Tears for the Dying

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Atlanta, GA deathrock project featuring members of Athens, GA bands Vomit Thrower, The Girl Pool and The Endless.

Tears for the Dying began life as a studio project in late 2003 by bassist/guitarist Adrya Stembridge. Adrya's previous band, The Girl Pool, broke up in 1998 amid creative disagreements; afterwards she took a lengthy vacation from playing and recording. Having attended the inaugural Drop Dead Festival in New York during the summer of 2003, Adrya found renewed inspiration for creating music and began writing new material.

In December '03 Adrya travelled to Radium Recordings in Athens, GA to record two songs, Time and Disease. She played all instruments and sung on both tracks. Using these songs and three others recorded at home on a 4-track she released her first demo CD, simply called E.P.. The demo was mailed to a few dozen people, one of whom was noted Goth music historian Mick Mercer. Weeks later he gave a positive review of the demo in his online journal and encouraged Adrya to continue writing.

Months later, Atlanta Gothic metal band Bury Me Under offered to help Adrya record a new demo. Bury Me Under's drummer, Chris, provided the percussion. Four songs were recorded, Go Die, Memories, Disease and All for Nothing. The material sprung to life with live drums, taking the project in a decidedly punk direction. Using these tracks, the Radium Recording songs and two yet unreleased numbers she compiled a second demo called To the Birds.

To the Birds was given freely given to all who asked for a copy (the band spend hundreds of dollars printing disks and mailing to locations in the US and around the world). Rather than slip a CDR in a plain white envelope, TftD packaged To the Birds in a black mailer wrapped in mesh and lace, with enclosed liner notes on parchment with burned edges. Tres gothique!

Response to To the Birds was outstanding; several online magazines reveiwed the demo favorably, including Mick Mercer's The Mick. In early 2005 a european promoter wrote Adrya and asked if Tears for the Dying could attend a festival being planned later that year. Adrya's peers in the Goth rock scene suggested she assemble a band pronto, even if the festival didn't pan out the music and band had potential. So, she placed ads online and in local print newspapers.

Being that TftD's style is unlike that of mainstream trends, finding like-minded musicians proved difficult. After months of searching enough members were located to hold rehearsals, the first of which was held in May of 2005 (with Dara Bishop on drums, Scott on guitar and Todd Caras on bass). Scott eventually lost interest and a guitarist from Chile named Max Albuquerque joined.

Tears for the Dying played its first show on September 2, 2005 at a country & western bar in Lawrenceville, GA.

Tears for the Dying's lyrics underscore Adrya's punk background, and rarely touch on transgendered-related issues. Many of her songs have to do with religionor scene politics, while some have no overt meaning at all.

Building on punk ethic, at least musically so, the music of Tears for the Dying appears to revolve around tradition, but not so much to become predictable. Frequent tempo changes and sometimes complex (if not awkward) arrangements are found in many of the band's songs. Many note something particularly different about Tears for the Dying's interpretation of punk. Punk songs aren't supposed to be dancable in the traditional sense, yet songs like Disease and Porcelin make use of slower tempo and groovy, funky bass lines which result in an irresistible urge to tap one's foot along to the beat. Other songs, such as Memories provide off-kilter, caustic episodes of negativity that reach out to the unfortunate and desperate.

1 Band Members
2 Discography
3 Press
4 Music Samples
5 Photos
6 Related Bands
7 External links

[edit] Band Members

Present:

Adrya Stembridge: vocals, guitar
Christina Barr: bass, vocals
Dara Bishop: drums, keyboards

Past:

Max Albuquerque: guitar
Todd Caras: bass
Scott Lambert: guitar
Ethyl Hodges bass

[edit] Discography

Tears for the Dying ~ To the Birds, 2005, available for free download
Under the Radar Vol 1 ~ Antidote Records compilation, 2006, available here

[edit] Press

Review of To the Birds by Goth/Punk historian Mick Mercer.

Excerpt: "...we can happily concentrate on what a fantastically concise and earthy record this is, which manages not just to simultaneously be austere Goth and prickly Deathrock, but is wholly in keeping with the original flavour of both movements, which is a very, very – as in VERY – rare thing to experience. Oh, and the songs are great too. Top marks of packaging the promo also, as a death memento, with the black sleeve, CD paced in mesh, tied with lace and the paper sleeve notes burnt around the edges. Attention to detail, you can’t beat it."

Image:Tothebirds.jpg

Link: http://livejournal.com/users/mickmercer/363155.html

Review of To the Birds by Sin of BlackAngel Promotions..

Excerpt: "It's refreshing to see a band that can retain it's spooky and dark overtones while not simply rehashing old Misfits tunes ... writing interesting lyrics instead of writing around old B-Movie titles ... putting emotion and feeling into songs as opposed to just banging away relentlessly. Yes, folks ... there is more to HORROR music than that one band that broke up in '83 whose name is now being bastardized for the masses. Give yourself the aural pleasure supplied by bands influenced by that wondrous decade of the 80s and the originators of Deathrock, Goth, and Horror ... bands like Tears for the Dying. "

Link: http://bap.antidoterecords.net/tftd.php