CHRIS BROKAW & GEOFF FARINA

Event information

CHRIS BROKAW & GEOFF FARINA
…are, respectively, American post-punk and post-rock legends. They’ve known each other from the Boston scene of the late 80s but it was only recently that they begun a startling collaboration of North American, pre-WWII classics.
The result is the stunning ‘The Angel’s Message To Me’ album (Damnably) on which Brokaw and Farina bring their smokey low-key singing and virtuoso guitar playing a series of blues, folk and ragtime standards. Most of these songs will be known to anyone with an interest in American roots music, but its unlikely that anyone has heard them played like this for many years – clean and clear, spared of all hokeyfolkiness, and with a handful of fresh details that really allow them to breathe again, as if they’d only been written yesterday.
Farina’s jazzy, European-inflected acoustic flourishes, and Brokaw’s dusty country finger-picking are a perfect compliment to one another, and ‘The Angel’s Message To Me’ is a soothing tonic: a collection of songs written in one economic recession, then beautifully resurrected and updated in another. These songs will provide solace to troubled times and minds all over again.
As well as songs from ‘The Angel’s Message To Me’, the pair will also be playing acoustic versions of songs from their own illustrious careers.
Chris Brokaw was a founding member of Codeine(Sub Pop), the band that kicked off the Slowcore scene in the late 80’s. He left Codeine to form Come (Matador). He now drums in The New Year, and plays guitar for Thurston Moore, Evan Dando and a wealth of other high achieving acts. His recent solo LP ‘Incredible Love’ is a genuine lost classic – little known, but loved by everyone who owns it.
Geoff Farina is best known for his 12 years with Karate (Southern), a band whose early records were clearly influenced by Brokaw’s Codeine, as well as Steely Dan. Farina’s charismatic voice, and versatile guitar playing are also heard on a number of excellent solo albums, and as one-half of Secret Stars, the seminal early-90s duo that passed around home-made cassettes of songs now covered by the likes of Ida and Death Cab for Cutie. He now fronts Glorytellers.
’ "admirable levels of consummate artistry, good taste and obvious musical
chemistry... feels like the duo just struck up in the at the tail end of the perfect party.’ - Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times
wonderful, wonderful, wonderful record... it's pretty enough to drive you mad - - Tom Ravenscroft (BBC 6Music)
www.chrisbrokaw.com
www.geofffarina.com