Flowers and Fire Live in Stuttgart
.. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- Erik Penny "Santa Ana" live in Zürich
.. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------- I live music - i write, record, perform music. i am lucky enough to spend the vast majority of my waking hours engulfed in music-related pursuits. I've just returned from a 13-show German tour with my friend Gus Black, which was an amazing time and a precursor to much more German touring in my future. ------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------The fall of 1977 found me as a tiny child in the back seat of a little white Opel ('member those cars?), on the way from northern New York state to the west Texas town of El Paso. My father was to start a new career in El Paso, so he and my mom packed up my brother and I, filled the car and the van with stuff, and off we went. I remember passing through St Louis, and wondering what the hell that huge metal arch was all about. I remember staying in motels, and after we had been in El Paso for several weeks, in our new apartment, commenting to my mom that we sure had been in this last motel for a long time. I remember swimming in the outdoor pool on Christmas day and going to see Star Wars in a theater so full that we had to squat in the aisles. I remember watching my dad studying Spanish from a book at night for his new job. I think of that huge step my parents took with that relocation, away from anything they had known, and it seems that nothing i might dream of doing is out of the question.When I was 16, a couple guys I knew started a band and needed a bass player and singer. I lied to them that I could do both, and that was how I started playing music. Both my parents sang well and often, and my brother was a bit of a musical prodigy, harmonizing with my aunts from age 4 and continuing into formal training and classical and operatic performance (as well as several years in his own bands) over the years, so I thought there was no reason why I shouldn't be the frontman of a band. Why not?Fast forward to 1996, and my 3rd or 4th band was doing a lot of regional touring (including opening slots for The Toadies, The Tragically Hip, and Garbage), recording a full-length record (released by a now-defunct LA label), and eventually splitting up. (Interesting side-note: Paul and Tony, the rhythm section, went on to At The Drive-In, Sparta, and now Paul to The Mars Volta.)In 1997, I made the big move to LA, where I began to actually learn some things that would stick with me. I played bass in a band for the first time in 6 years, and found that to do it right is not as easy as it seems; nor is singing backing vocals. Good lessons. After a bit in that band, I realized I missed writing and playing my own music, so in 1999 I returned to that. Recorded a 5-song demo at a friend's home studio (my very first solo recording) and, at his urging, began to explore the world of the 4-track recorder. It was a late start, but better late than never. By 2000, I had written a bunch more songs and formed the band Penny with another ex-El Pasoan, Ernesto Garcia. We had a couple different drummers in as many years, and recorded pretty cool demos with each of them. When we parted ways with the last one, we recorded Penny's first (and only) full-length record, "15 Electric", which utilized all programmed beats, synths, acoustic instrumentation, and all done on my trusty digital 8-trackThe live Penny lineup brought in Garrett Ray on drums and David Green on guitar, both of whom have become dear friends of mine and continue to play live shows with me. My first visit to this new club I'd been hearing about, the Hotel Cafe, in 2002, resulted in a chance meeting with Marko Schafer, the co-owner who just happened to be taking over the booking duties from Gary Jules that very night. I gave him my CD and he offered me a gig on the spot. We've been friends and the Hotel has been a comfy home to me ever since. The debut Hotel Cafe release, "Live at The Hotel Cafe, Vol One", featured a live recording of my song "Extraordinary", alongside other Hotel regulars like Gary Jules, Joe Purdy, Jesca Hoop, Alexi Murdoch, and Jim Bianco. Ernesto went on to pursue his own project in 2004, and at that point I went solo as Erik Penny. I wrote and recorded the "Summer Stars EP", released it at the end of 2004, and was lucky enough to have the title track placed on a Lifetime Networks original miniseries. In early 2005, my voice succumbed to a years-in-the-making case of acute chronic laryngitis, and I had to take the rest of the year off from live performing. During that time, I wrote most of "Footprints", my follow-up CD that I released in March 2006. Featured on the front page of CD Baby.com during its release week, it was touted as "one of the best I've ever heard" by Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby.com. That was a good week. My newest release, a self-titled EP, was written and recorded from September 2006 through January 2007, and released February 2, 2007 with an accompanying show at the Hotel. I've also recently played gigs at the venerable Largo, as a guest of my friend Gus Black. I'm currently working on a bunch of my own new songs for a new record, as well as a collaborative project with LA singer-songwriter Anita Coats, and have recently finished engineering and producing a record for LA singer-songwriter Pete Holland. I've also produced tracks for LA artist Libbie Schrader, as well as individual tracks for LA artists Adrianne, Chuck Lee Bramlet, Whitney Cline, Renee Stahl, and Gayle Day. I will be moving to Berlin late summer 2008 to continue the adventure that began with another big move nearly 30 years ago.
