On Monday, May 25th at 8 PM Central Time, Hotel Vegas will premiere our first music video from the upcoming album!
This is the kind of thing that we’d typically do live at one of our beloved music venues in Austin. The times, however, are not typical, and we’re looking for creative ways to adapt and continue to support each other. Right now, if you want to help keep the legendary #HOTELVEGASTEXAS alive, you can order curbside TO-GO:
You’re invited to our psychedelic pre-release listening party!
The Sheverb tribe has prepared a most unique live listening experience of our soon-to-be-released album, Once Upon a Time in Bombay Beach. Hear the complete new concept album, while watching a curated medley of scenes from vintage acid western films, in real-time, with us. A brief intro with the band will kick off the festivities at 10:30 PM Central. Join us, and please help spread the word!
When: Saturday, May 23, 2020, 10:30 PM Central Time Where: ( HERE )
This event will not be recorded and will take place on Twitch. You do not need a Twitch account to watch/listen; however, if you have one, you’ll be able to participate in the chat.
Put on your glad rags, top hats, flower crowns, space rock, psych folk, party frocks, flares and funky boots and join me on Sunday at 3pm, right here, for a celebration of all that makes us creative, colourful, human beings!
It’s taken time to get a hold of my health issues enough to finally schedule my first Elfin Bow live lockdown concert and I’m really excited to announce that it will also be the launch of my Patreon page (more about that on Sunday).
I may have been quiet but I have certainly not been idle! Join me to hear songs old and new and find out what I have been cooking in the creative oven, especially for you!
I’ll be joined by the superstar that is my lovely husband and captive guitarist, Gary Edward Jones.
AUSTIN, TX – This past February, Sheverb set out to do something extraordinary. For one month, the tribe dropped out of the daily grind in Austin, TX to live together in a semi-abandoned seaside resort town in the Southern California desert. Once there, they built a pop-up studio, wrote an album, and recorded it. They had just returned home when the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders began. Now, instead of the initially planned high-production roll out package, the band is going digital and using their revenue-generating potential to make jobs instead of things.
“It feels ridiculous to press vinyl or print a new line of merch when so many of us in the music community are not sure how we’re going to afford rent or food next month,” says Sheverb guitarist Betty Benedeadly. “Instead of producing physical goods, we’d like to hire people to take on digital projects with us, such as creating music videos and perhaps a documentary with the content we captured in Bombay Beach.”
The tracking is complete. The mixing is underway, and the band is fundraising to cover post-production costs. Additionally, they’re hopeful that they can raise additional funds to pay more freelancers to collaborate on digital projects. Every dollar donated will go towards paying working creatives. Sheverb is accepting donations on Venmo at @sheverb and PayPal at Sheverbtheband@gmail.com. While any amount is appreciated, there is a limited time, discounted offer: To be listed as Executive Producer on the Sheverb in Bombay Beach album, donate $500 $250 before midnight May 31, 2020.
The Making of Sheverb’s Once Upon a Time in Bombay Beach
Sheverb’s journey to Bombay Beach was a cooperative music-making experiment that blurred the boundaries of life, art, and dreams. For one month, the gang lived communally in a retro trailer, sleeping in bunk beds, cooking group meals, and sharing a single bathroom. They immersed themselves in the local community with late night explorations of abandoned structures and lunchtime picnics on the Salton Sea, a body of water with a complex history. Largely developed in the 1950s, Bombay Beach enjoyed many years of thriving tourism, but water-related environmental issues eventually drove many away. According to the 2010 census, the town’s population had dwindled to 295, but in this past decade, the town has seen an art-driven revival of sorts, with an increasing number of creatives flocking to the area to revel in graffiti-covered buildings and surreal sculptural installations. Sheverb’s goal was to soak in the energy of this unique place and create a sound to match.
The band played music 6-8 hours per day, often publicly and for free, and what resulted is an instrumental concept album that takes the listener through a distinctly Bombay Beach psychedelic adventure. They collectively wrote 9 surf-infused, desert-fueled rock & roll tracks and captured field recordings in town, which are layered into the album. They accumulated found objects (railroad spikes and fish bones, for example), which were transformed into percussion tracks. More than a collection of songs, this holistic album is a time capsule that speaks to the experience of 5 Texan musicians embedded in a bizarre landscape.
To see some behind the scenes footage from this adventure, check out this video on Sheverb’s YouTube channel.
Sheverb is a womxn-led psychedelic desert rock collective based in Austin, TX. While we have a larger network of wild souls contributing to this project, the lineup for the Bombay Beach album is:
Betty Benedeadly | Guitar, railroad spikes
Xina Ocasio | Drums, wooden frog
Lainey Smith | Bass
James Ruthless Mescall | Trumpet, flute, percussion
Braden Guess | Guitar, synth, fish bones
Special thanks to the Bombay Beach Arts & Culture Center for hosting us and providing the studio space, and our beloved audio engineer and spirit animal, Buck AE Down, for the professional assistance.
Recently, I was told that my lyrics were poetic, rather than conversational.
He actually said that my songs were rich with metaphors and alliteration, which made me smile as I have always loved reading and literature, since the early days of my childhood, snuggling up with my duvet, a good book, a biscuit or ten and a dictionary – for the hard words I didn’t know.
Finding just the right words to express experience is a craft and one that I am always honing. When I am in the creative flow, often they come to me, as if from somewhere else entirely.
I am often inspired by songwriters who provoke thought. They don’t lay it all out in an obvious way but create rich imagery that draws you in, often with many potential interpretations of the meaning.
Sandy Denny was one such songwriter – some would say unparalleled in her prolific output, rich with words, musicality, and a beautiful, distinctive voice.
The version of one of her most well-known songs, Who Knows Where the Time Goes, that I created with Gary Lloyd and the Scottish Session Orchestra, was an opportunity to write a love letter to her and to share her beautiful words with the world.
At the heart of this song is a connection with nature. An acknowledgment of the inmate wisdom and timing of the natural world.
When things seem too much for our human bodies, emotions, and minds, we can trust that there is a time for everything. That when the time is right, we will know.
Like that magical moment when the birds know when it is time for their great journey across continents, we too can surrender to our own inner wisdom, intuition, and knowing.
I haven’t listened to this song for a while, but when I was thinking of a song to share with you right now, this was the one that was in my heart. I hope it resonates with you.
Tell me what inspires you to create, to write, to sing, sway, to tap your foot. I’d love to know. Until next time,
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