Website: www.100yearpicnic.com
Mailing List: Record Club and RSS Feeds
Stores: iTunes , amazon .., and CDbaby
Wheelie Pop Records: www.wheeliepop.com
100 Year Picnic
Blending Power Pop hooks with Americana storytelling, 100 Year Picnic serves up delicious pop melodies and smart lyrics about the complexities of trying to live a simple life.
Next door neighbors by day, record producers by night, 100 Year Picnic's Jeff Greeneberg and Edwin Pierce sing and play a bunch of instruments, but also invite many of their talented music friends to join in the fun.
The guys are based out of Bloomington, Illinois, a place of wide-open spaces, short commutes to work, and year-round BBQs with close family and friends. With a couple of home studios, and a well-worn path between the two houses, it's an endless experiment in songwriting and sound.
The latest 100 Year Picnic record, Tales Of A Modern Splash (2008), is also the group's best and most personal piece of work, with eleven vignettes on modern life, relationships, and basically working it out. The infectious melodies with wistful and sometimes wry storytelling, feeds the soul like a great party with your closest friends.
100 Year Picnic has been featured on over 90 podcasts around the world and is sold in most major internet outlets, including iTunes , amazon .., and CDbaby . Other record releases include 10 Gallon Cat (1998) and As Tall As The Sky (2001).
100 Year Picnic Record Reviews
"100 Year Picnic, one of my favorite independent bands has released their newest full length release, Tales of a Modern Splash. The album is full of great songs; multi-layered and perfectly textured, each song has it’s own story to tell."
"One of my favorite songs on the new album is Looks Are for Free. It, like a few other songs on the album has properties that remind me of the Beatles, though to call Jeff Greeneberg and Edwin Pierce another John and George would be to misunderstand their motives. 100 Year Picnic’s music is mostly based around their families that they both love and tolerate, and this can be seen in their songs."
Read the full review by jamesb.com, Utah.
"This is rock 'n' roll evolved; it's pop music for grown-ups."
"The influences are both obvious and welcome. "Looks Are For Free" sounds like Rubber Soul era Beatles with a touch of David Bowie. That song is followed by "Another Phase," which blends vintage '80s synth (when did the '80s become vintage?) with the alterna-pop-bounce of XTC. Fans of Tears For Fears' post- "Big Chair" material will enjoy both the lush "Greener Than The Trees" and the fantastically layered "Everything's Perfect."
"There are plenty of more contemporary influences to be found as well. "We Were Not The Same" could pass for a lost Ben Folds Five track, and "Slow Down" would not sound at all out of place on a Chris Cornell album."
"If there's an earworm on this album, though, it has to be "Make Things Right." With its exquisite vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Byrds and an upbeat radio-ready hook, I could not get this song out of my head. Nor did I want to."
Read the full review by Kyle Schiebel, TCStyle Magazine, Illinois.
"The reflective songs leisurely unspool over a variety of catchy rock music, each a completely realized story..."
"Tales of a Modern Splash" is an eclectic mix of alt-pop songs about the journey from post-college adulthood into early middle age family life. Maybe that's just the 40-something, father-of-teens in me talking, but these are pop songs I can identify with..."
"Like super heroes with secret identities, the two guys behind 100 Year Picnic are in fact Jeff Greeneberg and Edwin Pierce: self-described dads, husbands and next door neighbors with a basement full of instruments and enough tech skills to run their own recording studio and website..."
"If their first album reminded me of a cornfield-based Fountains of Wayne, this wide-ranging new album sounds a little like a lot of all our favorite music but it reminds me of nobody except themselves. 100 Year Picnic has a grown-up pop sound all their own."
Read the full review by Eric Anderson, nextnc.com , Colorado.
Edwin and Jeff play, record, & mix everything in the home studios, but also invite many of their music friends to bring their unique musical stylings to the project. Throughout the years, 100 Year Picnic players have included Chris Ahillen, Rick Bennett, David Berchtold, Dean Carlson, Fish Carpenter, Brian Choban, Bob Gallagher, John Ganser, Steve Harris, Kurt Hoffman, Bruce Lane, Michael McCormick, James McManus, Dan Meyer, Erik Nelson, Tommy O'Donnell, Trefan Owen, Greg Pare, Jennifer Rusk, Tony San Filippo, Brian Smith, Collin Stokes, Shannan Sullivan, Clay Thompson, Diann Thompson, Ken Thornton, and Jeff Walker.