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Careen comes from the N.W. United States, Portland, Oregon. Members
spent their childhoods in Harbin, China, Cote D'Ivoire West Africa, and
Portland, Oregon. They played music and sports and were child stage
actors; destiny led them here. Careen is a Pop/Rock band. Careen is an
American rock band. Taste the candy, choke, and revel. Three, I mean
four, genres collide to make Careen's music: rock from Foo Fighters and
Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, sugar from The Cars and Fountains of
Wayne, Brit-ness from The Kinks and The Rolling Stones, or The Cure
singles, and Americana from Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, and R.E.M.
These guys will take all takers for a ride with a vision driven by
conscience and heart. You don't even know. Think of the last band you
heard that had confidence, then take off the laziness and add songs you
actually cared about after you broke up with the bass player.
Careen began in 2002. Singer/guitarist, Drew Grow wrote a lot of songs
that winter, and good buddy, guitarist Patrick Tetreault, agreed to
record them. By the fall, Matthew Kronbach(bass guitar), Graeme
Enkelis(keyboards, Midi), and Andy Uppendahl(drums) had joined the
scrappy, bourgeoning group, and with the release of their first
demos("Dangerously In The Red", 11/02) the band was born. Originally
appearing under the names "Ping!" and "The Marching Hearts", the band
eventually settled on "Careen"(from an early song lyric). Naming a band
is hard, but ours still sounds pretty good to us--not like "Staind" or
"12 Stone Altar" or "Duck Butter". Patrick played violin as a child,
one of those classically trained orchestral geniuses, now he is our
guitarist. Matt is bilingual, he speaks West African French. Graeme
wins every time he plays Encore (that parlor game where it helps if you
know the lyrics and melodies of obscure songs). I was a quite
successful gymnast. I bet you don't even know a male gymnast. That's
how much you don't even know what is so cool about Careen. I tried that
whole hipster "cool-club" thing where every riff I uttered was
"Radiohead-esque" or "Flaming Lips-ish", and it sucked. Now we are
Careen and cooler than ever(even though I still like those bands).
Then I had the big idea for us to become a Real Band so last spring we
went on our so-called "60-Shows-in-60-Days Tour". That was when we
started working our asses off. We played some really cool places, like
The Troubadour in Hollywood, and we were shit-grinned to share the
Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco with Modest Mouse and The Shins. At 2
years old, Careen is coming along A-OK.
OK, our brand new record is called "Crash Couture". Joe Chiccarelli was
our producer. Because he had worked with so many people we respect,
like Beck, U2, Etta James, the Wilco boys, and Frank Zappa, we felt
lucky and happy when he agreed to work with us also. Joe knows what
sounds good. "Crash Couture" is a big sounding record-- not like your
daddy's indie record... I know, I know, we would be cooler if it did.
Anyway, the songs are short and sweet. We used acoustic and electric
guitars and all types of keyboards. If you like songs, you will like
this. If you like bands with gerbils being juggled by a guy with a fake
eye-patch, you might still like it. Maybe. If you like bands with
laptops, just because they have laptops, you probably won't like it. If
you like Weezer, or that one song John Cusack plays on his saxophone to
his French exchange student girlfriend at the end of "Better Off Dead",
try it out. Even my friend Todd likes it, and he's into bad metal.
Everything about our band is effortless except continuing to exist,
that's the hard part. But we do none-the-less. "Crash Couture" will
arrive this February(2005), and we will be driving our van to you to
make it easier for you to come try Careen. Thank you, goodnight.
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