During our Contest (trivia answers will be at the end of this post), a fantastic article was published in the Pacifica Tribune all about us, FRESH! From RR, The Curios, and some upcoming releases! Here are some excerpts from the article, but we highly encourage you to read it in its entirety on the Pacifica Tribune website (mercurynews.com)!
Making beautiful music for world distribution — The Curios and Reference Recordings
By Jean Bartlett
Pacifica tribune Arts Correspondent
The extraordinary Curios, a smart, highly listenable (home grown) band playing world folk, a little rock and blues and old back porch story, have been filling up concert venues in Pacifica for a long time. Recently they spread their reach out to the Greater Bay Area and were greeted with full houses and thundering applause. A number of months back the Curios signed on with the Pacifica-based, multi Grammy award winning Reference Recordings…
In August 2010, Reference Recordings formally announced an offshoot to their 34-year-old record label called Fresh! from RR. Their first release, on Sept. 14, is “Pillow Book” by the Curios.
“Everything that we ever released on Reference Recordings we have done with our own team,” Martin said. “But we have talked for a long time about putting out a second division and we wanted unusual, interesting music that we believe our fans will like. Unlike Reference Recordings, most of the Fresh! offerings will not be recorded by our RR team.” The mission of Fresh! is to encourage new artists, all music genres, and give them a strong platform for promotion and sales nationally and internationally…The Curios “Pillow Book” is an accessible poet’s (songwriter Hall) folk rainbow ride through a treasure chest full of interesting observations and relatable truths all laid out in a bed of precision tight, crazy-great musicianship. It’s just the kind of thing that Saint-Exupéry’s “Little Prince” might listen to on the trail of a fantastic adventure.
Because of the Curios new relationship with Fresh!, “Pillow Book” is immediately heading out, through Reference Recordings national and international distributors, to places such as Hong Kong, the Netherlands, online media and print sources, record stores and public radio.
In October, Fresh! will issue its second release “The Human Holiday” by Sleight of Mind. “The Human Holiday” was a British-style quirky radio play success on NPR in the ’80s. The first time on CD, with “mind-bending sonic effects” by RR’s Prof. Johnson, “The Human Holiday” is described as “Firesign Theater meets the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.'” Meanwhile Reference Recordings, just back from recording the Concord Chamber Players in Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA, is hugely busy with nine scheduled classical or jazz recordings over the next year…
And now for the answers to our trivia contest:
1. What RR artist is known as The Ghostest with the Mostest? – Marni Nixon
2. What is the earliest Keith Johnson recording in the current RR catalog? – Red Norvo Quintet, The forward look, RR-8
3. Which RR artist has played with Nine Inch Nails, Alisha Keys, Nnenna Freelon, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Smashing Pumpkins? – Mike Garson