Marlon Rabenreither of Gold Star
My previous band, The Sister Ruby Band, was a project that was in constant flux, and tended to change radically as different players revolved in and out of the band. I started Gold Star when SRB ended. The members of C.G. Roxanne actually played in both projects. There are a lot of threads that connect these different bands but they are all rather distinct.
I was a Cooper Union drop out and studied at Goldsmiths in London- I met a lot of interesting people and my experiences in New York City and in the UK certainly influenced my song writing. I usually do the artwork for my records, though I’m lucky to have a lot of friends that are very talented photographers.
I set out with the intention of making “Big Blue” a record that was intimate, as well as personal; both in the way the songs were written and also how they were eventually arranged and recorded. The songs are pretty biographical, and there are a lot of specific references to street names and cities as well as people’s names.
For “Big Blue” I had made demo recordings of all the songs with me playing drums and piano etc. Sometimes several demos were made before I took the songs into the studio, so in this case I had a very good idea of what I wanted to create. Though it was equally important for the record to embrace spontaneity in the performances.
All of the tracks were cut live and we tried to do as few takes as possible with no edits and minor overdubs, so it really is a bit of both.
The good news is that because of technology musicians have more power and freedom to create and release work themselves than ever before. The bad news is that the very same technology has also made it really easy for that work to be washed away- with so much content these days and no quality control it can be rather challenging.
We are on the road with Julia Jacklin doing dates along the coast from Los Angeles to Vancouver, BC. She is an incredible artist and the shows have been a blast, I plan on touring more and am looking forward to playing Europe soon.
I think The Beatles and The Velvet Underground are the most important bands of all time, largely because they opened the doors for everything that came after.
There is so much great music out there these days, I’m really into this band Crush, which is basically a Black Lips side project and my friend Korey Dane has a record coming out called “Chamber Girls” that has been on rotation.Published: In Print Issue Nº 05—2017
I was a Cooper Union drop out and studied at Goldsmiths in London- I met a lot of interesting people and my experiences in New York City and in the UK certainly influenced my song writing. I usually do the artwork for my records, though I’m lucky to have a lot of friends that are very talented photographers.
I set out with the intention of making “Big Blue” a record that was intimate, as well as personal; both in the way the songs were written and also how they were eventually arranged and recorded. The songs are pretty biographical, and there are a lot of specific references to street names and cities as well as people’s names.
For “Big Blue” I had made demo recordings of all the songs with me playing drums and piano etc. Sometimes several demos were made before I took the songs into the studio, so in this case I had a very good idea of what I wanted to create. Though it was equally important for the record to embrace spontaneity in the performances.
All of the tracks were cut live and we tried to do as few takes as possible with no edits and minor overdubs, so it really is a bit of both.
The good news is that because of technology musicians have more power and freedom to create and release work themselves than ever before. The bad news is that the very same technology has also made it really easy for that work to be washed away- with so much content these days and no quality control it can be rather challenging.
We are on the road with Julia Jacklin doing dates along the coast from Los Angeles to Vancouver, BC. She is an incredible artist and the shows have been a blast, I plan on touring more and am looking forward to playing Europe soon.
I think The Beatles and The Velvet Underground are the most important bands of all time, largely because they opened the doors for everything that came after.
There is so much great music out there these days, I’m really into this band Crush, which is basically a Black Lips side project and my friend Korey Dane has a record coming out called “Chamber Girls” that has been on rotation.