Goodbye Picasso

Artist Information

Biography

THIS IS ONLY PART OF THE STORY.

Goodbye Picasso opened the 2006 CMJ Music Marathon with a bang on Halloween night in New York City. "It really was the culmination of all the things that we have worked for this year," remarks frontman Chris Dreyer. "If you asked me in May where we would be at this point... I don't know what I would have said... but I never could have known we would be this far along." Goodbye Picasso played over 80 shows from May to December, making several trips up and down the east coast, and have established themselves as a forced to be reckoned on the national music scene.

The band moved to Nashville, Tennessee in the winter of 2006, relocating from Tallahassee, Florida and their home on the Florida State music scene. It was time to bring their music to more people and places, and they have been loving every minute of it. "Nashville has been a great experience for us," says Scott Taylor. "The advice and direction we have received from some industry heavyweights has been indispensable." Goodbye Picasso returned to Tallahassee in November to play the annual Down on the Farm Festival with Drive-By Truckers, Perpetual Groove, Tishamingo, and others.


For the past 4 years, Goodbye Picasso had been tearing up the Southeast music scene. Vocalist Chris Dreyer and guitarist Scott Taylor met in the spring of 2001 while studying abroad in London. They recorded a demo and had their first taste of performing live at London's famed 12 Bar Club. "Playing in London was great because we had the support of all the kids on our program," Dreyer recalls. "We would book a small club and pack the place... It was a great introduction to performing my music live, but it was humbling to come back to the states and start from scratch." They knew they had something special and began to focus on getting their music heard.

Dreyer and Taylor paid their dues as an acoustic act on the music scene at Florida State University, performing at every bar, dive, club, and party they could get their hands on. After over 100 shows for the booze/the door/tips/you name it, reality set in: it was time to build a full band from the ground up. Both players had a lot of experience performing, Dreyer received a degree from FSU in theatre, Taylor received his in music performance.

Dreyer began playing guitar in college. "I never had any training," he concedes. "I just started learning bit by bit, and along with it, starting writing songs. As I got better at the playing, I got more adventurous with the writing, but the writing was always a big part of expressing myself. There are songs that we play in this band that I wrote within the first year of learning to play."

After finding some players, the boys starting booking bigger shows and began playing out of town at neighboring college and beach towns. "We got a chance to play before we were really that great," says Chris, "but I think that really got us ready to perform quicker... because we had to entertain these crowds." Their big break came when they got their first gigs at Bullwinkle's in Tallahassee. It has named one of the Top 20 College Bars in America by Playboy.

After playing 200 shows at Bullwinkle's and establishing a touring presence in the Southeast, the group decided to relocate to Nashville. "Nashville seemed like the next logical step," explains Dreyer. "All the label and A & R feedback we have received has come from Nashville. It is a songwriter's town, and it is a great place to tour from, being centrally located. " Taylor added, "This year of touring has far exceeded our expectations. To be embraced in new parts of the country is such an awesome feeling. We have so much more we want to do next year. We can't wait."


THIS IS NOT THE END.

Instrumentation

Chris Dreyer - vocals, acoustic guitar
Scott Taylor - lead guitar
Rhythm Section varies according to region of US

Discography

The London Sessions EP

"The Untimely Demise of a Love-struck Confessor"
Recorded by Kris Kolp at Log Cabin Studios
Spring 2005
Songs by Chris Dreyer(ASCAP)
Produced by Kris Kolp and GoodbyePicasso
©The Redneck Hippie Co./Wonderboy Media(ASCAP)

Official Website

http://www.goodbyepicasso.com

Audio

• Annabelle
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• New Orleans
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• O'Connor Blues
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Lyrics

• Annabelle
• New Orleans
• O'Connor Blues

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Local bands and national acts get 'Down on the Farm' [+ Show ]
  

  Third annual Down on the Farm festival gets loud in Quincy by Evan LeRoy Sarah McCoy is the ex...Third annual Down on the Farm festival gets loud in Quincy
  
  by Evan LeRoy
  
  Sarah McCoy is the executive director and founder of Spanish Moss Productions and the Spanish Moss Foundation. The Down on the Farm festival is in it’s third year in 2006, and it only promises to get louder and serve more people.
  McCoy grew up on Spanish Moss Farm, 20 minutes from Tallahassee, in the heart of good music and great values. Her first passion in life is music, but coming in at a close second is philanthropy. Service and music are in her blood, and they materialize every year for the past three in the form of a growing music festival.
  
  “It’s about the philanthropy,” McCoy said.
  Spanish Moss Farm was formerly a tobacco plantation, then a tomato plantation, and now a sod and pine tree farm that plays host to the Down on the Farm festival. The mission statement of the Spanish Moss Foundation is “to blend our deep rooted love of music, art and the rich landscape of the South with a commitment to bettering our community and enriching the lives of those in need.”
  
