Member Since: 2/16/2005
Band Website: damesatan.com
Band Members: Andrew Simmons: Hollas, Strums/Plucks, Synthetic Squalls, and more; Brendan Sheehan: Electric Stringed Shimmers and Swells, Polyrhythmic Assaults, God Drums, Soundscapes, and more; Gregory Gheorghiu: Classic Riffs, Banjo Tickles, Tribal Tree Thumps, Dulcet Tones, and more; Michael Chopko: Dread Lion Low End, Sweet Porch Licks, Gangster Beats, Harmonic Glue, and more; to varying degrees, not infrequently accompanied live on a song-to-song basis by Guest Air-Rippers Bert G. on Drum Set, Pilot Pat W. on Six-Stringed Volume Worship, and J. Frahm on Electric Ivories.
Influences:
Sounds Like: "Nuanced, heartfelt folk songs that sound like they could have been written anytime in the past century or so." -- Time Out New York (October 2006); "If Quazar had sounded anything like Dame Satan, the San Francisco quartet that just played the Wednesday-night Americana Ramble at Marilyns on K, I might be translating dispatches from Zeti Reticuli right now. Ever heard music that makes you desperately try to remember if youd innocuously eaten a brownie earlier that could have been, ahem, herbally enhanced? Dame Satans music had that effect. The instrumentation was boilerplate Americana--acoustic guitars, banjos, resonator guitars, bass and maybe even a mandolin--but the execution was closer to chamber music meets jazz. The influences, among them British folk, English post-psychedelic blues rock, spare Delta blues and the sort of weird Americana the Grateful Dead sometimes hinted at, melded into an original whole whose presence was rather startling. The four members played off each other like ancient jazz bodhisattvas, and there was a conscious awareness and manipulation of the spaces between the notes, again more a jazz trait than an element common to more straightforward genres like bluegrass or country. The overall effect is easy to recall. Its like that time you got really buzzed and played guitar in the stairwell and sang, and you heard yourself sounding like something from another dimension." -- Sacramento News and Views (June 2006 Live Review); "...Druggy, dusky hued country folks who slink about in the shadows..." -- Aquarius (November 2007, regarding new split 7-inch); "...Underrated..." -- S.F. Bay Guardian (November 2007)