The Heavenly States

The Heavenly States landed in Oakland, CA early in the new millennium. It's first member, Ted Nesseth previously of Minnesota, played guitar upside down because he was a lefty underclassman who abandoned school for scandal. The second member, Jeremy Gagon, studied jazz in Texas but moved to California to build things. The third member, Genevieve Gagon, was an ex-graduate who tended to write out of the box. All three were on the lamb when they found each other and began to write rock songs inspired by the great SST records, young Springsteen, Dinosaur Jr., the Minutemen, Shostakovich and the many others of their collective past. Ted was the veteran of several projects including his band Fluke Starbucker which produced two and a half albums before The Heavenly States were born. In 2002 under the moniker Fluke Starbucker they put out the 7" Elephants from Ants which featured songs recorded in the middle of the night for free at a media and engineering school. In 2003, they shared a special 7" release with Coldplay and The Postal Service. Their first self-titled full-length album was recently re-issued in the USA and the UK featuring a special 3-song single with a punk track called King Epiphany produced by John Agnello and another epic version of the same song produced by Colin Gagon. The spoken word piece Monument forms the center of this triptych from ancient Mesopotamian history and Fort Media 2004.

Their brand new record Black Comet, out July 2005, is a real chamber-rock record, relentless and full but raw and truly played. The songs reveal the band's obsession with protecting the jagged edges of rock from being snipped off, as if they believed the cloth of too-tidy clothes would serve too-tidy ideas and tidy little dangerous minds.

In fact, the real draw for this band and much of its reputation is based on its live show. The band has been playing out from the 8th day of its existence when Genevieve set herself on fire by lighting her scarf at a Minneapolis New Years Eve show. Since then, they have toured Australia, the UK, Egypt, several times around the USA and are the first rock band to play Libya. In early 2005 The Heavenly States broke the occidental sound barrier when after months of negotiations they carted half their gear to Africa and played the greatest underground show of their careers in a Tripoli basement. Then, after bringing their independent music alternative to Cairo, Egypt where they performed two shows on their return to Europe, they dared to perform Rock the Casbah in London and weren't murdered on the spot.