Day 20: Band of Horses

General Info
Members:
Ben Bridwell – Lead vocals, guitar, lap steel guitar, chief songwriter
Ryan Monroe – Piano, backing vocals
Blake Mills – Guiltar, backing vocals
Tyler Ramsey – Guitar
Bill Reynolds – Bass
Creighton Barrett - Drums

Biography: The band started when Carissa’s Wierd (spelled wrong on purpose) broke up in Seattle. Two members of Carissa’s Wierd (Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke) formed Band of Horses. This was in 2004. In March of 2006 the debut full length Everything All the Time came out on Sub Pop records. Soon after Brooke left the band. The band then relocated to Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. The follow-up, Cease to Begin, came out in October of 2007.

Major Discography:[/size]
Everything All the Time – March 2006
Cease to Begin – October 2007

Both were produced by Phil Ek (http://www.philek.com ), my favorite producer of all time. If you have 10 or 12 hours, check out the listing of everything he’s ever produced. It’s a who’s who of my favorite musicians.

Both albums are great. However, I think Cease to Begin offers everything that Everything All the Time offers, just slightly better. There’s a little more variety and a little more polish on Cease to Begin.

Sounds Like[/size]
Genre: indie rock
Similar Artists: MMJ and Neil Young are the most obvious. I consider the song Marry Me is a Gram Parsons-esque ballad. Sometimes they remind me of Built to Spill only with more concise songwriting. Also Fleet Foxes. He uses a lot of reverb on the vocals on the albums.
Similar Bonnaroo Artists: I’m not entirely sure there are any bands on the lineup that are very similar to BOH. Perhaps Okkerville River? Maybe some Merle Haggard (kind of a stretch, I know)? The bands mentioned in the Similar Artists section are very similar and I think give people the best idea of the Band of Horses sound.

Suggested Listening[/size]
My favorite songs by them has changed significantly since I became a fan, so I asked a couple of casual friends what they thought should be suggested listening. The Funeral and Marry Song were the two most common answers. So, here they are, in youtube form.


THE FUNERAL MUSIC VIDEO

MARRY SONG (live)

I also decided to include this song since it was the first single off Cease to Begin.
IS THERE A GHOST


Physical Reaction/Live Show[/size]
Before i get longwinded, a note for those who aren't going to read it: Band of Horses will put on a high energy rock show. There aren't a ton of cool lights or anything, but they will rock out and give you some good crowd interaction. I'm sure they will be during the day, possibly in a tent, and the crowd will be bouncing up and down and nodding their heads. Similar to every MMJ show i've seen.

now then, I’ve seen them three times. Let me give an account of each experience.

August ’07 – The Magic Stick, Detroit, Michigan

The magic stick is a small, upstairs venue above a bowling alley and next to a larger theater. It probably holds a couple hundred people. The place was packed and buzzing for the show. My friend who got me into BOH and his buddy from San Fransisco were there, along with my lovely girlfriend. The guy from San Fransisco purposely missed his flight home to stay for the show, even though it cost him an extra $100 to reschedule. I knew we were in for something good if he was willing to go through that.

So, we actually saw the band playing Frisbee in the parking lot as we were walking in. San Fransisco guy goes up to Ben and told him what he was doing (skipping his flight). Ben seemed really impressed, and later mentioned it while on stage.

The band had a very standard rock band set up. Ben mentioned that there were new guys playing with him this show (keep this in mind. It seems to be a recurring theme with the band). He has a nice stage presence. He makes sure to talk without overdoing it. He also shows a lot of emotion and energy while singing. They played a Ron Wood cover song that night that was fantastic. I didn’t even know Ron Wood had a solo album. Apparently they’ve played ELO songs in the past as well. I would have payed top dollar for an ELO cover. Oh well.

The songs they played off of Cease to Begin (which hadn’t been released yet and I hadn’t heard) were every bit as good as the songs I knew at the time. That’s always a good sign, when a band can play new stuff and you like hearing it as much as the hits.

November ’07 – Crofoot, Pontiac, Michigan

This time they were playing at a much larger, 1 month old venue. I went with my girlfriend. We were also joined by a couple of friends who couldn’t get in to the sold-out Girl Talk show next door. They had Tyler Ramsey open for them. He was on stage by himself playing electric and singing. He was pretty good. They had one new guy in the lineup from what I could tell.

They played their set, and near the end Ben apologized, saying they didn’t sound that great because they were all sick (editor’s note, I thought they sounded awesome). So, he said they were going to play a few extra songs to make up for it. Although they had played Wicked Gil earlier in the set, at the end they played a slowed-down acoustic version that just about melted me. It was fantastic.

My friend had a few comments that I thought were a telling thing about the band. After Ben requested a few times for the lights to be lowered in the room, my friend say, “I guarantee the next time they come to town there will be new guys in the band. He’s a control freak. You can tell.” Judging by how many former members are listed on the Wikipedia page (6 former members), I think my friend was right.

January ’08 – Halfway to Forecastle Festival – Louisville, Kentucky

I went to visit a friend in Louisville and timed it perfectly to catch this show. By this point Tyler Ramsey had joined the band full-time. I thought it was pretty cool that some dude that was opening at the start of the tour was now a member of the band.

The set was awesome. In the interest of brevity I’ll leave it at that.

Note from all shows: You will fall in love with Ryan Monroe on the piano. He harmonizes on probably 50% of the songs, and he is fantastic. Although he plays within himself on most songs, when he is allowed to do his thing on the piano he is great. They also played one of his songs at the Louisville show. Or maybe it was the Pontiac show. I don’t remember for sure.

Other Facts/Notes[/size]
I was told, but do not know for sure, that they never play St. Augustine live because it was written by Mat Brooke, who left the band. If true that’s a shame, because the song is incredible.


I don’t think I did a very good job of hiding my love for this band during this write-up. They are perfect in my eyes. Cease to Begin is one of my 10 favorite albums of all time. Every song is wonderful. They will be a great daytime band. Great instrumentation and incredible songwriting. The lyrics are also cool in their own right. They are very minimalistic and paint a scene using broad strokes (I almost puked rereading that sentence, but it’s the most accurate way to describe the lyrics. Sorry.).

Here’s an incredible interview with them from Filter Magazine.
www.filter-mag.com/index.php?c=2&id=16237



I got all of my information from personal conversations, the interview in filter magazine, allmusic.com, and wikipedia. Most of it i remembered from reading these publications in the past, so i can't directly cite some of the information. Sorry.