The Passionistas
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The Passionistas are an American band from San Francisco, California. Since 2004, they have gained notoriety for their unique brand of naivete. Due to some of their outlandish stunts, The Passionistas continue to have divisive presence in the San Francisco Bay Area music scene.
[edit] History
The current members are Andrew Lux (bass), Myles Cooper (guitar, vocals) and Aaron Mayfield-Sunshine (guitar, vocals) and Tina Liao (drums). They began in 2003, when Cooper and Sunshine met outside a Math for Liberal Arts class at San Francisco City College and struck up a friendship. The friendship quickly turned to music when Cooper offered to produce songs for Sunshine. When the recording project turned into a full-fledged band, Sunshine asked Lux - a childhood friend - to join.
The band's first press came in 2004 in the San Francisco Bay Guardian when Kelley Stoltz listed them among his top 5 live experiences of the year. Stoltz went on to produce the bands first album, God's Boat, on his Tascam 388 8-track recorder. Nick Colin played drums on the album, and toured with the band before exiting in late 2006.
Will Benham - founder of music blog turned record label, New and Used Records - discovered the album while video documenting the band in late 2006. Benham liked the album so much he decided to, with mentorship from David Katznelson of Birdman Records, start a label of his own that would tandem release God's Boat alongside video podcasts chronicling the artists. This has made New and Used Records a model for uses of web and new media in the indie label community.
In August 2007, the band was declared "most likely to succeed" of local bands in the San Francisco Bay Guardian's "Class of 2007" music feature.
In early 2007, the band spent time in the studio with Greg Ashley of the Gris Gris, starting work on a second album. After performing live with various drummers, Tina Liao officially joined in September 2007.
[edit] Discography
- God's Boat (2007)
