Posts Tagged ‘Rachel Taylor Brown’

Parlour to Parlour, Episode 13: Lila Nelson

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Waiting to get into the men’s room at Mississippi Studios in Portland, Oregon, I noticed a tall (relative to me, anyway), attractive young lady with a guitar standing quietly by. She was soft-spoken, seemed kind of shy, and turned out she was also visiting from California. Based in Arcata at that time, Lila Nelson was playing an early set before Rachel Taylor Brown that Spring night in 2008, and was about to completely rip apart my initial impression of her.

Lila Nelson described herself to me as shy, even after I had already determined that she was anything but. One thing was for certain though – she was “on” the entire time during my visit to her home in April of ‘09, a year after I first encountered her in Portland. (more…)

Parlour to Parlour, Episode 12: Rachel Taylor Brown

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As a member of Chris Robley’s band the Fear of Heights, keyboardist/vocalist Rachel Taylor Brown had already endeared herself to me with her warmth and unique charm. Then I heard the opening strains of her album Half Hours With The Lower Creatures, and knew that there was so much more to Rachel than I could have imagined. I mean, the woman made music out of cash registers, essentially walking a fine line between serious metaphor and blatant absurdity. And it worked! As I found out, this time and times before, she’s always got something interesting going on.

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Parlour to Parlour, Episode 0: Chris Robley & The Fear of Heights

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Parlour to Parlour begins today with Episode 0. This footage, filmed in San Francisco, CA, during the weekend of November 14-15, 2008, on my grandfather’s old analog Hi8, was “just practice” and not originally intended for the series. But we liked it so much that it deserved a place in the series, even if it was out-of-concept in that it was the band visiting me, rather than the other way around. Hence “Episode 0.”

The Parlour to Parlour “concept” wasn’t completely set in stone yet, nor had I begun the process of putting together a production schedule for the series, when Chris Robley & The Fear of Heights were passing through San Francisco last November. But even in its formative stages, P2P was always meant to begin with Chris. (more…)