Ned
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Ned

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"Splendid"

Listening to Ned will make you think about a lot of things. You're going to try to name all the potential musical reference points. Grandaddy comes to mind -- thanks to their distorted sound and a strong production aesthetic, Ned's electronically infused songs feel more like streams of sound than verse/chorus/verse breakdowns. Mogwai is another good point of comparison. Ned share their talent for making beautiful, faintly majestic things from electronic elements, and possess a similar understanding of volume and tempo dynamics.
However, with all the miscellaneous sounds flying around, with the drum machines almost as hard at work as drummer Mouse Menough, with the layered, ultra-distorted vocals and all the little sonic Easter eggs hiding between them, you can't help asking the obvious question: "How will they ever pull it off live?" We're told (by Devil in the Woods mag, no less) that they do pull it off, choreographing "an intricate stage tango" wherein they frantically trade instruments throughout the show. It's that kind of dedication to their strange craft that will take this young band far. It's their strong pop sensibility that will get them on the radio. It's their wall of (bizarre) sound that will keep it interesting.

Coloring Book opens on a characteristically unconventional note. "Tapwater" slides beautiful slow-burn guitars under a rambling spoken-word treatise on somebody's grandfather, distorted almost beyond understanding. "He, he had lots of funny scars on his face. And he would go to the park. Mondays, he would go to the baker. He would go to the woods, Tuesdays... He would draw pictures of beautiful women. L-lots of beautiful women dancing and swaying in front of him. He had them all over his walls. He loved to draw those pictures, I remember." The cumulative emotional effect is sweet and a little sad, just like remembering our own dead loved ones. This is really what makes Ned a band you should care about: all of their weird little gestures and all their sonic experimentation, taken together, will lead you into a substantive emotional experience. Beck, a fairly obvious influence, gets away with being so goofy while taking his music seriously because we know what he can do to us when he wants to. The same can be said here.

Album highlight "Small Flightless Birds" illustrates the point perfectly. It's loud, thick space rock with a shuffling, sub-militant beat and vocalist Ross Peacock's attempts to push his voice to its upper limits. Note the bitter keyboard melody Peacock weaves between the gigantic guitars. Menough assaults the cymbals even as he weaves a rhythm as hypnotic as it is subtly strange. The band builds to a sonic explosion, and for their efforts they are rewarded with an epic in miniature.

"Soft White Noise" comes next and impresses just as much, if only because Peacock actually pulls a trick directly related to typical radio rock angst, and gets away with it. On a bed of his own eerie keyboards, Menough's pensive percussion and some well-placed guitar, Peacock lets loose with the sort of distorted, acidic vocals you'd expect from one of today's popular pseudo-metal rockers, and actually communicates something effectively while doing so. It's really something to witness.

Other highlights include "Mother's Advice", a creepy bit of nonsense that screams "we love Enon" -- regardless of whether or not that's actually the case. "Supper" is notable for being Coloring Book's simplest song, consisting only of Peacock's voice, acoustic strumming, and some atmospheric keyboards. "Couch Cushion Fortress" combines the pseudo-Mogwai guitar aesthetic with Beck-inflected choruses, while "Mississippi Earthquake" seems to synthesize everything the band is about into one catchy package: the weirdness, the hooks, the propulsive choruses, all of it.

Closer "Gramma" is an impressive note upon which to go out. It picks up where "Small Flightless Birds" left off and pushes the volume up even higher, with Peacock kicking ass and taking names on the way out.

The breadth and depth with which Ned have already infused their music is nothing short of incredible. After such an impressive display of craftsmanship, the only question left for Ned is where they want to go next.


-- Mike Meginnis

- Splendid Magazine


"Right Said Ned"


DIW Issue #17 2004
By Lisa Hix

:Ned
Right Said Ned
There’s something a little peculiar about Ned, the four-man Oakland, CA, band. Onstage, guitarist Cyrus Tilton glances at the audience with a shy smile, while his brother, bassist Nathan Tilton, looks mischievous and pleased, like a kid making a toilet bomb. Drummer Jacob “Mouse” Menoch shakes the sweat out of his hair and treats the crowd to a bug-eyed expression, and vocalist Ross Peacock lumbers over the keys like an Afro’d ringmaster. They actually appear to be enjoying themselves, and it’s hard to resist.

All the while they’re creating a sonic soundscape with a wall of ambient keyboards, angular, distorted guitars, funky basslines, electronic squeals and chimes, and stuttering drum machines. A catchy melody emerges and then gets washed away by space-rock effects. Peacock’s nasally, distorted vocals are reminiscents of a trippier Mike Patton, and hints of Grandaddy, Radiohead, Primus and Aphex Twin shine through.

