Ginsberg seems to insist, while you're still able. Like her beat/hippie psychic ancestors, maybe she's onto something. [Park the van, www.parkthevan.com]
  -Raymond Cumings

• Busy Streets Make Crowded Minds, The Sweetest Thing You'll Ever Know, Drifter [+ Show ]
  

  Pepi Ginsberg Busy Streets Make Crowded Minds, The Sweetest Thing You'll Ever Know, Drifter 21 A...Pepi Ginsberg
  Busy Streets Make Crowded Minds, The Sweetest Thing You'll Ever Know, Drifter
  
  21 April 2008
  tell your friends... tell your friends...
  
  Words by Sean Moeller // Illustration by Johnnie Cluney // Sound Engineering by Patrick Stolley
  
  Recently, a hotel shower in Seattle gave some new insight into the refreshing effects of an outside source – something as flimsy and minimum – on the beginning of one’s day. There had been little sleep taken and early morning wakeups while there in the city, so the roll out of bed showers in a place with Nirvana ties were the splashes of awareness and awakening that needed to be had, preludes to strong coffee, helping hands. An unsuspecting scalp was treated to the complimentary hair conditioner of some odd mint variety that it sent a cooling chill into the hair follicles and down into the eyebrows, loosening a stern and hardened squint. It almost watered the eyes with its stiff mint elixir and suddenly the bright daylight was welcomed closer and the body and mind were charging, glad that we’d done this together. ... [Story Continues Below]
  
  First song
  Son (Pepi Ginsberg)
  – original version appears on Red
  
  This song was written under a tree in People’s Park in Berkley, CA and also outside on the fire escape of my friend Matt’s apt on Telegraph, and oh wait, in a hotel room in LA as well. I think the line about seasons going round and round, etc. was written walking home to my place in Brooklyn. The song is about feeling like a child, a son, or a daughter, or about the relationship you have with someone with whom you feel you need to be free from. This song is about freedom, personal freedoms, for me freedom from my own patterns or the things I hold on to. And it’s about growing up and resisting growing up. I think the song is a negation of the responsibility for things we hold ourselves responsible for (such as losing someone you love) ‘cause I think sometimes, it’s just life acting on us, not anyone’s fault, just our job to deal with it. In a sense, the song is saying, ‘let me the hell go, let me be free,’ at some point, I think ya just say ‘I’m done’ – and that’s usually a great feeling — this song is about getting to, and wanting to get to that point.
  
  Second song
  The Waterline (Pepi Ginsberg)
  – original version appears on Red
  
  Oh this song is about how magical and inspiring it is to walk along the streets of New York in that certain golden light hour of the day and feel a sense of possibility much greater than yourself. There are some funny characters the narrator comes across on this outing that serve as unlikely teachers who promote the idea of not going under completely, they say ‘keep your head up kid, ‘cause you’re probably going to feel the steady waves whether you’re sinking from them or trying to stay afloat.‘ Alice in the park, man I did see that girl tripping outside St. Mark’s church, she was a curious lady.
  
  Third song
  Wind Or Degree (Pepi Ginsberg)
  – original version appears on Red
  
  I don’t know why I think of this as a spaghetti western jam, we rearranged it as a band, my band mates are terrific geniuses and I thank them for it. But ya this is another adventure story. It’s a song about someone who is always running from something, looking for something. It goes from city streets of Philly to Cali to some old dilapidated place, I imagine it as some old man’s home, old letters stacked around that never got sent, everything’s stale, and the person singing just has the sense that she’s got to get the hell out and move along. This song was written over a course of time, the story didn’t come clear until I went on a road trip and tour in California last summer. My friend Dani (who plays as Rio en Medio — she’s wonderful!) and I stayed in this totally insane lady’s house in Santa Barbara, with a crazy dog that wailed and ran around our room in circles at four in the morning. Anyway, this lady lived on a hill and you could see the whole city, I guess that’s where I saw some point of no return and kept moving.
  
  Fourth song
  In My Bones (Pepi Ginsberg)
  – original version appears on Red
  
  This one was written last summer. It’s about a lot of things I think, about relationships, falling in love, about wanting to fall in love, but it’s more than that — at least for me, at least now. This one is really about moving on to a new place, and not looking back. It’s about being on a train that only knows how to travel in one direction. The song says ‘I’m not going home’ so figuratively speaking ‘home’ is pretty much every location you get off of the train to visit and then leave. There’ s always a new place to go, you’re always going to find another “home,” you’ll just never go back to the one you knew.
  
