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Revision as of 11:48, 17 July 2006 by Samuel Blanning (talk | contribs) (→See also: rm section, only article deleted)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Limbeck is an indie rock band hailing from Orange County, California.
Limbeck received national exposure (in the United States) as a finalist in December 2005 Yahoo.com's Who's Next. They lost to BarlowGirl.
Instrumentation
The Limbeck Band:
Robb MacLean - Vocals, Guitars, Saxaphone, Wind Chimes, and Percussion.
Patrick Carrie - Background Vocals, Guitars, Harmonica, Electric Sitar, Glockenspiel, Gong, and Percussion.
Jon Phillip - Drums and Percussion.
Justin Entsminger - Electric Bass Guitar.
Long-time drummer Matt Stephens left the band in September of 2005 and was replaced by Jon Phillip, the former drummer of the Obsoletes and the Benjamins.
Genre & Style
While classified as indie rock due to the their relatively small niche in Southern California, the band's musical style is most often described as "alternative country music".
Many fans, record stores and online music services vary in their classification of the band's particular genre, however, partially because the lyrical content of the band's songs, more closely resemble 21st century Emo rock than country.
Geography appears to play a primary role in the band's recordings, both in musical arrangement (the band ackowledges influence from such local musicans ranging from Neil Young to Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers) as well as in lyrical content.
Many songs actually name interstate highways which are known primarily to Orange County and San Diego County residents, such as the 8, 22, and 15. Musical intellectuals argue that this could both hinder a band's marketability to other regions of the United States for obvious reasons, but others point to the international success of media powerhouses such as The O.C. and pop-punkers Something Corporate, which capitalize on the current American fascination with the Orange County lifestyle.
The band's complete contrast to the punk rock style which most of the music scene has come to associate with the region makes the group a diamond in the rough.
Biography
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It’s no wonder that the Limbecks decided to call their new album Let Me Come Home. For the band, the past year has been marked by a list of cities – Tulsa, Vegas, Minneapolis, Dallas, Tucson – snapshots on the journey through a non-stop touring schedule. “Looking back on it,” says guitarist Patrick, “it seems like we may have had a week or two off in between all of the touring. We wanted to stay busy and keep on the road as much as we could.” Add to that writing, rehearsing and recording their fourth record, whenever they could find time to get into a studio somewhere, and it’s not surprising that the Limbeck band have been longing for their hometowns in Orange County, California.
Limbeck have fashioned themselves as the Kerouac of rock and roll, inheriting the hard work ethic of our best touring bands: Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Fugazi. Anyhow rock and roll is about dust and grit and gasoline, and the people you meet along the way, and maybe that’s why Limbeck’s songs seem like a hello from someplace else, a postcard from an old friend. “Our fans are really cool,” says Robb. “I’ve found myself taking mostly pictures of people now and less of the scenery which used to be the majority of my photos. I’ve also started writing more songs about people that are close to me.”
The Limbeck boys are no longer the punk rock progeny of their debut, This Chapter Is Called Titles. They built a foundation of Big Star and Tom Petty-inflected power pop for Hi, Everything’s Great that has evolved into their own take on classic rock – a hat tip to the Southern California sound of the early 70s combined with loose, laid back and rollicking blasts of Gram Parsons, the Beach Boys on Sunflower and Friends, the Faces, the Stones and, most of all, the Replacements.
After recording a good vibes, live-at-home version of Hi, Everything’s Great based on the Beach Boys party album – called Hey, Everything’s Fine – Limbeck lit out for Minneapolis – home of the greatest bar-rocking, country kicking, garage punk pop folk band of all time – the Replacements. As a band, Limbeck has followed a similar trajectory to the Westerberg and company of the early 80s, venturing from punk to a more idiosyncratic take on the history of rock and roll – mixing the entirety of the 60s and 70s into hard rocking, catchy-as-hell tunes.
Let Me Come Home was recorded at Ed Ackerson’s Flowers Studio in Minneapolis with Ed and the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris. Though the record is inflected with country rock – the twang of “People Don’t Change,” the shambling guitars of “Everyone’s In the Parking Lot” – Patrick says, “I know Gary wasn’t out to make us the next Jayhawks or anything.” Instead Ed and Gary had the band record live, and do overdubs later, to capture the boundless energy that fans know from the Limbeck live show. “It was a scary thing to sit there and do everything live to tape,” explains Patrick, “but you think about things from your favorite records – the moments that you’re like ‘whoa, that thing that happens with the guitar is crazy.’ You can’t plan those things. And they seem to happen a lot more when you’re sittin’ in a room, the whole band altogether and just going for it.”
The result is the band’s best work yet. A powerful and fierce collection of good-feeling, unstoppable rock and roll. “Television” is the culmination of all of their previous songwriting – a gritty, mid-tempo rock tune that levels Limbeck’s contemporaries with momentum, fury and humor. And what Limbeck have discovered with Let Me Come Home – and it’s the revelation that fans will have too – is that home is where you find it. “We come through the same places pretty often,” says Patrick, “and we stay with the same people. It gives us a whole handful of homes away from home – whether it’s staying over with people and staying up late and then sleeping on couches, or touring with some real good friends where every night it’s kinda like family. It’s nice.”
Charles Spano Hermosa Beach, California May 2005
(From the band's Myspace page)
Discography
Limbeck's discography can be divided into two parts: the stuff they like and are proud of and the stuff they recorded when they were younger, before they had found their sound, that they don't like to talk about. Limbeck is now with Doghouse Records where they have released the two LPs pictured below as well as a live version of Hi, Everything's Great. called Hey, Everything's Fine. Limbeck has also patricipated in many compilations including the now-out-of-print We're Not Generation X CD, Doghouse 100 which celebrates Doghouse Records' 100th release as a label, and ¡Policia! A Tribute to the Police to which they contributed a cover of the Police's "So Lonely."
The band has received local radio play as well as exposure on XM Satellite Radio's channel 43.