“I’ve seen bands where I don’t think everyone is really into the music they’re playing,” says Cyrus. “But we all have a lot of say in how the song gets put together and how it comes across.”

Ned are obsessed with gadgets, and they keep a whole collection in their studio – electric kazoos, slide guitar, lap steel, drum machines and even hand drums. They’re also obsessed with layering sound upon sound and tweaking and distorting. The band members map out how to re-create the full effect live, and then choreograph and intricate stage tango as they trade instruments from song to song.

Peacock keeps a digital eight-track at his apartment to capture the moments when their creative juices run high, since it seems that whenever the guys get together, ideas run amuck.

“A lot of times, we’ll be hanging out with no particular goal for the evening,” says Peacock. “And we’ll record the toilet flushing and put it backwards through reverse reverb and then put distortion on it. So that night you do that, and then a week later it’s like, ‘Oh, we could use that for this song here.’”

On the band’s self-titled, self-released record, a dark undercurrent runs through the songs. Like the pudgy little creature on the CD cover painted by Nathan, Ned sound like the point where cute and cuddly becomes downright creepy.

“When I think of Ned,” says Nathan, “I think, He’s a nice guy, but there’s something weird about that guy.”
- Lisa Hix - DIW(Devil in the Woods) Magazine


"Album Review"

Oakland's Ned creates eerie soundscapes on it's self-released debut, bringing to mind at times George Harrison's contributions to the Beatles, John Lennon's solo recordings, the darker edges of Bowie, and even The Deftones. The band blends distorted, effect laden guitars, samples and drum loops on the album, which sounds experimental at times and mainstream at others, maybe due to the surprising quality of the recording for a self release. From shoegazer to industrial to pop, the band covers a lot of ground, which could be good or bad depending on your tastes, but are successful throught. The album's most memorable songs include the opening trilogy of "Tapwater", "Small Flightless Birds" and "Soft White Noise".
- Brian Brophy - MESH Magazine


Discography

Coloring Book- 1st full length
Soapbopper- 7"

Songs from Coloring Book have been played all over the country on college radio and in Europe.

The 7" Soapbopper was played on WFMU in N.J. and has also received regular rotation at college stations.

Some bands we have peformed and or toured with include.... Subtle***Fog***Two Gallants***The Locust***XiuXiu***Casiotone f.t.Painfully Alone***Dosh***Hidden Cameras***OddNosdam***Hey Willpower***The Mae Shi***

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Bio

This is a Review from DIW magazine
:Ned -
Right Said Ned
There’s something a little peculiar about Ned, the four-man Oakland, CA, band. Onstage, guitarist Cyrus Tilton glances at the audience with a shy smile, while his brother, bassist Nathan Tilton, looks mischievous and pleased, like a kid making a toilet bomb. Drummer Jacob “Mouse” Menoch shakes the sweat out of his hair and treats the crowd to a bug-eyed expression, and vocalist Ross Peacock lumbers over the keys like an Afro’d ringmaster. They actually appear to be enjoying themselves, and it’s hard to resist.

All the while they’re creating a sonic soundscape with a wall of ambient keyboards, angular, distorted guitars, funky basslines, electronic squeals and chimes, and stuttering drum machines. A catchy melody emerges and then gets washed away by space-rock effects. Peacock’s nasally, distorted vocals are reminiscents of a trippier Mike Patton, and hints of Grandaddy, Radiohead, Primus and Aphex Twin shine through.

“I’ve seen bands where I don’t think everyone is really into the music they’re playing,” says Cyrus. “But we all have a lot of say in how the song gets put together and how it comes across.”

Ned are obsessed with gadgets, and they keep a whole collection in their studio – electric kazoos, slide guitar, lap steel, drum machines and even hand drums. They’re also obsessed with layering sound upon sound and tweaking and distorting. The band members map out how to re-create the full effect live, and then choreograph and intricate stage tango as they trade instruments from song to song.

Peacock keeps a digital eight-track at his apartment to capture the moments when their creative juices run high, since it seems that whenever the guys get together, ideas run amuck.

“A lot of times, we’ll be hanging out with no particular goal for the evening,” says Peacock. “And we’ll record the toilet flushing and put it backwards through reverse reverb and then put distortion on it. So that night you do that, and then a week later it’s like, ‘Oh, we could use that for this song here.’”

On the band’s self-titled, self-released record, a dark undercurrent runs through the songs. Like the pudgy little creature on the CD cover painted by Nathan, Ned sound like the point where cute and cuddly becomes downright creepy.

“When I think of Ned,” says Nathan, “I think, He’s a nice guy, but there’s something weird about that guy.”
- Lisa Hix