  (Story continued)...
  This was just a hair conditioner, nothing to get too excited about, but within seconds, each time it happened, the prospectus of all that laid ahead was altered, turned into potential merriment, etc. Suddenly, the day was ripe and pregnant, not something to address and fight with. Pepi Ginsberg, the newest signee to the amazing Park The Van Records galaxy, is a lot like the effect and the effecter in the mint conditioner anecdote above, as ludicrous as that sounds – a person taking on the characteristics of a hair product that’s really no more special than a toothpaste or a drop of cream in a deep cup of that morning coffee. She likely does appreciate the slight twists that can have significant effects on a countenance and a temperament as the music on her debut album is teeming with nods to perception and happiness being so gradually and terrifically affected by the most minute things. Her looks at life are from all of the different perspectives allowed. She looks and looks, burns holes into the unsuspecting passerby that she lays down as the crust for her pies. She rolls these people and the ways that she likens their mannerisms and hopes, dreams and aspirations may be out into a thin layer that fits the tin bottom. She loads the pies up will fillings and feelings, tops them off with a homemade overlay resembling those people and original thoughts that she imagined and then slices three slits in the top to allow all of the things she packed inside a chance to breathe. They take on new lives, just as the ones that Keri Russell made in last year’s “Waitress,” with the tastes and flavors opening up upon themselves to create a sensory mood that bears witness to the world – especially the New York and Philadelphia worlds of Ginsberg – as the peacock and mute bird that it is. Ginsberg, in her soulful and breezy style, alludes to the secret folds of people and all that they stand for as they try to navigate all of the difficulties that line up each morning at the stoop, handing you the newspaper as they come in and tuck themselves into the briefcase or carry out bag that you leave the house with. Her explorations in the elasticity of free will and the need to leave everything up to the almighty chance and arbitrary encounter are wonderfully rich and voluminous in their font and thoughtfulness. She doesn’t make snap judgments or phrases, but ones that have adult teeth and some age lines cracking out of the corners of their eyes, showing their maturation. As Ginsberg and band played a late afternoon show on an outdoor stage at her label’s showcase at SXSW in March, the waning light and a light breeze sailed gently in from the lake, she wore big sunglasses, though she didn’t need them and she moved as if so much was in her trying to get out – again being acted on by the forces outside of control and by a seeded spirit that could out watt everything from the outside but instead just mixes with it until there’s no distinction.
  
  Playing this session:
  Pepi Ginsberg – vocals/guitar
  Amnon Freidlin — guitar and keyboard
  Jon Guez – bass
  Chris Haag — drums
  
  http://www.daytrotter.com/article/1247/pepi-ginsberg

• New Pepi Ginsberg Video - "The Waterline" [+ Show ]
  

  The 24-year-old Brooklyn (via Philadelphia) singer-songwriter Pepi Ginsberg released her third album...The 24-year-old Brooklyn (via Philadelphia) singer-songwriter Pepi Ginsberg released her third album Red the end of last month. The collection, produced by her Park The Van labelmate Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog, has a vintage, analog-drenched feel, but with more than enough tweaks and twitters to keep it expansive and interesting. The Albert Birney-directed video for bona fide standout "The Waterline" finds Ginsberg ambling through a shifting, color-coding NYC landscape (St. Marks, Alice tripping in the park). She smiles, looks concerned, loses her head, is frozen in space and smeared with paint, and there are creepy encounters with people in masks, etc., but the real star of the whole thing is her gorgeous voice. It hits with some sorta Edie Brickell warmth, but in a much jazzier Jolie Holland or, better yet, Spector realm. Also, listen closely to her words: "Tell them life is poetry, you can't ... read twice."
  
