THE BLASTING COMPANY @ Echoplex

8:30pm / $10 / 18+

Diego’s Umbrella|| Listen || Watch
As San Francisco’s ambassadors of gypsy rock, Diego’s Umbrella captures California’s cultural multiplicity with enthusiasm, humor and decadence.

These urban gringo mariachis have performed more than a thousand live shows, cloaked in elaborate homemade outfits. The band’s unforgettable performances have visually and aurally captivated diverse audiences around the globe.

Influenced heavily by flamenco, klezmer, and Latin music, Diego’s Umbrella has introduced the world to a new kind of popular music, with sounds reminiscent of Gogol Bordello, Flogging Molly and The Clash.

Shortly after migrating to Northern California from rural Wisconsin, DU front man Vaughn Lindstrom (acoustic guitar, vocals, lead songwriter) teamed up with California native Tyson Maulhardt (electric guitar, vocals) to create a musical ensemble that they dubbed Diego’s Umbrella. The namesake: their friend’s arm tattoo.

Diego’s Umbrella debuted in 2001 with its first album, Songs for the Farmers. With the addition of Marcus Schmidt (bass), Jason Kleinberg (violin, vocals, accordion), Jake Wood (drums, percussion) and Benjamin Leon (lead vocals, electric guitar, percussion), Diego’s Umbrella has been packing venues throughout the Western U.S. and Europe with its heavy-hitting live shows and filling airwaves in the U.S. and Europe with lively tunes.

The band released Kung Fu Palace in 2006 and Viva la Juerga in 2007. Within a few months Juerga ranked #129 on the CMJ Top 200 Chart. This spring Diego’s Umbrella will release the much-anticipated record, Double Panther.

Several DU songs were also featured in the X-Dance-award-winning documentary Sofia, the Quiksilver/Roxy surf DVD Shimmer, as well as CBS’ Elimination Station. Diego’s Umbrella also performs three songs in the Lionsgate comedy Still Waiting (2009).

“With guitars straight out of a Tarantino movie, the group seamlessly blends mariachi, gypsy, flamenco and ska into one beer-soaked fiesta, with song topics varying from heartache to revolution.” -NewsReview.com

Noah Lit & The Megafauna || Listen
When Noah Lit’s former indie rock band Oliver Future went the way of the mastodon, he did the only logical next step… gave up electric guitar and dove head first into the world of acoustic Gypsy Jazz guitar. Practicing the dizzying scales, arpeggios, and antiquated chords and patterns opened a song writing treasure trove and thus… Noah and the MegaFauna was born. Digging into the world of Gypsy Jazz guitar reminded Noah that while rock and roll is a large part of his record collection, it is only a part. Django Reinhardt, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong, not to mention Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Jacques Brel, and Leonard Cohen all loom as large as The Beatles, Radiohead or The Kinks. As Noah puts it, “Anthems for a Stateless Nation is a humble attempt at making a record that sounds like my record collection.” It is a new vision of old world aesthetics. It aims to bridge Noah’s love for Django Reinhardt Gypsy Jazz’s guitar chops and violin solo’s, the orchestrating colors of Ellington and Mingus, the passionate story telling of Waits or Dylan, and the harmonic hookiness of The Beatles or The Kinks. Thematically, it is a pre, and post-apocalyptic tale of displacement, wandering, panic, and ultimately redemption. To accomplish this admittedly ambitious vision, Noah was clearly going to need help. He contacted his friend and longtime producer Adam Lasus (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Yo La Tengo, Clem Snide) and began scheming. His brother Joshua Lit (Oliver Future) was added on Piano and Accordion. His brother Gabriel Lit on clarinet and Bass Clarinet and was assigned to help arrange the horns and string parts. Gabriel’s girlfriend Naomi Wen supplied the virtuosic violin licks and played the Erhu, a 2-string traditional Chinese fiddle. Shiben Battacharaya and Chris Lovejoy supplied upright bass and symphonic drumming, respectively. Noah’s cousin Travis Knight added to the family affair by playing percussion. An eight piece horn section was recorded in The Bronx, New York with the help of Joe Rogers (Back to Blonde, Moby). World renowned Gypsy guitarist Gonzalo Bergara was added on bandoneon and lead guitar on “Never Go Home”. Finally, guest drumming was Noah’s boxing buddy Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers, George Harrison).

To accentuate the cinematic feel of the record, Noah arranged several duets with amazing singers and jazz vocalists. Kat Edmonson, Marianne Dissard, Emily St. Amand-Poliakoff, Mindy Gaspar, and Joshua Lit all make appearances. The record also allowed Noah to collaborate with several of his favorite writers. Josh Lit, and Noah’s friends Josh Seidenfeld (Boy in the Bubble) and William Chancellor (author: A Brave Man 7 Stories Tall), helped craft lyrics and imagery for several songs. The final stage was the visual art work created by artist Michael Garza (A Scanner Darkly, Oliver Future). Anthems for a Stateless Nation was conceived, recorded to tape, and mastered in six months and will be released July 2011. The majority of what the listener hears was recorded live and often in one take to capture the energy and uniqueness of each performance. While it is technically Noah Lit’s first solo project, all of the names mentioned above reveal it as a vision brought together by collaboration, trust, and friendship. It is Nightmare Pop, a modern day allegory of Noah’s Arc, a zombie apocalypse, Global Warming: the musical, indie folk run through music school, a big band swinging, a small gypsy ensemble moaning, a convergence of influence and orchestration that represents the ever shrinking world we live in, a wanderer’s diary played on instruments that can be carried on your back, a singer/songwriter/ indie-jazz record that dares it’s player’s to growl, squawk, squeak, and squeal, and it’s listeners to climb aboard for an eclectic but concise vision.

The Blasting Company|| Listen
In 1989, in the encroaching mountains of Serbia or Tennessee, an idea occurred between two brothers; or rather, a quixotic dream: to build a bridge from Turkey to Europe. This bridge would be lined with tapestries and populated by a thousand great white birds. Soaring over the Mediterranean sea, as it were, commuters would be flanked by low growing patches of colorful flora. The bridge would be a swath of color and light, a paintbrush stroke between continents, between cultures, between civilizations. On each independence day of each independent country, elaborate displays of fireworks would erupt from the bridge and the Christmas lights would crawl across the bridge like festive veins of ivy on the eves of all the world’s favorite holidays.

The brothers were pleased by their idea, and so they set off to play music in the streets, that they may raise the funds (approximately $85 billion would do) by the generosity (monetarily speaking) of the persons whose lives they one day hope to improve.
-Max Benkelman

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