As any fan of the Food Network knows, a few scrapes from an orange peel adds zest to a dish. San Francisco Bay Area indie-popsters the Orange Peels, according to master chef Allen Clapp, reinvented themselves by inviting more cooks into the kitchen. The result, Sun Moon (Minty Fresh), is a fully collaborative and very tasty effort. Last summer, Peels bassist (and Clapp’s wife) Jill Pries asked the other two band members—guitarist John Moremen and drummer Gabriel Coan—to drop by their Sunnyvale, Calif., home/studio. “It didn’t mean I was happy about it,” says Clapp, grown used to demoing the band’s material before presenting it to the others. “I told her I didn’t have any songs ready.” Clapp will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Orange Peels feature.
Clapp: I worked as an editor at the Palo Alto Weekly for 10 years before the newspaper industry downsized and jettisoned me in late 2008. I still miss the day-to-day deadline pressure, the ridiculous newsroom conversations and the creative energy of the people I used to work with. These days, I’m splitting my time between producing albums for likeminded artists and writing technology articles for some Silicon Valley giants.
One of the great things about working at the Weekly was the sheer breadth of the talents of that staff—filmmakers, painters, poets and pipers lurked around every corner. One of those people was Karla Kane, who joined the paper as an editorial assistant. After discovering I was producing albums in my Eichler house, she asked if I’d record her band, the Corner Laughers.
That was in the spring of 2007, and we’ve since made two albums together, Ultraviolet Garden (2009) and Poppy Seeds (2012). If I had to explain their music to a newcomer, I’d probably say it’s sunny but intense pop—sometimes shiny and happy, sometimes brooding and dark.
There’s an interesting dynamic between Kane, bassist Khoi Huynh, drummer Charlie Crabtree and guitarist KC Bowman that is hard to describe. Bowman recently replaced original guitarist and songwriter Angela Silletto-Rhoades, who moved to Michigan during the Poppy Seeds sessions. There’s an introverted extrovert quality about them that I still can’t quite figure out.
They have a penchant for documenting the local landscape that pegs their Northern California location more accurately than any GPS coordinates ever could. They’re a bright spot on the Northern California music scene. We’re currently working on a new record and are two songs in. All I can say is that it’s going to be grand!
Video after the jump.
