SHANNON AND THE CLAMS W/ The Male Men Medium Amerikan $10 advance
tickets Doors 7pm, bands at 8pm It wouldnt be wrong to say that
SHANNON AND THE CLAMS WAS FORMED BY ACCIDENT. Just outside the
invisible borders of Oaklands warehouse music scene, SHANNON SHAW WAS
ABSORBED IN STUDYING ILLUSTRATION AT CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS, a
100-year-old institution that draws freaks into the city from across
the country. For many, the school serves as a gateway into the
sprawling music underground that agitates beneath the Bay Area, as a
hub for fliers for illegal parties in backyards, basements, and
overpasses. During a bout of depression, SHANNON TOOK UP A NEGLECTED
BASS GUITAR THAT HAD BEEN A GIFT FROM AN EX-boyfriend years earlier
and played it for the first time, writing in a raw and untrained way.
The urge to perform these songs soon took her to open mic nights
around the East Bay. It was the perfect outlet, SHANNON SAYS. I never
thought Id be someone who played music, but one day I picked up this
bass and started writing songs. I became addicted to it. It became my
focus. Word got around that she was performing and the instigators of
art school parties, always hungry for new talent, convinced SHANNON TO
THROW A BAND TOGETHER AND PLAY. It worked, and it pushed her to aim
higher, but the band was only meant to be temporary. Now, ten years
later, her path has revealed itself and SHANNON AND THE CLAMS ARE
RELEASING THEIR FIFTH ALBUM, Onion, this time collaborating with
producer Dan Auerbach and his label Easy Eye Sound. Over the last
decade, SHANNON AND HER CHIEF COLLABORATOR, guitarist Cody Blanchard,
have released four albums of 60s-inspired pop on indie labels, toured
tirelessly and have gradually solidified a lineup of devoted Bay Area
musicians, Nate Mahan on drums and Will Sprott on keyboards. Nate has
played keyboard, guitar and drums in various Bay Area bands for a
decade, and Will has served as front man and songwriter for his band
the Mumlers and more recently his solo project, Will Sprott, releasing
records on his own Hairdo Records. In this current iteration, SHANNON
AND THE CLAMS HAVE DEVELOPED NOTORIETY FOR LIVELY AND GENUINE STAGE
PERFORMANCES AND A ZEALOUS FOLLOWING THAT CRAVES THEIR PARTICULAR
AUTHENTICITY AND INNOVATION ON CLASSIC SOUNDS. Their last record, Gone
by the Dawn, arrived in fall 2015 and took them to Coachella and
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in the year following. On the album you can
hear the band progressing from straight 60s-inspired rock and
exploring their taste for psychedelic, dramatic throwback pop. SHANNON
AND THE CLAMS HAD ALREADY BEGUN WRITING FOR THE ONION SESSIONS IN FALL
2016, when their world was rattled by the Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse
fire in early December. A total perspective shift followed and the
writing changed direction. In the wake of the fire, the band looked
backward at their origins in the Oakland underground and the
importance of that world to their genesis. From where they now stood,
they could recognize the community as a delicate incubator for fringe
art, an unstable but nurturing place for performers to practice and
cross- pollinate where there otherwise is no platform. In January
2017, the band flew together to Nashville and over the course of ten
days, fleshed out their songs with Auerbach at his Easy Eye Studio,
where he helped refine and embellish the songs and steer the album. He
works in this very layered style, Cody says. He has all these
instruments in the studio micd up at all times, ready to go. You can
go back and add all these layers of instruments really fast and then
cut stuff away in the mix. With SHANNON AND CODY FOCUSED ON PINNING
DOWN THE MEAT OF THE SONGS AND TRACKING VOCALS, multi-instrumentalists
Nate and Will were free to compose arrangement and accompaniment ideas
and background vocals. They explored the studios wealth of instruments
and tapped into their own years of songwriting experience to ornament
and color the tracks and lend a refined ear in the control room. The
song Backstreets is Codys response to the Ghost Ship fire, and
particularly the issues of artist housing and being forced to make
your own way in a society that is not arranged to accommodate artists.
Album closer Dont Close Your Eyes is SHANNONS RESPONSE, an
inspirational ballad urging those suffering through loss to not give
up in the midst of tragedy. The theme of origin and introspection had
already been at play on the album before the shift of focus to the
warehouse fire in December, and other songs on the record deal heavily
with self- searching and looking backward, but on a more personal
level; discovering our own individual origins and the path that has
led us sometimes haphazardly to where we find ourselves, from
childhood to now. I had this epiphany that was likening an onion to
being human and how youre nothing without layers of experience,
SHANNON SAYS. Each time you have an experience it creates another
layer in the onion. And that layer sticks with you forever and other
layers grow on top of it, sometimes unevenly. When you get
introspective and try to unravel yourself, youre digging through the
layers. Every time you think youve figured something out theres just
another layer beneath it. And I wondered, what happens when you get to
the bottom, the center, the beginning of everything when there are no
layers? Is there anything left at all? Its a bottomless endless chase
of getting to know yourself. Each song on this album is about problem
solving and having realizations about yourself. People say that
artists are blessed with talent and live enchanted lives, says Cody.
In truth, being an artist is excruciating and there is no clear path
for you. It is a struggle to find your purpose and support yourself
while scratching that endless itch inside your head. A lot of people
dont make it, lose their minds, more or less, to depression, anxiety,
resentment, drugs, as a side effect of that struggle. Its Gonna Go
Away, is the albums biggest stylistic departure, mixing elements of
soul, disco, R&B, psychedelia, the Zombies, chanting and baroque. It
was written by SHANNON AND MUSES ON THE NOTION THAT ALL IN LIFE IS
TEMPORARY, the good and the bad, and finding comfort in that. Album
opener The Boy is quintessential CLAMS. Written by Cody, it is a
heavily 60s rock inspired track with a mournful hook that speaks about
the way childhood experiences stick with and shape you, for better or
worse, and hang around forever like baggage until you choose to lose
them. I hope my lyrics can be an entry point for people into
introspection and self-analysis, says Cody. Theres a stigma around it
and theres so much distraction available, but youve got to sort
through the chaos of your personality. I hope people hear what Im
singing and give themselves permission to look around inside their own
heads. Its okay for people to interpret the songs, SHANNON SAYS. You
can put your own story into it if that helps you heal. I just want
people to feel something, whatever it is. When Im performing I make a
point to always go back to the place emotionally of when I wrote the
song and tap back into it. I try to stay really connected to the
original feeling and I hope people can see that. I feel like people
appreciate our genuineness. Thats the thread weve been able to keep
this whole time and well always stay true to that.
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24/07/2018 Last update