  Nice the way the song swells in the middle and then just keeps on driving. You should take it with you:
  
  Pepi Ginsberg - "The Waterline" (MP3)
  
  Red is out on Park The Van. Hear more at her MySpace, or check out her Daytrotter session, or, ya know, leave the house:
  
  05/15 - New York @ Joe's Pub
  05/17 - Washington, DC @ The Velvet Lounge
  05/27 - Rochester, NY @ The Bug Jar*
  05/28 - Philadelphia, PA @ Johhny Brenda's*
  06/12 - Philadelphia PA @ The Khyber*
  06/13 - New York @ The Knitting Factory
  
  *with The Spinto Band
  
  Posted at 1:24 PM in MP3, Tour Dates, Video
  Tags: Pepi Ginsberg
  
  http://stereogum.com/archives/video/new-pepi-ginsberg-video-the-waterline_009626.html

• New Music: Pepi Ginsberg [+ Show ]
  

  Dr. Dog's Scott McMicken was so taken with Pepi Ginsberg that he not only collaborated with the New ...Dr. Dog's Scott McMicken was so taken with Pepi Ginsberg that he not only collaborated with the New York singer/songwriter on her third album, Red, but he also got her signed to Philly label Park the Van. It's easy to see the musical attraction. On "The Waterline" Ginsberg sounds thoroughly self-possessed both lyrically and vocally, fitting a breezy, folky arrangement to dark lyrics about trying to keep your head above water. Although it is specifically city-set, the song doesn't sound necessarily urban, but neither does it sound like the freaky folk music emanating from Philadelphia lately. There are jazzier elements pushing the song along: In the high range, a choir of Pepis sing a wordless warble-- the song's most distinctive feature. In the low range, a piano plays the left-hand part of an old boogie rhythm, filling in for a bass guitar and giving the song its ambling lope. In the middle is Pepi herself, singing about how "life is poetry you can't read twice."
  
  MP3:> Pepi Ginsberg: "The Waterline"
  [from Red; out now on Park the Van]
  
  Bonus! The song now has a video.
  
  Posted by Stephen M. Deusner on Thu, May 8, 2008 at 8:00am
  Pitchfork.tv
  Forkcast Playlist
  © 2008 Pitchfork Media, Inc.

• Buds On The Tracks: Pepi Ginsberg - Red [+ Show ]
  

  Listening Party Pepi Ginsberg Red (Park The Van) Released: April 22, 2008 Recorded: Meth Beach...Listening Party
  
  Pepi Ginsberg
  Red (Park The Van)
  Released: April 22, 2008
  Recorded: Meth Beach Studios, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Leaman farmhouse in York, Pennsylvania
  story by Reed Fischer
  
  "I don't consider myself a singer, there's just a necessity of communication," says 24-year-old folk-rock tunesmith Pepi Ginsberg. "These are my words, and this is the only voice I have." True to her smile-filled onstage persona, Ginsberg is forthcoming, specific and swift in discussing the process behind the roots-garage-country hybrid Red, her third album, at the back of Ozzie's, a coffee shop near the ex-Philadelphian's Brooklyn home.
  
  Her songs are constructed from a similar type of necessity. Album opener "Son" was hatched under a tree in People's Park in Berkeley, California. "I just started playing a little, that [singing] 'da-da-da-dan-nan-uh' riff," she explains. "I was thinking, I wish I had a record. If this song were playing I would listen to it." Alongside Ginsberg's need to let the music out of her head is an obsessive streak to find the perfect narrative. Her heightened awareness for her words brings out sharp descriptive images ("honey-brown summer grasses") and the ability to parse intangibles ("it must be my thought talking too loud"). "The reason that I ever wrote a song in the first place is because of my infatuation with words," she says. "Just spending time trying to make sure that they sit next to each other in an appropriate way or watching how other people make their words sit next to each other."
  
  Labelmate and Dr. Dog principal Scott McMicken, was planning to record one song with Ginsberg for the project, but was so taken by her material that his role expanded to Red's producer, engineer and mixer. Although the compositions are all Ginsberg's, several moments show the fingerprints of a happy conspirator—from McMicken's soaring backup vocals to the crickets recorded at bandmate Toby Leaman's grandparents' farm. "I want to make another record with her, and I know she's probably written three albums since we finished Red," McMicken says. "She's still at that point where she's just come out of the gates, she's so in depth and thorough. On one hand it can seem unfathomable, but on the other hand it's happening and it's awesome."
  
  
  1. "Son" (6:18)
  This song is one of several with a strong Dylan influence.
  Ginsberg: I'm obsessed. It's so funny. I love him so much. I can't escape him. It's like a sick disease or something.
  
  McMicken: She just embraces the man whole hog and she's not afraid of what he's doing in the way that I guess I could be. That was a pretty significant thing just in terms of her influence on me in songwriting, just trying to open things up as wide as possible. She's very strongly independent and individualistic in her words. So is Dylan, obviously. That kind of threw a monkey wrench into things for me. It's one of the ways that she's inspired me more than anyone I've ever known.
  
