Fox & Woman is another in a long line of bands carrying on the San Francisco Bay Area tradition of making very American folk-inspired music and making it palatable beyond the typical folk crowd. And yet, while they are clearly part of a cherished musical tradition, they are also very much their own entity. One can easily hear connections to the Jefferson Airplane and It’s A Beautiful Day, and more recently, Fleet Foxes and Devotchka. One can also hear that, no matter who you compare them to, Fox & Woman still sound only like Fox & Woman.
I first saw the band at another Seaweed Sway produced event last year in the Mission District in San Francisco, and two things about them struck me right away. One was their gorgeous three-part harmonies. I’m a sucker for harmonies, as anyone who knows me can attest, so they were unforgettable to me from that instant. The second thing that struck me was that Joe Lewis was playing bass with them. Joe, as some of you may recall, was the quiet dude playing bass with Sean Olmstead during the Episode 27 performance featuring fpodbpod. And as anyone who knows Joe can attest, calling him “quiet” is quite laughable.
While the edition of Fox & Woman we interviewed at the Seaweed Sway showcase at the Make-Out Room on March 17, 2013, was a stripped down version of the band featuring only principals Jess Silva, Andrew Nelson and Emily Haltom, they still came across as a fully formed, tight knit band with plenty to say and do without the benefit of a rhythm section. We also learned what an Acker Award is (the band won one of these awards, and in the same category as Country Joe McDonald too).
The interview:
The performance:
While this video marks an exciting new chapter for Fox & Woman, in that they announced they were two months away from debuting a brand new album at a record release show at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill (it’s on May 31, mark your calendars!), it also marks the end of a short-lived chapter in the Parlour to Parlour story.
The Seaweed Sway quietly announced less than a month prior that the March 17 show would be the last in its long-standing every-third-Sunday showcase series at the Make-Out Room, which in turn brings the Parlour to Parlour Live at the Make-Out Room series to a close. However, we may still produce more episodes during the course of 2013 – they just won’t be at the Make-Out Room, and they won’t necessarily be live either. Though ideally they will be.
As my own life takes its own new twists and turns, so will this series. Stay tuned to this column to find out what our next move will be…
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