Califone

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Califone
Origin Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genre(s) Indie Rock, post-rock, Experimental rock
Years active 1997 – present
Label(s) Flydaddy Records, Road Cone Records, Perishable Records, Thrill Jockey
Associated acts Red Red Meat
Members
Joe Adamik
Jim Becker
Ben Massarella
Tim Rutili
Former members
Wil Hendricks
Brian Deck

Califone is a critically-acclaimed experimental post-rock band from Chicago. The band is named after Califone International, a long-standing manufacturer of audio equipment commonly found in schools, libraries and businesses.

Contents

[edit] History

Jim Becker and Joe Adamik.
Jim Becker and Joe Adamik.

After the breakup of his former band Red Red Meat, frontman Tim Rutili formed Califone as a solo project. Rutili's solo effort soon became a full-fledged musical project with a regular and rotating list of contributors, including many former members of Red Red Meat and some members of other Chicago bands.

From the music website Cokemachineglow.com: "When we started doing this, it was a home project. The statement of intent would have been 'easy listening' compared to what we were doing with Red Red Meat. This was supposed to be making little pop songs out of found pieces. It was supposed to be just a little home project, and it slowly grew from there. Now it seems like just about anything goes"[1].

Califone's sound is a combination of Red Red Meat's blues-rock and experimental music, with inspiration drawn from early American folk music, pop, as well as electronic and unclassifiable acts like Psychic TV and Captain Beefheart, respectively. Listeners familiar with Red Red Meat can quickly tell that Califone is not an attempt to revive the old band; elements from a number of musical styles contribute to their distinctive sound.

Califone's current lineup includes Joe Adamik (drums), Jim Becker (banjo, violin), Ben Massarella (percussion), and Tim Rutili (vocals, guitar, keyboards). Each member is a multi-instrumentalist.

[edit] Collaborations

Ben Massarella and Tim Rutili at a 2005 Tower Records performance.
Ben Massarella and Tim Rutili at a 2005 Tower Records performance.

In 1997, members of Red Red Meat collaborated with members of oRSo and Rex to record Loftus for Perishable Records.

In 2002, Tim Rutili and Ben Massarella collaborated with Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock and others to release the album Sharpen Your Teeth under the band name Ugly Casanova.

In 2005, Califone collaborated with Freakwater as a backing band to record the album Thinking of You.

In 2006, Tim Rutili teamed up with Wil Hendricks and Michael Krassner under the name The Unseen Hand to record the soundtrack for Rank, a documentary about bullriding.

In 2006, Califone teamed up with animator/musician Brent Green on a series of performance art pieces featuring animation, live music, and spoken word.

They are also featured on the soundtrack for the movie Stranger than Fiction.

[edit] The Heron King

The 2004 release Heron King Blues is a concept album involving a recurring dream. According to Rutili, the Heron King's origin is as follows:

Califone's Tim Rutili has had a recurring dream since his youth, involving a giant man-bird creature, and then he discovered that the creature was actually a representation of an ancient Druid god called the heron king, which the British feared so deeply that they fled the battlefield when an effigy of the heron king was hoisted above the heads of the opposing army, and that Rutili realized that he had somehow been manifesting an image of this long-dead god figure in his head since he was a child.[2]

[edit] Discography

[edit] External links

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