Humboldt Squid

Born in an East L.A. warehouse, Humboldt Squid has grown to be the voice of Santa Cruz California's hip dropout culture. Mark Quinn and Marc Brown have been struggling musicians for their whole lives. Separately, they traced similar lines from coast to coast and in between picking up styles and energy which would eventually congeal into Humboldt Squid, their ultimate musical expression. When they collided in Los Angeles in 2005 they were like two atoms of the same element, immediately fusing and destroying one another. Whenever they play, crowds quickly gather and go mental. Like a flash mob beacon, the Squid electrify all different styles of music, bringing scenes together in a party spirit which surprises the uninitiated. Truly they cannot be held in captivity. Humboldt Squid must be in the ocean. - Santa Cruz Banana Slug, Mike Mendenhall

Born in an East L.A. warehouse, Humboldt Squid has grown to be the voice of Santa Cruz California's hip dropout culture. Mark Quinn and Marc Brown have been struggling musicians for their whole lives. Separately, they traced similar lines from coast to coast and in between picking up styles and energy which would eventually congeal into Humboldt Squid, their ultimate musical expression. When they collided in Los Angeles in 2005 they were like two atoms of the same element, immediately fusing and destroying one another. Whenever they play, crowds quickly gather and go mental. Like a flash mob beacon, the Squid electrify all different styles of music, bringing scenes together in a party spirit which surprises the uninitiated. Truly they cannot be held in captivity. Humboldt Squid must be in the ocean. - Santa Cruz Banana Slug, Mike Mendenhall

The first thing about Humboldt Squid that grabs the ear is the unmistakable use of vintage tones that evoke an immediate familiarity. What keeps the ear firmly glued to each track is these tones are set over a modern yet hippie rhythmic landscape that takes the listener all the way from dub to club to thrash punk / post funk and well placed chunk-a-chunk. Just when you think the zig will inevitably follow the zag neither occurs and instead you are taken where the song dictates and left with the feeling that if it went anywhere else it just wouldn't make sense. That's what's up with Humboldt Squid; they simply make their own kind of sense. Those who know get it, those who don't get converted. Marc Brown and Mark Quinn don't so much play as they channel what's already floating in the air above Santa Cruz. Punky, Lazy, Dreamy, Aggressive, Funky. Go get some Squid and taste the future. - Zero Magazine

The first thing about Humboldt Squid that grabs the ear is the unmistakable use of vintage tones that evoke an immediate familiarity. What keeps the ear firmly glued to each track is these tones are set over a modern yet hippie rhythmic landscape that takes the listener all the way from dub to club to thrash punk / post funk and well placed chunk-a-chunk. Just when you think the zig will inevitably follow the zag neither occurs and instead you are taken where the song dictates and left with the feeling that if it went anywhere else it just wouldn't make sense. That's what's up with Humboldt Squid; they simply make their own kind of sense. Those who know get it, those who don't get converted. Marc Brown and Mark Quinn don't so much play as they channel what's already floating in the air above Santa Cruz. Punky, Lazy, Dreamy, Aggressive, Funky. Go get some Squid and taste the future. - Zero Magazine

The Humboldt squid is a deep killer with uncanny gifts. So is the Santa Cruz
littoral fringe band, Humboldt Squid.

Like an infernal bird of prey-half kraken, half roc-the Humboldt squid
wheels and gyres at gloomy depths, its black saucer-eyes searching out soft
underbellies in the sunlit vault above. Then on siphon jets the red devil
hurtles a thousand feet upward to seize and rend the astonished victim with
its barbed tentacles and articulated beak.

Just so, Humboldt Squid bursts from the hyperbaric darkness to waylay and
eviscerate the soft-bellied conventions of rock music. Like its cephalopod
totem, the band is a brainy marvel of chromatophoric adapation, altering it
semiotic coloration in rapidly shifting hues-math rock, robot rock, heavy
metal, krautrock, stoner rock, alternative, kraken roc-as it surges to the
kill in our culture's liminal zone. Humboldt Squid is a fiercely intelligent
creature that has attained predatory perfection, capable of plying all
registers of pressure, temperature, oxygen, and pain in the Humboldt Current
with effortless grace and lethal efficiency.

Humboldt Squid's anthemic dirge, "Killing Myself", alternates with seamless
antiphony between vitalist paean-the surf-pounding ostinato of "It feels so
good to be alive today"-and sepulchral confession-"I'm killing myself to
watch myself die." Marc Brown and Mark Quinn are Santa Crucian
reincarnations of Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Gauss. The parallel lines
of their song converge at infinity on the apocalyptic beach, where they go
down and watch the children play. - Santa Cruz Herald Magazine

The Humboldt squid is a deep killer with uncanny gifts. So is the Santa Cruz
littoral fringe band, Humboldt Squid.

Like an infernal bird of prey-half kraken, half roc-the Humboldt squid
wheels and gyres at gloomy depths, its black saucer-eyes searching out soft
underbellies in the sunlit vault above. Then on siphon jets the red devil
hurtles a thousand feet upward to seize and rend the astonished victim with
its barbed tentacles and articulated beak.

Just so, Humboldt Squid bursts from the hyperbaric darkness to waylay and
eviscerate the soft-bellied conventions of rock music. Like its cephalopod
totem, the band is a brainy marvel of chromatophoric adapation, altering it
semiotic coloration in rapidly shifting hues-math rock, robot rock, heavy
metal, krautrock, stoner rock, alternative, kraken roc-as it surges to the
kill in our culture's liminal zone. Humboldt Squid is a fiercely intelligent
creature that has attained predatory perfection, capable of plying all
registers of pressure, temperature, oxygen, and pain in the Humboldt Current
with effortless grace and lethal efficiency.

Humboldt Squid's anthemic dirge, "Killing Myself", alternates with seamless
antiphony between vitalist paean-the surf-pounding ostinato of "It feels so
good to be alive today"-and sepulchral confession-"I'm killing myself to
watch myself die." Marc Brown and Mark Quinn are Santa Crucian
reincarnations of Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Gauss. The parallel lines
of their song converge at infinity on the apocalyptic beach, where they go
down and watch the children play. - Santa Cruz Herald Magazine