Paean

Wednesday, April 01, 2009
by Erik H. Myers

Despite inclusion in the list of genre labels that seem contradictory or downright dumb (a list that starts with Afropunk and ends somewhere around Wizard Rock), Folk Rock really just might be the best label to stick to the sound of Paean.

To describe Paean (pronounced pee-en, named after the ancient Greek term used to describe a joyous song) in greater detail would be to remark on the rich orchestral flavoring of their sound and literary lyrics. Frontman Dave Maddocks (who, by the way, is just fine with a two-word description) has been playing music since his days at Fort Collins High School where he played straightforward Rock ?n Roll. But it wasn’t long before he strayed from the track into Acoustic territory, writing and recording songs at his home recording studio, The Barn. Shortly thereafter, the project snowballed, bringing on instrumentalists Marty Albertz and Jonathan Alonzo, as well as Dave’s high school friend and bassist Andrew Hendrickson. Paean has also grown into something of a Maddocks’ family affair: Dave’s brother and sister, drummer Tim Maddocks and violinist Anna Maddocks, as well as his brother-in-law Adam Delorme on banjo.

Paean dropped its debut, a split with fellow FoCo act Sour Boy Bitter Girl, last summer to some acclaim (Scene critic Matthew Azrael Martin deemed it “the summer 2008 soundtrack.”) Next up is a full-length, due next month. This year’s Paean is much like last year’s Paean as far as musicality, but in terms of songwriting, the band has shifted into a democratic collective as opposed to Dave writing for each instrument as he did early on. “Even if I plan everything and try to write parts for everyone, I’m not good enough,” he says. “Everyone has strengths that I don’t.”

Paean is one of the 100+ bands playing the first annual Fort Collins Music eXperiment with a show at Avogadro’s Number on April 11.

http://www.ColoradoMusicBuzz.com/Index.asp?LinkTo=G285 - Colorado Music Buzz

May 08, 2008
by Maggie Canty
(excerpt highlighting Paean)

Branching out

Dave Maddocks had a lot going for him.

The 20-year-old junior at the University of Northern Colorado had been playing the piano since age five, and picked up the guitar at 14. He started recording himself a year later, and put together his own recording studio in his parents' barn in northern Fort Collins.

Maddocks had written and recorded 10 pseudo-country songs, playing each instrument and singing the vocal parts himself, mastering them with the help of his brother-in-law, Todd Lyon.

But he needed a band.

After putting up a request on MySpace, Maddocks got several responses, but one in particular stood out.

Marty Albertz, a senior at Rocky Mountain High School and member of the Winderous Igloos, answered Maddock's message, offering several of the Forest's recordings on MySpace for him to sample.

"Something about (Albertz) just clicked," Maddocks said. "I was interested right away."

Maddocks set up a meeting with Albertz and Alonzo, and was immediately drawn to their music, talent and personalities.

The three men, along with Maddocks' sister, Anna; brother, Tim (a reporter for the Collegian); and good friend, Andrew Hendrickson, formed what would soon become Paean -- pronounced "pee-in" -- the ancient Greek term for a song of praise or exultation.

Which is exactly what they would make.

The family tree

Paean began recording soon after they met, and the combination of their talents and strengths resulted in a sound all their own.

"Paean has turned into a writing collective, which is extremely refreshing," Alonzo said. "Stylistically, we really aim for some sense of building dynamic using many instruments, harmonies across the instruments and vocals, and an underlying drone of ambience."

Aided by Anna's violin and Dave's unique voice, each member offers something different, giving the band an eclectic, indie, folk-rock feel.

"At some point when we were playing and learning to work with each other, it all came together," said Anna. "When you finally get it, it's amazing."

Since those first practices, the band has taken off. They play weekly shows and are currently working on recording an EP split with another local act, Sour Boy, Bitter Girl, to be released May 21st at Hodi's Half Note.

Between all the time spent playing and recording, the band has found itself making a lot more than music.

