My First Earthquake

Downstairs (CD)
S/R

Release Date:
June 20, 2009

Bio:

Three of the four members of My First Earthquake attended Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, but they didn't collaborate musically until they each separately moved to San Francisco. Rebecca Bortman started out singing in a psych-metal band called Ice Queen. Chad Thornton was playing the accordion and phasing out of rock. He'd played in several bands with Keith Murray of We Are Scientists, but since Chad stayed in SF when they moved to NYC (and on to stardom), he figured he'd had his chance and lost it.

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Media Links & Downloads:

"Cool In The Cool Way" (MP3)

"Vow To Vowels" (MP3)

"Cool In The Cool Way" (Video) [Vimeo]

"Cool In The Cool Way" (Video) [YouTube]

Hi-Res Photos:

300 dpi JPG
Credit: Agata Kamler

300 dpi JPG
Credit: Braden Kowitz

Hi-Res Cover Art:

300dpi JPG
4 x 4 in

On The Web:

www.myfirstearthquake.com
www.myspace.com/myfirstearthquake
www.facebook.com/pages/My-First-Earthquake/7357811753
www.youtube.com/user/myfirstearthquake
www.twitter.com/1stquake
www.flickr.com/groups/myfirstearthquake/pool
www.thesixtyone.com/myfirstearthquake
www.ilike.com/artist/My+First+Earthquake
www.last.fm/music/My+First+Earthquake

Bio (Continued):

Chad and Rebecca became friends through an acquaintance. After hearing some tracks of Rebecca singing over electronica beats and hearing about the sheer ridiculousness of Ice Queen, Chad convinced her to quit the band and start a project with him. During their first songwriting session, Rebecca experienced her first earthquake. They liked the sexual / geological double-entendre, and after some debate (other contenders: Sleep In The Sea, Tufte, Teenage Girlfriend, EXACTO), the name was deemed destiny.

They found drummer Andre Salcido in an ad on Craigslist. Without a practice space, they forced him to audition on electronic drumpads in Chad's bedroom. For a while they rehearsed as a trio. After auditioning a few guitarists, they remembered their friend Dave Lean. He started playing shows with them, and they recorded their first EP, Tremors shortly thereafter.

Timeless Inspirations: Blondie, Prince, Fiona Apple, ABBA, New Order, The Cure, ELO, Marc Bolan and T-Rex, Chicks on Speed, Luscious Jackson, David Bowie.

Recent Inspirations: M.I.A., Santogold, Black Kids, Phoenix, The Ting Tings, The Sounds, Cansei de Ser Sexy, The Mae Shi, Los Campesinos, Ladyhawke, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, early Mates of State.

My First Earthquake Band Bios:

Rebecca Bortman sings and writes My First Earthquake's lyrics. She's worked with electronica artists such as DJ Amplive, DJ Howlermonkey, The Amazing Rolo, and Mercury Rev's Anthony Molina. She is a proud Pittsburgher. During the day, she's a visual designer, so she also handles the art for the band and is art director for the Disposable Film Festival.
Chad Thornton plays keyboards and bass. He's played in a number of bands with We Are Scientists' lead singer Keith Murray. He was designer at Google for a number of years and designed that chat feature in Gmail.
Andre Salcido plays drums. He's the oldest member of My First Earthquake, and grew up in the Bay Area playing in a number of punk and rock bands. Prior to My First Earthquake, he played in the 'trucker punk' band Crosstops, a lesser-known but locally notorious group who's played with GWAR, Royal Crown Revue, and toured Europe. Andre spends his days at an auction house, where he serves as designer, IT support, and occasional auctioneer.
Dave Lean primarily plays guitar, but also fills in on bass and keyboards. He leads his own band, Sir Salvatore, and has remixed a number of My First Earthquake's songs. He was an engineer at Apple for a number of years — you can thank him for some of the high-quality materials that make up the iPhone and iPod. He's also a semi-famous, but totally anonymous music blogger. No, we can't tell you. Sorry.

About the debut My First Earthquake album, Downstairs:
Half of Downstairs was written in six months. The other half happened more-or-less in a single day. "Cool In The Cool Way," "Vow to Vowels," "Clean Clean," "Mad Tight," and "Meat Pies" were all given their primary treatments during a long songwriting session between Chad and Rebecca over the winter holiday break. Another 20-30 songs were written, rehearsed, and sometimes performed at shows, but ultimately left off the album.

