Kings & Queens

Friday, August 18, 2006
Kings & Queens

Well... It's my 37th birthday today so I have a fun fact for you. August 18th 1969 was the last day of the original Woodstock Festival. It was Jimi Hendrix who took to the stage at 9:30 that morning and I was born by noon the very same day. Kinda funny I suppose, but coincidence? I don't think so. Anyway, I have wanted to post this band for a week now and finally found the right day to do so. The musicians I presented to you on the group yesterday reside just outside of L.A. County so you will need to travel 435 miles up the coast to Northern California for today's featured artists. From their location you might get the mental picture of driving on an open desert road with this song... but no no not me. I have 2:30 in the morning with city street lights passing me by into a glow while I rip through traffic in my Mazda. Speaking of driving, that's exactly what this song does. The tension builds perfectly and never lets you loose. Now get yourself ready for link city!

Kings & Queens is primarily the music of Richard Good (not to be confused with Rick Good of Rhythm in Shoes fame.) The band was once the Indiana Experiment and before that The Pleased. You should definitely check out the Kings and Queens website for more to see and hear. They also have a Journal that is well worth the read on their site. I spent a while meandering through it (... stalker). You can download this song as well as another from the band's MySpace page. Also make sure to add them to friends. I did it straight away. You can buy the Kings & Queens 6 song EP for $6 dollars via PayPal and from what I listened to, all songs are as good as the feature here. Ooooh, I almost forgot. They also have a YouTube video for another song. Have fun and check the comments there. - http://milkmilk-lemonade.blogspot.com/

Kings And Queens used to be called the Indiana Experiment and before that The Pleased. The tastemaker and I have been listening to them a lot lately, rapidly becoming fans.

So, as shown, no stranger to change they've reinvented themselves again. Kings & Queens consist of Richard Good assisted by Andrea Good, Lee Bob Watson, Neal Morgan, Pete Newsom, Emily Newsom and Dana Gumbiner. Kings And Queens MySpace.

It is what it is - a layer cake of old vox and hammond organs, delayed guitars and some hot vocal harmony. - MySpace. Hot is right. Make sure if nothing else, you check King's Theme. - http://myoldkyhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/kings-queens.html

http://music.sfweekly.com/Issues/2006-12-13/music/letsgetkilled.html

I've just met Marc Snegg, owner of Grass Roots Record Co., and unsurprisingly, within minutes our discussion has turned to live music. We're in his Volvo, zipping down Lincoln Way to hit the good sushi place before it closes, and he's gushing about a recent Joanna Newsom performance in Los Angeles. Specifically, he's aglow at hearing his girlfriend, one of Newsom's backing singers, perform in a big venue for the first time. "I never knew she could sound that way until I saw her live," the bearded 26-year-old says with a grin. "It was amazing."

Over plates of seaweed salad in the Outer Sunset, Snegg's enthusiasm for musical chemistry expands beyond his romantic connections to the buddies-since-diapers ties of his hometown, Nevada City. That bucolic burg of 2,800 is where he, Newsom, his girlfriend, his marketing director Jesse Locks (who's also sipping miso soup with us), and the cast of characters on his Grass Roots label were born, raised, or added to the guest book by proxy. And while the Sierra Foothills gold rush town may not have a heady music history cachet compared to the Bay Area, Snegg and Locks are quick to name its past and present luminaries: Jonathan Richman, Terry Riley, a dude from Supertramp, Utah Phillips ... and Mötley Crüe ("There's a whole chapter in [Crüe biography] The Dirt about hanging out in [nearby] Grass Valley," laughs Locks.)

But Snegg isn't interested in rehashing bygone legacies as much as helping foster new ones. The Snegg Band frontman is creating an infrastructure for all the talented artists gigging at the local Cooper's bar. To that end, he started Grass Roots, which recently released an inviting, charmingly eclectic homage to regional relations called Family Album. The compilation is packed 18-strong with great tunes from friends, neighbors, and a couple residents-by-association, like the Bay Area's Moore Brothers and the irreverent Biff Rose (who contributes a sorta spoken word "introduction" about how the label was founded by the kids of hippies who "left L.A. in 1975 and [originally] went up to Oregon because they heard there wasn't any work there").

Unsurprisingly, some of those hippies produced folksy offspring. Standouts in that realm include Family's Adela Diane , a gilded-voiced troubadour with a debt to Nick Drake, and Alina Estelle Hardin , who possesses a delivery delicate as dried flowers packed in satin. But as at any family gathering, the personalities here span wide. There are the spastic noiseniks ( Hella 's staccato instrumental thunder offering, "Friday the 13th"); the gothic greasers ( Maid In 's minimal garage howl, "I Hope You Came Prepared"); and lush Spiritualized lullabyists ( Kings & Queens ' dreamy "What's In Mind"). Traditional pop has a place at the table, too, with an ebullient, lo-fi Beatles romp from Lee Bob Watson , "Let the Hate In (I Won't)"; Golden Shoulder 's piano-pop shrug-off, "What You're Proposing"; and Casual Fog 's aptly titled ode to melancholy, "Weighted Day."

The bonds that bind the clan together are, according to Snegg, simple: "We've known one another for the past 20 years ... everyone's played together, been on bills together, and backed each other up." So why not secure time at Brighton Sound studios (currently in Sacramento, but soon homesteading in Nevada City as well), schedule a dozen-and-change acts, and record the whole damn thing for posterity? "All the classic records [are about] what happens between people," says Snegg, claiming inspiration from such labels as Sun, Motown, and Studio One. "You listen to Elvis Presley records, and those are people playing in a room together — same with old blues stuff — and you can feel the room. The recordings come off live, and there's that vibe. ... For now that's what I want to [capture] because I think that's a lost art form."

You can join the Family reunion when Grass Roots Record Co. holds a record release party (with 10 artists performing three songs apiece) on Sunday, Dec. 17, at Bottom of the Hill at 4 p.m. It'll be one holiday gathering at which the relations should remain harmonious. - SF Weekly