"It started as recording together, and pretty soon we were sleeping over and eating Thanksgiving dinner together," said Alonzo. "We're more like a family than a band."

Which is exactly what Alonzo wanted the label to be. His ultimate goal is to have it be less like a business and more like a family of musicians, all brought together by a common love of music - in whatever form the individual sees fit.

"I think the essence of the Forest is the community it is," Alonzo said. "A community of long-term friends and family that live to make music and art and films and be helpful; that see a value in pitching in for a reasonable cause."

All the creatures of the forest

Act So Big Forest's open mind toward music has unearthed a following of over 10 acts, ranging from folk to noise bands. With the help of the Maddock's barn studio and mastering skills of Lyon, the Forest has been able to expand its recording horizons to more musicians and styles than one label can fit.

"There's so much local talent in the Fort," said Lyon, a CSU graduate who's been recording for his friends and family since 2004. "It's a way for them to get recorded and expose more people to their music. I wouldn't be surprised if several of them take it to the next level." - The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Despite inclusion in the list of genre labels that seem contradictory or downright dumb (a list that starts with Afropunk and ends somewhere around Wizard Rock), Folk Rock really just might be the best label to stick to the sound of Paean.

To describe Paean (pronounced pee-en, named after the ancient Greek term used to describe a joyous song) in greater detail would be to remark on the rich orchestral flavoring of their sound and literary lyrics. Frontman Dave Maddocks (who, by the way, is just fine with a two-word description) has been playing music since his days at Fort Collins High School where he played straightforward Rock ?n Roll.

But it wasn’t long before he strayed from the track into Acoustic territory, writing and recording songs at his home recording studio, The Barn. Shortly thereafter, the project snowballed, bringing on instrumentalists Marty Albertz and Jonathan Alonzo, as well as Dave’s high school friend and bassist Andrew Hendrickson. Paean has also grown into something of a Maddocks’ family affair: Dave’s brother and sister, drummer Tim Maddocks and violinist Anna Maddocks, as well as his brother-in-law Adam Delorme on banjo.

Paean dropped its debut, a split with fellow FoCo act Sour Boy Bitter Girl, last summer to some acclaim (Scene critic Matthew Azrael Martin deemed it “the summer 2008 soundtrack.”) Next up is a full-length, due next month. This year’s Paean is much like last year’s Paean as far as musicality, but in terms of songwriting, the band has shifted into a democratic collective as opposed to Dave writing for each instrument as he did early on. “Even if I plan everything and try to write parts for everyone, I’m not good enough,” he says. “Everyone has strengths that I don’t.”

http://brotherslittlehelpers.blogspot.com/2009/04/rich-joyous-song-of-paean.html - Brother's Little Helper

First to mount the stage was Ft. Collins-grown Paean. Playing more accessible indie rock than one typically sees from local start-up acts, the group was still far from predictable. Especially of note was the unique balance struck by "When I Was Five Years Old." In this song, Anna Maddocks' violin was actually mastered somewhat higher than the guitar, about on par with Dave Maddocks' vocals. This gave the violin a particularly human, piercing quality, effectively the driving force of the tempestuous celtic-tinged melody. Keeping both interest and entertainment high seems to be a particular skill of the band. Highlight of the set "Floyd Brown" featured rapid-fire violin chords, single-picked, echoing lead guitar, infectious keyboard drone, and chugging high-hat-centric drums. The final effect of the group on a first-time listener such as myself was that this band wasn't just here to make noise - Paean is really going somewhere. Wax Cylinders wishes them mucho luck on their U.S. tour commencing at the end of the year. Make sure to catch them at the Hi-Dive November 10th to see them off!
Overall Rating: A

Paean Lineup:
Dave Maddocks - lead vocals / guitar
Anna Maddocks - violin
Marty Alberts - guitar / drums
Jonathan Alonzo - keys
Aaron Landgraf - bass
Tim Maddocks - drums



http://waxcylinders.blogspot.com/2009/10/paean-munsterboogie-emily-frembgen.html - Wax Cylinders

the glockenspiel dilemma

On a windy Tuesday night in September, Dave Maddocks is pacing around his recording studio, trying to find the best place for a glockenspiel. He sets the small xylophone-like instrument in a dim corner and strikes one of its metal keys with a hard mallet.