The band had a list of 10 songs and a demo recorded, but no idea how to find the right producer. Luckily, the group was contacted out of the blue by Geza X, who's produced albums for the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, The Germs, and other California punk bands. He was interested in producing the next album. But at the same time, Mercury Rev bassist Anthony Molina did a remix of one of our songs. He also happens to be Rebecca's ex-boyfriend (and first love). The chemistry must have rubbed off. The band loved his pitch for the album, got along splendidly, and decided to fly him out from New York for a week to produce the album.

My First Earthquake set up a makeshift studio comprised of a mix of their gear and Anthony's in a tiny house up in the Oakland hills. The house was set at the top of a cul-de-sac between a teepee and a goldmine with a beautiful view of the San Francisco Bay. Isolation booths and drum rooms were improvised out of packing blankets, with everyone in separate little cubbies, synchronized over headphones.

Due to an early booked flight and a last-minute tour announcement (Mercury Rev opening for Coldplay in Australia), Anthony had to leave sooner than expected. So My First Earthquake recorded all 10 songs — overdubs, handclaps, gang vocals, the works — over the course of four long, long days. Due to the tour, we didn't hear from Anthony for weeks, and briefly wondered if the album was actually going to happen. But after the tour, he returned to Woodstock, NY and began mixing, while we met over Skype sessions to discuss the mixdowns. Within two weeks of his return, we shipped the songs over to Carl Saff in Chicago for mastering. Downstairs is definitely a nationally-made album!

Why is the album called Downstairs?
"Whether it's the basement or the chipmunk hole or the subway tunnel, these songs are subterranean. Enough of this talk about going downtown. Let's go downstairs (aka underground aka in your pants aka id town). What's with all these down stares?"

But what do the songs on Downstairs mean? (Lyrics)

"Cool In The Cool Way" - The game of "Hipper than thou" is quite a po-mo, privileged problem, huh? In the San Francisco Mission District, where the tight-panted hipster ride on their fixxie in the wild, I choose to ignore this common whoa and embrace my clumsiness.
"Vow to Vowels" - The man of my dreams has an incredible ability for crossword puzzles. There was one crossword puzzle last January that was teaming with vowels. It was impressive.
"Clean Clean" - This song keeps domestication sexy.
"In The Forest With Frenemies" - This is definitely our most political song to date. I'd call it a wilderness Animal Farm if I had no respect for the classics. When the little guy gets stepped on too much, shit's gonna storm.
"Mad Tight" - Did you even think that when you saw some girl dressed like a hoochie, that maybe she didn't have a choice?
"Radio" - My mom literally used to say to me when I was singing (which I did a lot as a kid): "They should put you on the radio. So I can turn you off". I played her this song and she said, "I'm a mean mother". Don't worry: she's not.
"Outta the Band" - Being in a band is an opportunity to make jokes about being kicked out of the band.
"Meat Pies" - This is man-eating song through the literal filter.
"Sweet Frown" - A bouquet of awkward social situations, ribboned by some cheeky commentary.
"Sleep In The Sea" - Told from the perspective of a mermaid, who just can't stop crushing on those two-legged types.

How were the songs on Downstairs written?
Chad and Rebecca do the core of the songwriting. Songwriting begins with Rebecca improvising entire verses over musical sections that Chad has written. Together, they go back and listen for the interesting melodies and lyrics, talking over what's most promising and what could make for an interesting songwriting conceit. Like "Forest With Frenemies": "what if tiny animals had a party that got crashed by the big ones?" Other times Rebecca goes to her notebook for ideas that have been running around in her head, as with "Clean Clean."

Once the basic idea is in place, entire verses get written on the spot. Choruses tend to come last — big and unabashedly hook-laden tends to be the approach. Then songs get filled out with the band. Dave Lean specializes in taking it that last mile: writing bridges, reworking songs that aren't quite coming together, and adding a bit of grit to our sound — he wrote "Outta The Band," so that no one would doubt My First Earthquake)'s ass-kicking abilities. My First Earthquake) adjusts tempos, improves the grooves, and works out the transitions between sections.

