Christy and Becky have been playing together, on and off, since freshman year in high school. Becky has been lead guitar/lead vocalist/lead songwriter/frontwoman for several bands on both the West and East Coasts, including the Mad Scientists, Fractal Cactus, We Make Noise, and The Outliers prior to joining/forming Deadpan Alley. While the trajectory of Christy’s musical talents and career could be characterized as somewhat more, shall we say, unstructured than her bandmate’s, she’s actually getting pretty good on bass guitar and backing vocals. Deadpan Alley was formed in 2004 in Oakland, California, and plays mostly original songs mostly written by Becky (though some songs are co-written).
Deadpan Alley counts among its influences the Talking Heads (especially the early stuff), the late great Ed's Redeeming Qualities, the Dead Milkmen, Loudon Wainwright III, and Hank Williams. We also like to listen to various stuff. Lately Becky likes to listen to Arcwelder, the Arcade Fire, System of a Down, and Camper Van Beethoven. Christy likes to listen to Steve Earle, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Metallica. Some of our favorite local Bay Area bands include the Whoreshoes and the Shut-Ins.
Neither of us like to garden or play mah-jong.
We just finished making a demo and are now starting to look for gigs. People ask us what kind of music we do. It would be really handy to be able to tell them, but it's hard to classify. Many of our songs are rock. Some of the rock songs have folk and/or country influences. Some also include elements of punk. We also play a country set, but our country songs are often flavored with punk and/or rock influences. See? Hard to classify. People tend to like the lyrics. Some people make comparisons between us and Talking Heads. We're chicks, though.
I've heard some unreleased DPA tracks, and they rock!
Posted by: Michael | September 07, 2006 at 11:37 AM