  This year the headliners are Drive-By Truckers and Mofro, but the real heart of the festival is in the smaller local acts. Whiskey Richard was formed deep in the heart of Tallahassee, and this year, the band’s performing at Down on the Farm. Currently in New York, the members are part of the CMJ Music Marathon, a very prestigious industry festival.
  Formed by FSU students, Whiskey Richard was the house band at Bullwinkle’s for years and played over 200 shows there.
  
  “After we left Tallahassee, we came back to play a show at A.J.’s. We expected to just be playing music and not have a lot of people paying attention to us, but there were actually people there that knew us and had our CD”, the group said.
  Expect to see Whiskey Richard at South by Southwest this year, but for now, the group’s rocking Down on the Farm.
  Down on the Farm may be the noblest music festival next to Live Aid. Spanish Moss Productions is a non-profit organization. Benefiting higher education and music education, the group is encouraging festival-goers to bring new and used instruments to benefit schools and children without the necessary means to buy them. The festival is not just for music.
  
  “We really want these festivals to leave a positive mark on the community,” McCoy said. “We like people to come and help the community’s economy and really leave the site nicer than they found it.”
  

• Nectar drips sweet set [+ Show ]
  

  by Lynn Wallace September 23, 2004 Local band Whiskey Richard, formerly Nectar, hit the Tallaha...by Lynn Wallace
  September 23, 2004
  
  Local band Whiskey Richard, formerly Nectar, hit the Tallahassee music scene just two years ago.
  
  Since its formation, the band has fostered the combined elements of creativity, style and edge -- a rocking mixture that many acts find both tricky to tackle and difficult to maintain. The band strives to keep variance and originality at its musical core, and because of this the group can't help but cater to an immense number of musical styles and genres.
  
  "Our songs' styles change all the time," guitarist Scott Taylor said. "We'll have an indie tune and then we'll have an alt-country tune. ... Then we'll have a stripped rock tune, then we'll have a funk tune. When you hear them, it all makes sense together, but it's all different styles all the time."
  
  Vocalist and guitarist Chris Dreyer expressed similar sentiments.
  
  "Because it is all over, sometimes it's kind of like a schizophrenic band," Dreyer said. "We try to be all over the place."
  
  The end result, however, is nothing less than pure fun as the band's eclectic nature reaches out to the crowd through the use of both original pieces and familiar covers.
  
  "We do a bunch of covers," Taylor said. "Our covers are like Radiohead, Dave Matthews. ... The Strokes, The White Stripes, Death Cab For Cutie. We just do hip stuff."
  
  The band is eager to experiment with several veins of music, and as a result of this quality the group feels it is easily set apart from other bands in the local scene.
  
  "I don't think anybody out there does what we do," Taylor said. "We have our own vibe originally, but we kind of push tunes that nobody else (does). I don't think anybody else in town does Death Cab For Cutie covers. It's stuff people are listening to, but people are almost afraid to play. We kind of do whatever we want and bring everybody else around to it."
  
  Whiskey Richard regularly performs at clubs and bars in and around the Tallahassee area. On occasion, the band can even be seen performing at a few out-of-town venues (past tour stops include Pensacola, Gainesville and select cities in Georgia). However, when playing to its local crowd, the band always feels at home while on stage at Bullwinkle's Saloon.
  
  In fall 2002, Nectar played its first band gig at Bullwinkle's. By the following year, the group became the regular talent piece for the bar's Thursday night in-house entertainment.
  
  Aside from Bullwinkle's, however, the band admits that playing any college town gig is worthy of an adrenaline rush.
  
  "It's the best gigs to play because people go nuts," Taylor said.
  
  Dreyer agreed.
  
  "I think we definitely provide to that crowd, that atmosphere," Dreyer said. "You have all these people blowing off steam; you're blowing off steam. You're all going through the same (stuff). Everybody's doing class and work and (stuff) during the day and then we're all there at the same time to just kind of let it ride -- and the more they're doing it, the more we're doing it."
  
  This fall, Whiskey Richard plans to hit the studio for the recording of its first album. The disc, which will take the form of an independent release, will be available for purchase by January or February 2005.
  
  
  

• UF Student Body President Sings with Band [+ Show ]
  

  Editor: I would just like to say that I was extremely impressed at Joe Goldberg's rendition of Lyn...
  Editor: I would just like to say that I was extremely impressed at Joe Goldberg's rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" at Lillian's Music Store on Thursday night.
  
  He went on stage as a guest singer with Whiskey Richard, an awesome band hailing from Tallahassee (no foul play, I promise) and received a standing ovation from a crowded bar.
  
  Originally, I believed Goldberg to be a stiff and uninspiring, but after witnessing his performance his image did a complete 180 in my mind. It had the panache of Clinton's saxophone performance and was very good.
  
  So when you think of Joe Goldberg the Student Body President realize he too is a UF student and seems to know how to enjoy himself.
  
  Riley Gelwicks

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