“We’ve never done dead glock before,” says Maddocks, referring to the sharp, subdued tone. The walls around him are covered in poster paint, old mattress pads and hand-written song lists. A string of giant Santa Claus figure lights lines the door between the control room and the studio.

“It’s going to sound so good,” says Jon Alonzo, Maddocks’ bandmate. Wires, microphones and musical instruments share the recording space with hammers, beer bottles and broken action figures.

The Maddocks Family Barn, as Maddocks affectionately refers to his studio, is exactly what its name implies. In 2004, Maddocks converted half of his parents’ large garage into a studio with the help of his brother-in-law, Todd Lyon.

Maddocks, 22, a senior accounting major at the University of Northern Colorado, is not alone when it comes to this sort of do-it-yourself recording. Fort Collins and northern Colorado are home to an eclectic collection of studios run by self-taught sound engineers who dedicate their garages, basements and any spare change to their love of music.

“Pretty much everything is from craigslist and eBay,” Maddocks says. “Both the studio and myself are growing with each project.”
garages, barns and golden ferraris

DIY recording is an underground answer to the slick, commercialized sounds common on the radio and in record stores. Studios vary based on the engineer’s personal musical tastes, background and recording capabilities.

“I’m from the Rick Rubin school of recording and like to keep things simple,” Jason Larson says. “It’s a little bit more honest.”

For four years, Larson, 33, has used his Fort Collins garage as the home base for Pigpen Studios. The name is more a homage to his band, The Piggies, than an accurate physical description. The studio is a reflection of his recording style: clean and polished, but not without personality. An upright piano covered in beer bottles and band stickers is at home against the white vocal booth.

“It’s probably the nicest garage recording set-up I’ve ever seen,” says Alana Rolfe of Larson’s studio. Rolfe, a CSU alumna and member of the Fort Collins trio Stella Luce, has recorded with both Larson and Maddocks.

Many involved in the underground recording scene are self-taught. Maddocks learned from brother-in-law Lyon, who mixes for the Fort Collins-based Dead Pigeon Studios.

“I think he’s definitely getting better if you compare it [Stella Luce’s album “Zugenruhe”] to albums he did last year,” says Rolfe about Maddocks.

Larson started doing live sound for concerts at the age of 16 and has no formal training, but his talent caught the attention of some of the music industry’s best, and for three years, Larson traveled with the hip-hop group N.E.R.D. as a stage manager. He likes to joke that his studio was “funded by Pharrell Williams.”

Though Larson no longer tours with the group, it sparked his interest in recording. He now splits his time between engineering sound for live events and recording at his studio.

“I’m just trying to eat,” Larson says. “I’m not trying to buy a golden Ferrari.”

Unlike Larson, who engineers sound full-time, Maddocks has no intention of turning his studio into a moneymaking venture. Aside from recording his own band, indie-rockers Paean, all his profits go back into the studio.
the process

Although there is a wide variety of equipment available to DIY engineers, Maddocks uses a PC and the program Cubase, while Larson prefers a Mac and ProTools, the recording process is roughly very similar.

These programs allow control over sound capture, tracking or the recording of each track, mixing the tracks together and mastering. For Larson, the pre-production is what he enjoys most about working with bands.
Photo by Philip Lindeman

Photo by Philip Lindeman

“I enjoy taking a melody or rough idea and growing on it,” Larson says. His recording and co-producing credits include the first album from Fort Collins-based Lindsey O’Brien Band.

“He’s very valuable to work with as far as his knowledge of music and his songwriting abilities,” says Lindsey O’Brien, a CSU alumna and vocalist for her self-titled band. “He’s a wizard.”

Maddocks works almost exclusively with local bands, including Stella Luce, who finished recording their first full-length album in May 2009.

