Brit Rock styled dance indie pop punk with unique vocal and writing styles.

5 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Glam, POP: British Pop



Details:
REVIEW:
"British music from the U.S.A.? Well, "... as seen on TV...", the E.P. of The Tongues sounds very british, although the band actually is from San Francisco. The 3 guys say that they are influenced by British bands such as The Beatles, The Pixies, Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines and Bloc Party. You can hear these influences indeed, but The Tongues' music is more than just a bad copy: The unique voice of the singer Barry Le Baron (great name!) certainly contributes to the fact that their songs remain something independent.
There are 5 songs on the E.P., 4 of them you can listen on the band's myspace. Unfortunately The Tongues haven't uploaded "Lost Your Way", my second favourite track of this record. Whenever I listen to it it makes me dance and sing along the funny "na na na na na" part towards the end..."
-poptilyoudrop.ch

A QUARKY BIO:
Pickle, a musical gadfly, mused 'I like hitting drums, truly I do, but I would like, ever so much, to hit them quite, quite harder.' Playing in large groups such as the pagan lounge ensemble Rosin Coven, and the cartoon jazz quintet Dr. Abacus, he could never avail himself the use of his overdeveloped deltoids.
He pushed out a craiglisting for musician's favoring Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, The Pixies and the like and peeled through the responses.
Barry, the quintessential artist, coincidently came to the same conclusion : 'I would like Patrick to hit the drums in a manner quite hardish.' Having worked with Patrick while recording his own Vaudevillian pastiche, Barry, too, wanted to express his much more 'rocken' emotions through his compositions and performance.
Billy responded immediately to the posting, after first listening to Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party to figure out the exact manner in which these young upstarts rocked.
Having grown disillusioned with the vagaries of hedge fund management and an emotional crisis involving landscape maintenance, he yearned for his college and post grad-school days of playing bass in rock bands (501 Spanish Verbs, Slombis) wherein he could lock with a drummer who rocked by hitting his drums hard and, also, in a 'rocken' manner.
The die was cast. In mid-March 2006, the trio first got together in Pickle's living room near Lake Merritt in Oakland. Billy was punctual, Barry, unaccustomedly so. After all equipment was set-up, Barry taught them the changes to 'Flash in The Pan'. It was then that Pickle hit his drums and cymbals hardest of all. And they rocked.
Over the next few months the band practiced at Pickle's place, actually drawing one young woman driving by to stop, exit her car, and dance in the streets to the beat heavy music. They soon transitioned from Pickle's living room to a practice space/recording studio called Third Nut set-up by the band, The Young Has Beens. In this space near International Blvd, they set about recording the basic tracks to what for what was to become their first EP

... as seen on TV...

These sessions lasted long into the nights during the hot summer months in that windowless practice space. The guys would have to shed clothing to keep the hot grooves from melting their mettle. And they would drink. Water. OK, beer. And Bill drank cheap wine that comes in those little airplane bottles, available in the four packs that you can buy in the cold case at the convenience store on International near 22nd. Near the Taco trucks.
Anyway... Sometimes they drank whiskey.

Once the basic tracks were cut and Barry had added more guitar parts than are physically possible in a live performance, they called upon Billy's high-school/college friend Dan Rathbun at Polymorph Studio to record the vocals and mix the EP. Dan, used to massaging difficult music, from bands such as his own Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum, into enjoyable listening, made quick work with the danceable tracks from the band newly christened 'The Tongues'.
October 2006 saw the band play their first gig. It was a show shared with the Young Has Beens and Fred. Barry started in with the atmospheric guitar intro to 'Many Towns'. Billy and Pickle waited in anticipation for the first beat of their first song of their first show. They had practiced for months to become a tight rocken beat team giving a danceable undercurrent to Barry's story like compositions. As Bill gripped the low string just before his hard pluck on the downbeat, Pickle swung a stick back to hit a sharp cymbal grab.... And the stick flew out his hand.
Pickle did not hit the cymbal quite hard. He did not hit the cymbal hard. He did not hit the cymbal.
But still they rocked. They may have even drank some whiskey.

Later this spring The Tongues plan to promote their new EP through local touring and promotion. A new full length album will be recorded later in the year and in Spring of 2008 The Tongues will take their sound over seas to Britain mainland Europe.

Stay tuned for up coming gigs and releases.

Take a listen to our new mp3's and spread the word....and while you're at it - TONGUE IT!