Lazy Loons

Lazy Loons formed in 2006 under the name Art Decade--taken from the David Bowie song of the same name--in Southern California by four high school friends. They, as Art Decade, had a very particular idea of what to do as a band, taking heavy influence from The Cure and Radiohead. They received a small following among their classmates for the syth-pop song Calling the Police. But with members coming, going, and growing Art Decade became something entirely different and quite possibly something totally new. With this change they scraped all of their material and took the moniker Lazy Loons. Art Decade was seen as too serious for the tone of the music they had made and the tone they wanted to take next. Lazy was used to describe the band as individuals and loons to describe the music: Generally a little crazy, a little awkward, which is how they see the duck-like bird. Lazy Loons is now a two person line up of original members Phil Freedman and Dane Rivera. Over the course of 3 weeks in the autumn of 2008 they wrote, recorded, and mixed what was to be called Almost Pueblos. Listeners will instantly recognize an influence from the music of Animal Collective and the lyrical styles of John Lennon; it's pleasant and welcomed with no sign of an attempt at emulation. When asked about the 5 track EP, Dane replied: "It's exactly what we wanted it to be. We wanted it to sound subtle and happy. Cozy. Warm. Like a small town. That's what we envisioned for it, a small dusty old western town or something. We wanted it to be like the span of the day. Moonsands: Early morning. I Want To like breakfast time. Sea DreaM like hot afternoons, Fessa was bed time, and Cricket Dance/Sleepy was a party--it was like a nighttime party while the rest of the town was in bed." In 2009 the EP Epp! was released. The recording took influence from a broad spectrum of music including, but not limited to, Curtis Mayfield, Édith Piaf, Sly & the Family Stone, The Beatles, Grizzly Bear, Tom Waits, Talking Heads, and Frank Sinatra. The music blog Push2Stops says: It's schizophrenic, it's eerie, and it likes to taunt you. Eep! is a low-fi collection littered with voices, sighs, stereo-pans and other nuances. The songs are strong, well written, and have a lot of replay value, with undertones of distrust, depression, disappointment and the inevitable. While Rivera describes it as: Spooky. A little bit scary, maybe. Haunted. Like an old house kinda thing. Lazy Loons disbanded shortly after and abandoned the songwriting of their next EP--which would have been heavily soul and funk inspired--for a failed satellite project called Coat Check Girls. Both members moved on to other collaborations and solo projects but would come back together years later with Eaten by Television. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.