“It was fun to experiment and to have the freedom to experiment,” Rolfe says.

Experimentation is a trademark of Maddocks’ style. The Paean song, “When I was Five Years Old,” contains 55 audio tracks, including a 15-second harmony that took nearly three hours to record. Such a session would typically cost $200 in a professional studio, Maddocks estimates. In c - Sounds of the Underground

Article and interview with Paean. - Denver Syntax

Paean
Songs for Us to Sing
Act So Big Forest
Comments (0) By Kiernan Maletsky Thursday, Apr 29 2010


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There is no shortage of super-earnest bands with a dozen members and twice that many instruments in Colorado. Paean, probably the flagship band of Fort Collins label Act So Big Forest, is one of the better entrants in the category (real number of members: six). Live, the act is consuming and mesmerizing, shifting instruments like an intramural volleyball team. Songs for Us to Sing, the band's debut full-length, comes with the expected higher production values than past efforts, which is very important when your music has this much going on. Still, some of the vibrancy is lost coming through headphones: This stuff is really meant to be shared and sung (hence the title), and the recording is occasionally ponderous. Still, there's power on this album, plenty of gradual builds to a soaring vista, a little something to tide you over while you wait for that third album from the Arcade Fire. - Westword Denver

Paean followed, and I still don't know how to pronounce their name. I think it might be Payin'.

Whatever it is, David Maddocks and a half dozen of his friends are seriously freaking epic. As good as the Meadowlark is for Night of Joy, it is that bad for Paean, who really need more space (their bassist was confined to an area that probably qualifies as backstage) and a sound system more capable of dealing with all that input.

So the sound was a little muddy on the big swells and the vocals were muted mumbles, but you could still get the idea. There seems to be a big nature thing going on in the music scene in Paean's native Fort Collins and here that means: banjo and fiddle lines fit for the dusty road, relentless repetition for the open space and enormous, dramatic beauty.

Paean has the ability to be startling and subtle and mesmerizing and you should probably see them play whenever you can. Preferably somewhere with an actual stage. - Westword Denver

Paean spent eighteen months working on its debut full-length, Songs For Us To Sing. Three of the band's six members are siblings, and the album was recorded in a studio in their parent's garage. So there was no pay-by-the-hour recording sessions, just twelve songs that are finally fine-tuned enough to send into the world.

To help celebrate the release, Paean got friends Mehko & Ocean Birds to play before them and Bad Weather California to play after. An impressive lineup under any circumstances, and this was hardly that: In addition to Paean's CD release, the show also marked Mehko & Ocean Birds last before a hiatus (or "sleepless hibernation" according to the myspace).

Paean took the stage to the biggest crowd of the night. Friends and family got the memo, of course, but there were an encouraging number of attendees with no personal connection to the band. The fact that these guys spent a year and a half working on their album is telling of the sort of craftsmanship that goes into the songs. These are aching stories of regret told by a band that is built on a noisy post-punk base with a pair of acoustic instruments up front.

The instruments in question: An acoustic guitar played by Dave Maddocks and a violin played by his sister Anna, and they both lend the music a sort of troubadour vibe. Dave is also the band's lyricist and lead singer. He sounds like Conor Oberst sometimes and almost like Isaac Brock at others. When the songs are at their most fraught, his voice is all his own, urgent and breathy and vulnerable.

Perhaps a third of Paean's set was dedicated to new material, stuff that isn't on the album. If it is any indication of direction, the band is aiming bigger, shooting for melancholy rock epics with movements. - Westword Denver

To hear them describe themselves, Paean (pronounced, “PAY-in”) is more of a collective than a band–a cooperative community of friends and family. The central rendezvous point seems to be the Maddocks Family Barn, just up the road from here in Ft. Collins, Colorado. It was here that the creative madness of Dave Maddocks eventually grew into a circle of talented multi-instrumentalists and other creative types, culminating in the band’s latest DIY project, Songs for Us to Sing.

