Join us Friday, October 21 for our next Living Room music party featuring Bay Area songwriters Maurice Tani, Ira Marlowe and essence.
Doors open at 6:30 pm. Music starts at 7:00 pm. All ages are welcome and this show is open to the public. Donations for the musicians are appreciated but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
If you'd like to guarantee your spot, you can make an advance donation here on TicketLeap. All money goes directly to the artists. Address will be sent to you after your Ticketleap donation is made. To attend without using this Ticketleap system, just RSVP to [email protected] and she'll reply with the address and details.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS:
Born and raised in San Francisco, Tani was just a bit too young for the Summer of Love, but was still profoundly influenced by the California culture that gave the world country rock from the Bakersfield variety to psychedelic to the singer songwriter types.
Barely into his twenties and hungry for experience, he moved to central Texas to work the hardcore country, blues and rock circuit between Austin and Dallas, playing five sets a night, seven nights a week for months at a time, eventually making connections that led to his moving to New York City just as the punk rock scene of CBGBs and Max's Kansas City was exploding in Lower Manhattan. By 1977 he was back in San Francisco as punk, power pop and new wave was taking hold in the Bay Area and began a stretch of five years and four critically acclaimed albums with ex-Flamin' Groovies front man Roy Loney's band, The Phantom Movers.
Through the rest of the '80s and '90s, Maurice was the lead guitarist and a featured vocalist for Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra and Big Bang Beat, two large, 12-18 piece dance bands that gained worldwide exposure from a 2 hour PBS New Years Eve tri-mulcast (2 television stations with different views and FM stereo radio audio all broadcasting simultaneously) that was broadcast annually for many years on public TV around the US and Europe. ZPMO won the Bammy Award for Best Independent Album of 1985. After 15+ years of touring, Tani was ready for a change and made the decision to return to his roots in original music.
Since making the shift back to songwriting in 1999, Maurice has spent the past 13 years as an active part of the California alt-country/Americana scene. Fronting his own bands, Calamity & Main, 77 El Deora, he has produced a series of albums for himself and others. In recent years, with singer Jenn Courtney as his muse, central character and sparring partner, Tani has constructed a repertoire of rye humor and romantic ruminations.
Tani & 77 El Deora represent the best in Americana: smart without making a fuss about it. The lyrics are worldly but universal. The musical ideas hit home. The playing is as good as you’re going to hear this side of Austin. Above all, the band covers a lot of ground, from wistful ballads to hard driving honky-tonk rock, from personal meditations to satirical cultural observations, from electrified twang to down-home acoustic. Once in a while, they even find new shades of meaning in some cover you thought had been long since played out. This band is different. This band is special.
https://www.reverbnation.com/mauricetani77eldeora
Ira Marlowe's songs have been described as "four-minute movies", known for a rare combination of lyrical wit and emotional impact. Marlowe grew up listening to his parents' jazz and show tunes, begged for guitar lessons at eight, finally got them at thirteen, experienced a high school conversion from folkie to rocker, and at nineteen started penning songs that sounded somewhere between Daltrey and Townsend and Lerner and Loew. While the label "folk-rock" is useful as a ballpark description, Marlowe's writing swings from funny to sad to poignant to political--often within a single song. His range as a songwriter and the sheer entertainment value of his shows make him a delight to audiences wherever he goes.
He's won numerous awards, including the SF Weekly "Best of the Bay" song contest, the Napa Valley Music Festival, plus a half-dozen Northern California Songwriters Association competitions. In 2004 his song “The Wish” was selected for the Songs Inspired by Literature CD and appears alongside songs by Tom Waits, David Bowie, Steve Earle, Roseanne Cash and other people more famous than him.
In 2005, burnt out after a series of fizzled major-label deals, he was performing in a San francisco cafe when he was approached by the director of The Learning Company, the world's largest producer of education software for kids. Hired on the spot to write a series of songs their new release, Marlowe took an anything-goes approach to his task and started having FUN again. He soon his own kids' music label, BRAINY TUNES--"Smarter Songs for Smarter Kids". In the past five years he released six CDs, won the coveted Parents' Choice and Mr. Dad Awards, and sold thousands of units, mostly to schools and libraries. But though he loves writing kids' music and usually enjoys performing for children, he never felt at home with the smiley, squeakly-clean persona required for the job. Having recently teamed with a partner to handle to business aspects of BRAINY TUNES, Marlowe has returned headlong to writing and performing for those big kids known as adults.
In June of 2012, Marlowe opened The Monkey House, a cozy nest for thoughtful performers of all stripes: singer/songwriters, storytellers, comics, magicians and more. Seating about fifty--with lights, sound system, stage, and black velvet curtain--it will soon be home to an effort several years in the making, “Tales from Varley Mansion”, a spooky stage show for kids. Stay tuned.
When Marlowe was fourteen, his father scoffed at his plans for a career in music. “Son,” he cautioned, “many are called, but few are chosen.” Now, after twenty-odd years in the music business, after strolling with his guitar between the tables of a Howard Johnson’s, after singing at a circumcision, after being spit at by a spoiled-rotten four-year-old, he’s finds -- to his great surprise -- that he's more excited than ever about music. These days he’s no longer that concerned about being chosen. He knows he's lucky to still feel called.
Listen to the music and you might understand.
http://www.iramarlowe.com/iramarlowe.com/home.html
A sixth-generation San Francisco native, award winning singer-songwriter essence has been immersed in art and music since childhood. And yes, her birth name really is ‘essence’ – she was raised by quintessential flower children, her parents being two free spirited bohemian artists from the Haight-Ashbury ‘Summer of Love.’
Since winning the Grand Prize in the National Lilith Fair Talent Search in 1998, essence has been signed to RCA Records, Way Cool/MCA Records, and Or Music (Los Lonely Boys, Matisyahu). She debuted with the successful indie release Conception, which garnered much Bay Area radio airplay and press and established a devoted fan base.
essence has opened for Tom Petty, Shawn Colvin, Chris Isaac, Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant, Chrissie Hynde, Steve Miller, Pat Benatar, and Linda Perry. She has played at venues ranging from NYC’s Bowery Ballroom to San Francisco’s Fillmore and The Warfield, LA’s Rose Bowl, and Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live.
essence’s latest long player could likely be her masterwork. It is a 12- track opus entitled Black Wings which chronicles the trials and tribulations of a failed marriage propelled by dishonesty and addiction. The undeniable weight of the pervasive subject matter is artfully handled with razor sharp couplets, gritty performances and smart arrangements underscoring obvious pain, but doing so with humor, wisdom and eloquence.
http://essencemusic.com/