  What are you getting at when you sing "I'm not your man"?
  Ginsberg: The meaning of it always changes. I guess different voices would say "I'm not your man" depending on the relationship that I was thinking about. Whether it's a parent or a boyfriend or a friend. Then that person is saying it and flipping it back to me. I felt like I didn't want to be attached to any kind of gender in writing. Whoever the narrator is isn't necessarily gendered.
  
  
  2. "The Waterline" (5:03)
  How does it feel to omit a lot of the harmonies and nuances of this song in a live setting?
  Ginsberg: I think when you're in the studio, it's like, "Let's just do whatever we can and have as much fun as we can. Go for it." We have all of these things at our disposal, why not? Scott's like this harmony master. If I had everything at my disposal live, I would recreate that world of what's on the record. The inside of the sound. It really feels big when I listen.
  
  
  3. "The Contortionist (3:38)
  Ginsberg: I don't know why I even called it that. I think it was about bending to somebody else's whim or something. The words are "My back did bend, trying to work it out and join with you again." It's about making all of these bendable back moves to try and make something fit that shouldn't necessarily fit. Maybe I just read The Hunger Artist or something
  
  
  4. "In My Bones" (5:34)
  McMicken: When she first came down, we didn't have the plan to make an album. We were just doing one song and it came out great. We were like, "Let's do another." So before she left to go back to New York for a few days, we made a quick CD of just her singing through all of the other songs she might want to record. I went up to York, starting on this painting job, and that song was what really began it for me. I was already super impressed with her. [But] it went into overdrive when I got that song. I heard it and there was this overwhelming impression for me that this is something incredible for me to be able to hear this.
  
  
  5. "Nothing More" (4:18)
  McMicken: She decided really early on that she wanted that one really stripped down. Just kind of a singer and a guitar, you know. If that's what you decide upon, well then why not do it somewhere really interesting? When you're recording a song like that, there's so much room for nuance. I had to do some painting [in York, Pennsylvania]. It's beautiful up there. It's just old farmland. There's a bunch of apple trees and we brought the dogs, a nice old house converted from a barn. I would just do the painting and she would play around on piano, take walks and stuff. And at night we set up the 4-track and I brought a couple mics and that was pretty much it. It was the first or second take. it was just her playing in front of one mic on guitar and singing. And me standing behind her with an upright bass. It barely comes through. She was playing the tambourine with her foot. It's one mic and those crickets came out so nice.
  
  Ginsberg: It felt so huge. And we were just sitting on the porch at night. It was like, "great, crickets, well done." One-take crickets. I think you can hear them in Philadelphia at night. That song always felt like Philadelphia to me. What it felt like to ride around at night with my best friends in sort of the haziness of the city. There's something about that city that doesn't exist other places. A certain kind of slowness, like in the weather and the mugginess in the summer. It exists here, too, but it's not the same.
  
  
  6. "Shone Like A Reverie" (3:07)
  Ginsberg: After we recorded it and I had gone home, it still wasn't sounding right. Scott was like, "What happened to that tambourine track?" I didn't know. So right before it was mastered, he went out to the store and got some super fancy tambourine. He was like, "You're never gonna believe it, but I got this tambourine from this guy who claims he invented the tambourine!" I don't know if he did, or if he meant some type of hand-holding tambourine, but that was fantastic. I laid down the tambourine track over the chorus and I think our song's OK now.
  
  
  7. "Wind Or Degree" (4:10)
  Ginsberg: We were so tired, and I couldn't open my eyes anymore. It must have been 3 in the morning. We were on a really rigorous schedule, and I didn't know what to do. But Scott had an idea, and I was like "OK, but I can't help you, I'll just sit here." I was on the couch right behind the console. I was just nodding off. You ever ride in the back of the car, and there's nothing you can do? You just kinda pass out. Scott's like, "I'm going to take out the EBow." He played three different EBow parts and then stacked and layered them.
  
  
  8. "Lately" (4:09)
  Are you really singing "Mark Twain, the author, had nothing much to say"?
  Ginsberg: I didn't say "Mark Twain." It is, "Lately, I'm a page dog-eared by the former reader, marked when the author had nothing much to say." Like in this place the author's losing her train of thought. Poor Mark Twain, he has so much to say. Pretty sure he has a lot to say.
  