Paean has definitely developed an eclectic sound; actually, it sounds a bit like Appalachian bluegrass got on the wrong bus and wound up at Woodstock. Filled with moments of intense melencholy, I guess you could also think of it as acoustic emo. But whatever you call it, it seems to work. Songs for Us to Sing strikes that difficult balance between a consistent thread on the record and diversity in the songs. In fact, I had a hard time selecting one or two songs that give a clear reflection of what the band sounds like, because each is distinct. It really is a sit-down-and-listen-to-the-whole-thing kind of record, and the songwriting and overall musicianship are both quite strong.

That said, there’s just one element to the record that made me go, “HUH?”…the lead vocals of Dave Maddocks. In the mix, the vocals sit under the music quite often, but when they come to the front, it sounds like something akin to panicked hyperventilating. I literally was asking myself, Does he MEAN to sound like that? Dave’s voice has been described as a “sad voice;” I guess that covers it. But the interesting thing is that his voice didn’t make me want to turn off the music; instead, it made me want to keep listening, if only to satisfy my curiosity. Oh, well…Bob Dylan can’t sing to save his life, and look where he wound up.

If you’re in the Denver area, Paean is celebrating its CD release at the Hi-Dive Friday night, along with Bad Weather California and Mehko and Ocean Birds. Go check ‘em out for yourself. Meanwhile, here are a couple of the tracks from the record; you can purchase the record at the band’s MySpace, if you like it. Either way…tell me what you think about the music. - Oomph Music Blog

Speaking of Slim Cessna and the putative “Colorado sound,” Paean just might be the freshest act to occupy the niche. The Fort Collins sextet — which counts three siblings among its members — plays the kind of dark, brooding Americana that would suit Munly or 16 Horsepower, but frontman Dave Maddocks and his bandmates also appear to draw inspiration from Conor Oberst’s most recent forays into symphonic, emotive folk rock that’s far too desert-dry to shed a tear.

After 18 months of work, the band will finally unveil its debut full-length album, “Songs for Us to Sing” on Friday (April 30) at the hi-dive, with support from Mehko & Ocean Birds, Grand Junction’s Heavy Drags and the much-revered Bad Weather California. - Denver Post

Coming from ancient Greek, the word “paean” means “triumphal or grateful song”—and Fort Collins’ Paean will bring a handful of them on its first proper LP. Fittingly titled Songs For Us To Sing, the album will be released Friday, April 30, at the Hi-Dive.
To be honest, the songs may be neither grateful nor triumphal, but they are good. Bearing the clear influence of Conor Oberst, Paean layers swirling effects over solid, acoustic guitar-based riffs and linear song structures. Even the vocals, wavering and a little off-key, sound like Oberst’s, albeit a little less affected.
Sonically, the songs are consistent to the point of creating a lull, with the nebulous atmosphere and acoustic foundation present in pretty much every song—but it’s a good shtick, and the songs often take surprising enough turns to keep it interesting.
Joining Paean will be local fixture Bad Weather California, a band that sometimes is a band, and other times is just frontman Chris Adolf. Whichever it turns out to be at this show, the two projects are a good fit; Adolf builds his songs, too, on that trusty acoustic guitar, kind of sounds like Oberst when he sings, and shows a pronounced fondness for lots of reverb in his arrangements.
Bad Weather is still coasting on last year’s LP Young Punks, but Adolf has a pretty extensive back catalogue, and live, even if it’s just Adolf and his guitar, it’s worth it to see the man play. He’s notoriously intense, and onstage that intensity gets channeled into the show. You’ll seldom find a more magnetic performer. If you remember that old Looney Tunes conceit of how music can “tame the wild beast,” Adolf has a way of mesmerizing even the most raucous crowd into sitting down (I’ve seen this happen even at grossly sticky-floored venues, which made me shudder) and singing along.
Whether there are triumphal and grateful songs or not, if you like solid-but-kind-of-psychedelic pop with hippie-ish undertones, this show will leave you feeling both. - UCD Advocate