Ben Davila and the Spectacles
San Francisco, California, United States | SELF
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Since March 2009, Ben Davila has written a song a week. Each Thursday, the 28-year-old invites everyone -- his young music students, the hapless soul miles away with no prior songwriting experience, and the members of his two bands -- to join him in posting a topical composition by the following Tuesday. This week, Davila reined in his passion for math, time travel and all things nerdy, and challenged the World Wide Web via his Song Club blog to write a song about the beach.
Davila has put a year's worth of his one-song-a-week efforts on four seasonal albums. He released the second album, Summer, last month. Following this pattern, Autumn will come out in August, and Winter... sometime in winter. During the remaining free hours of his week, he's making music with his bands, Polkadactyl, a concept band comprised of Davila and his musician girlfriend Elysha Rom-Povolo, and Okay Jose, a six-member group that performs Davila's songs. Because we were beyond curious how someone can write a song in 30 minutes, we caught up with Davila this week. He told us how ideas come to him in the shower, why he left England and The Wombats, and how he's like a dog.
- SF Weekly
Discography
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
Ben Davila and the Spectacles
Photos
Bio
Ben Davila has, since 2009, written and recorded a song every week for his blog, The Song Club.
His band, Ben Davila and the Spectacles, is five-piece indie rock group based in San Francisco Featuring Ben Davila On Guitar and Vocals, Casey Saran on Keyboards, Frankie Castner on Bass, and John McCain on Drums. They will release a new album January 26, 2013.
A California native, Davila spent four years studying music in Liverpool, England, where he earned degrees in music and sound technology. While abroad, Davila performed with a number of bands including British indie trio, the Wombats, and his sister, Camille Davila, who is now a recording artist in the U.K.
Upon returning to California in 2006, Davila began working as a music teacher at the Bird School of Music and playing in local indie bands. In 2009, Davila and fellow band member Casey Saran challenged each other to begin writing a song a week. The idea quickly grew into a blog that opened the challenge to anyone. Over the years, friends, family, and perfect strangers have contributed hundreds of songs to The Song Club.
In 2010, Davila released the first year of his Song Club songs on four albums: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. One of the songs from Spring, "Jet Pack," became the theme song for the Xbox game Jet Pack War. Davila's music has also been featured on KPCC (Los Angeles' NPR affiliate), San Francisco Weekly, and on a live educational science show called Seas Of Science, among other places.
Davila also runs a recording studio, Song Club Studios
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