  It's definitely a song with something to say.
  Ginsberg: Ironically, you can't hear what I was saying. Writing songs is always weird for me, because I'll write something and then I'll go, "Oh god that's so intense." One of the lines is "Lately I'm a horse inside of a gate without a race." And people will be like, oh no, you felt that way?
  
  
  9. "Ghosts Of Perdition" (4:30)
  McMicken: We did the drums first. Not really having any idea of what the song was going to sound like, I just played one beat for the length of the song and then we started to build it on top of that. Kinda like dub music or dance music. We even had delusions that the language around the song while we were recording was like party music, hip-hop inspired almost, filtered through our sensibilities and and the kinds of things we do.
  
  One of the best lines is "Oh cups a clang but songs they sing/Are torn from your own music pages."
  Ginsberg: I like when people reference stuff that's musical in songs. I like in Dylan's songs when he talks about trumpets and horns and drummer boys or whatever it is. These kinds of things where you can almost hear it happening in the song even though he's singing you the song. It's like a weird meta moment. Someone talking about movies inside a movie you're watching them watching a movie. I like that idea.
  
  
  10. "White White White" (2:49)
  McMicken: When it came time to do vocals, I thought it might be helpful to put the mic in the hallway outside of the studio so that she could just be alone and not feel self-conscious. She just came out of the gates ripping, just singing like nobody's business.
  
  Ginsberg: I was just screaming in the hall. I was running around and kicking the walls and banging into stuff. We listened to the take and we said we should get a cleaner sound, we should get a different vibe. We tried it but nothing felt right. Nothing felt as raw as just being in the hall and totally banging and wailing.
  
  You repeat the word "red" several times. Is that how you got the album title?
  Ginsberg: That's not why. I think I just really like the color red. I just wear that color often. I also really like generic album names. I really like things to be really simple, like cars. As basic as you can get when it comes to naming an album.
  
  Weezer's new album is their "red album."
  Ginsberg: No! I think King Crimson probably had an album called Red. I'll be in good company.
  
  http://www.paperthinwalls.com/listeningparty/index?id=70
  

• Pepi Ginsberg: Red (Park the Van) [+ Show ]
  

  Pepi Ginsberg Red (Park the Van) Rating: Excellent, like John Oates’ mustache. One-time Phill...Pepi Ginsberg
  Red (Park the Van)
  
  Rating: Excellent, like John Oates’ mustache.
  
  One-time Philly resident Pepi Ginsberg has gracefully slipped into the all-male roster of local label Park the Van for her third album, recorded by Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken. Her conversational rasp and folky sprawl will recall Patti Smith for many, and the bouncy piano and drums bear Dr. Dog’s paw prints, but Red marks a big step from the self-released albums preceding it. Steeped in vintage ’60s and ’70s vibes, Ginsberg’s songs are fascinating oddities that pull us in with that ruffled, world-weary voice. (Doug Wallen)
  
  https://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16935/music--on-the-record

• SXSW 3.15: You Only Get Two Sets Of Ears [+ Show ]
  

  One of the shows I was most excited for coming into SXSW was brash folk singer-songwriter Pepi Ginsb...One of the shows I was most excited for coming into SXSW was brash folk singer-songwriter Pepi Ginsberg. Sincerity is hard to come by at a music livestock show, but she joyfully kicked her legs and showed that her voice—the most evocative and unique that I’ve heard since Joanna Newsom—is genuine and even more stunning in a live setting. I will never tire of hearing “In My Bones,” and hopefully she can teach her backing band to sing the delicious harmonies found on Red (featuring plenty of assists from Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken), out in May.
  
  http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/festivus/2008/03/sxsw-315-you-only-get-two-sets-of-ears.html

• Tales from the Fest: An Abecedarium [+ Show ]
  

  F is for Find of the Festival Several bands that I saw and loved were already on my radar prior to ...F is for Find of the Festival
  Several bands that I saw and loved were already on my radar prior to attending SXSW, so my one true find of this festival was Pepi Ginsberg. Attending on the advice of a friend, her combination of Patti Smith vocals and Bob Dylan’s lyrical cadence catapulted her to the front of what was a pretty crowded field.
  
  http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/56257/an-abecedarium/

Setlist

Son
Waterline
In My Bones
Lately
Coca Cola
Lost River
Ghosts of Perdition

Sets can be between 40 minutes and 1 hour.
No covers

Basic Requirements

Calendar