The Orphins formed around 99, but didn't settle on their current lineup until around 2001. Their first EP/Demo was self released in 2001, followed by a Split"7 with fellow Atlanta band The Liverhearts. In May of 2004, The Orphins released their first full length titled "Drowning Cupid" on Goodnight Records, and followed it up with a short tour of the east coast. The Orphins are currently playing shows around Atlanta and supporting their newly release "Wish You Well" CD!
We love you!! And yes, we probably want to play with your band or at your house show. Please write to thomas@theorphins.com or send us a message on MySpace and we'll see if we can do it.
The Orphins on Myspace
In early 2008, Venice is Sinking was loading out after a show at Athens, GA’s Georgia Theatre when the Theatre’s owner, Wilmot “Wil” Greene, approached them. Wil liked the way Venice is Sinking’s atmospheric dream-pop worked in congruence with his wide open art deco theater, and he had a unique proposition for the group: record an album at the Georgia Theatre, onstage with minimal production adornment. It sounded like a fine idea, but it also sounded like late-night talk, so the band put it out of their minds and went back to finishing up their second album, AZAR.
Months passed. And then, out of nowhere, Wil came back with news that he had set aside the time for the sessions and hired a producer. In addition, he and Venice is Sinking developed strong ideas/constraints on how the whole enterprise was going to go down: The album would be recorded live, with no overdubs. It would be recorded with only one microphone like the Cowboy Junkies did on The Trinity Sessions (the number of mics was later upgraded to two Calrec Soundfield stereo mics). Finally, the record would be mixed directly to 1/4” tape with no post hoc editing, splicing, or manipulation other than mastering. When it was done it was done.
The self-imposed constraints would be a challenge for Venice is Sinking, but these sessions also represented a one-of-a-kind opportunity. Wil contracted David Barbe (Drive-By Truckers, Sugar) to oversee and engineer the session; Andy Lemaster (Bright Eyes, Now It’s Overhead) helped out for a few songs. Venice sprung into action, writing new songs for the sessions, hammering out a few road-tested covers (songs by Galaxie 500, Dolly Parton, and Waylon Jennings make an appearance), and corralling some songs that didn’t fit on its first two LPs. The band roped in a new bass player, Jeremy Sellers, for a trial by fire, and then recruited many denizens of Athens’ music scene for guest appearances. The Georgia Theatre became the group’s practice space as they worked non-stop to get back to fighting weight, so to speak. And finally when the recording came, the band banged it out, mostly at night, take after take after red-eyed take. If any one person really messed things up, it was rewind and start again, navigating mic placement, sonic anomalies, and all. Cajoled by Barbe’s indefatigable good spirits, Venice is Sinking finally came up for air four days and nights later, album in hand. The setting, the recording constraints, and the live performance all coalesce into the band’s most unique release. The Theatre affords Sand & Lines an eerie spaciousness, and the music balloons outward, dissipating in the rafters. In fact, the Theatre often acts as another band member, warping the sounds to its own spatial idiosyncrasies. The album is dynamic, not exactly a live record (no audience, no clapping, no “sweetening”), but not a studio recording either. The songs themselves find the band expanding into territory twangier and poppier than any of its previous output. The band’s most open-hearted and vulnerable work, Sand & Lines is an experiment (if not exactly experimental), 10 songs recorded live with two mics, presented in the order of their recording, the document of the sound of a beautiful space that doesn’t exist anymore.
On June 19, 2009, with Wilmot Greene and members of Venice is Sinking helplessly watching, the historic Georgia Theatre was gutted by a fire. Within a few hours, the venerable downtown heart of the Athens music scene—which had played host to shows from REM, Pylon, Widespread Panic, and so many more—collapsed in on itself. It was another shot to the tight-knit scene in a year that oversaw the deaths of so many Athens musicians. Ironically, the band had just launched a Kickstarter.com fundraiser to raise money to put out this very record. Venice is Sinking quickly decided that all of the money should go back to Wil and the Theatre crew to help them recover and rebuild. The Kickstarter.com campaign was successful, and all of the proceeds from Sand & Lines will go to the Theatre. Meanwhile, the Georgia Theatre has entered the rebuilding phase and hopes to be open by early 2011. Donations are being accepted at the Georgia Theatre’s website:
Georgia Theatre Website
Venice is Sinking will tour behind Sand & Lines, including appearances at various SXSW 2010 events. The band has added a trumpet player, Aaron Esposito, to their lineup, though he might not know that yet.
Venice Is Sinking website
The Caribbean. Shadowy quintet (perhaps trio?) draped in velvet enigma. Or maybe just Steely Dan on a light-beer budget, faceless contributors scattered hither and yon, submitting stealthy sonic fragments via telephone transmissions and paper-airplane parachute drops. Descended from primo D.C. agitpop, old-school division. Certainly of the Dischord tribe (see: the flip attitude of the Make-Up or Jawbox's raw edge). But also Eggs. And Tsunami. The coy pop-culture savvy of Unrest (witness witty wordplay on “Annunciator Zone”: “All those great Chicago bands like King Crimson and Kraftwerk or that one that sounds like Tortoise”). Third albums. The landscape littered with the bleached skeletons of Zen Arcade and Zenyatta Mondatta. Third. Or even III. But this—History's First Know-It-All—is knowing. Cynical, yet naively hopeful. Apropos of crushed feelings. Household appliances. Class of ‘83, UCLA. All lovingly rendered in illegible, handwritten scribble-scrawl and plunked down erect beside sounds both found (celery crunching) and created (piano backdrops, drum stutters, nylon-stringed guitar webs). Glorious eclecticism or hipster fence-straddling? More the former than latter. Purposefully arcane and brainy-sounding hangtags: “Fresh Out Of Travel Agent School.” “It's Unlikely To Settle The Difference.” (Todd Rundgren fans, in this day and age? Why not?) The verdict: difficult but rewarding, albeit in that William Carlos Williams kind of way. So much depends upon/A third longplayer/Glazed with dour postures/Beside the white women.
--Magnet
The Caribbean website
$5, 21+
Doors @ 9 pm
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