The Sound of Downstairs:

"Our songs have a few consistent elements. Song structures tend to be fairly straight-ahead: verses, choruses, bridges, refrains. We definitely like the big, melodic hooks, though lyrically they tend to be tempered with a bit of wit or humor. Tempos are generally upbeat, funky, and danceable in that electro / dance rock sort of way. Vocal melodies tend to be strong and direct — more in the Karen O or Joan Jett vein than Lykke Li or Feist-y.
Vocals - There's a fair amount of doubling, and while there's not a ton of harmonies, there's quite a few. Her voice is clear and projects well, so we weren't afraid to add some overdrive to give it a bit of crunch, or some reverb to give it a better sense of room. Dave and/or Chad sing on half the songs as well — chanty unisons on 'Vow to Vowels' and 'Sleep In The Sea,' call and response on 'Mad Tight' and 'Sweet Frown,' and angelic and multi-tracked at the end of 'Clean Clean.'
Keyboards - We like tight, punchy synths (like the Prince-inspired Octavia on "Cool in The Cool Way," and the more Cure-ish keys on "Forest With Frenemies") and overdriven organs ("Vow to Vowels," "Sleep In The Sea"). There's also a nod to more 8-bit stylings in the Nintendo bass of "Mad Tight," and the heavy sine bass on "Clean Clean." We do tend to use a fairly wide variety of synth patches (all softsynths) and we're pretty agnostic and opportunistic about whose we use — patches from Reason, Logic, Native Instruments Massive, and a freeware Juno emulator all make appearances.
Bass - Many of our songs either pair bass and keys or bass and guitar, so our bass sound tends to be a bit more forward and aggressive. Dave uses a pick, Chad uses his fingers. The sound is more P-bass than J-bass, and while it's not punk, it's definitely punk-influenced. We only play bass guitar on about half the songs. The other half is synth bass — fuzzy sines, Junos, 8-bit emulators, and the like.
Drums - We love the grooves of dance rock — stuff like Franz Ferdinand and We Are Scientists — but we tire pretty quickly of the repetitious 'open hi-hats on 2&4 disco choruses'. Our beats are definitely in a similar vein, though we try to mix it up a bit more. Lots of open hi-hats. Judicious use of cowbells and tambourines. We also like hip-hop beats, and we sneak a bit of that in on "Mad Tight." We also added a lot of room sound in our drums — more 80s arena rock than 90s indie rock.

Recent My First Earthquake Career Highlights:

The video for "Fa La Freezing" was selected by YouTube's music editors for the home page of YouTube over the holidays. It's had over a quarter-million views. Not bad for a song that was written, recorded, and videotaped in less than a week.
Three of their songs from the first My First Earthquake EP Tremors were on the popular 'Indie / Rock Playlist' torrent over three consecutive months.
My First Earthquake is only band to appear on the popular tech blog 'Techcrunch' — once as part of PopCuts.com's launch, then as part of Google's Friend Connect launch. Yes, we're early adopters.
Playing consecutive months at Bottom of The Hill — one of the best-known indie rock clubs in SF.
Courted by seminal 80s LA punk producer Geza X for production and development.
CD release for Downstairs at Cafe Du Nord, headlining a Saturday night show.

Press Quotes:

"Adorable boy-girl vocal interplay and dorky keyboard bleeting give the band a goofy '80s vibe, with silly lyrics mentioning New England chowder, teleprompters, and designer boyfriends adding to the fun vibe." - Dan Strachota, Listen.com

"Finally, a song for female pedophiles. Seriously, this is an indie pop band that knows how to have fun. Other topics of interest on the album include cannibalism and rainbow parties, all sung in a cheery demeanor. If that isn't enough to get you lining up for tickets to see them when they hit your town, well, you must be dead inside." - Instrument Alanalysis

"They sound like something off your original Nintendo, if your Nintendo was a four piece band that featured a female vocalist." - San Francisco Examiner

"Totally fun and infectious. The six tracks are adorned with plenty of synth and hip-shaking bass lines, making for a continuous stream of well-executed, straightforward indie pop." - The Deli

"Stupid Baby...a perfect segue between dance and rock. I think the lead singer's voice is wonderful." - Disco Belle

"They're snappy, energetic, and just plain playful." - Mainstream Isn't So Bad

"My First Earthquake possesses vintage charm. The San Francisco act is all about the pop – singer Rebecca Bortman comes from the Debby Harry lineage of leading ladies, and her bandmates buoy her accounts of a 'Designer Boyfriend' or 'Hot Girlfriend' with simply keyboard melodies and a kicky '80s beat.'" - Jennifer Maerz, San Francisco Weekly

"Sometimes they sway back and forth with a simple indie-pop sound. Other times, an aftershock may strike the audience when the band suddenly shakes, rattles and rolls..." - San Francisco Chronicle

On The Web: