Spencer Owen

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Spencer William Maxwell Owen is a prolific art-pop musician living in Berkeley, CA.

Owen was born 1984 in Santa Monica, CA, and was raised by Laura and composer/pianist Sandy Owen in Los Angeles. (Sandy's most recent album, One Late Hour with a Steinway, is one long continuous take at the piano.) As a toddler, Owen was introduced to the works of Laurie Anderson. Along with David Byrne and Talking Heads, Paul Simon's Graceland (and the African music that inspired it), and others, Anderson's work has been an enduring influence on Owen's musical life. Key influences to come in middle and high school were The Boredoms, The Residents, John Cage, and Elvis Costello.

Quite the auteur, Owen arranges all the compositions and performs all of the vocals, instruments and production himself for his home 6- and 8-track audio-cassette recordings.

Owen produced the mostly-instrumental music of his formative years under the pseudonym "Trigger Goldberg." By the time he retired the name, he had begun singing and writing lyrics. His first album under his real name, entitled Malheur Ln., was compiled in 2003 and collected several songs from that period, combined with several new-as-of-then recordings. Also in 2003, Owen met Jeff Eliassen and proceeded to form a relationship with him and his label Ballbearings Pinatas. Before the year's end, his first show took place at the Treehouse Gallery in Los Angeles, sharing the bill with labelmates Raven Fenbahn and Ariel Pink. Ballbearings Pinatas have released 18" x 2000'/Ribcage (2003) and E.T.R. (Electric 3rd R-Word) (2005) on CD.

Owen's catalogue of original material is augmented with many cover recordings. Though his LPs are generally comprised exclusively of original material, the key exceptions are the two front-to-back cover renditions of albums, each by an artist he admires: Black Tie White Noise by David Bowie and Out of the Cradle by Lindsey Buckingham. One of Owen's most accomplished albums was produced through a perversion of this process. Meredith (2004) is comprised of original songs that are each exactly the same length as a song from The Beatles' self-titled White Album.

In addition, Owen has created one album of four long-form experimental pieces entitled On/Playing (2004).

Owen has also produced original music for theater and film. Some of this work can be found in the films Long Gone Daddy and The Word of a Salesman by Kalen Egan as well as many videos by Jamie Burkart (in which Owen frequents onscreen appearances).

Owen briefly studied art at UC Santa Cruz and lived/recorded at The Shop in Santa Cruz, CA before moving to Berkeley, CA in 2005.

Owen has performed as a member of:

The Spencer Owen Karaoke Machine (Owen solo with backing tape; mainly billed as Spencer Owen)
Bird By Snow (Fletcher Tucker) [1]
James Rabbit (Tyler Martin) [2]
Goodbye the Band (John Acquadro) [3]
The Archbishops (with his brother, Alec Owen)
The Spencer Owen Initiative (Owen backed by the Archbishops instead of tape)

Owen currently lives in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area) of California. In the fall of 2006, he completed his first tour, travelling the West Coast as a solo act and in Bird By Snow, whose '06 release Sky (Gnome Life Records [4]) features significant contributions from Owen throughout.

Two official releases are thus far planned for 2007. The album Logic, Owen's first recording of 2007 (and first solo work since late 2005), is to be released on vinyl by Gnome Life Records; meanwhile, Sky by Bird By Snow will have a CD release by the Swedish label Kning Disk.