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08/20/07

California Blue

The California Report featured our song Friday in their recurring feature about California Songs. Jill and Allen went into the KQED studios a couple weeks ago for the interview with California Report intern Katie Stanford. Their generous editing makes us sound nearly coherent! From the California Report Web site: "This week, we continue our California Songs series with the Sunnyvale based band, The Orange Peels. We asked husband and wife Allen Clapp and Jill Pries to talk about their song, 'California Blue.' Its imagery from the Santa Cruz Mountains reflects their struggle to hold on to the California dream in changing times."

Listen to the archive of the segment here. >>>

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08/01/07

The coast is the most

We had such a great time at the NYC Popfest! We were put up in a great Chelsea artist's loft, and shared the place with Ballboy from Scotland, who proved to be excellent roommates. This time, we had a few days off before the show, and finally got the chance to do some sightseeing and general bumming around, taking in architecture by Sullivan and Gehry, stopping by the Chelsea Hotel, hanging out in Greenwich Village, Central Park, the Whitney and even visiting the Dakota.

The show itself was amazing. . .clever indle kids turned out and knew the words to all the songs! Thanks again to Maxwell from Hugpatch for buying drinks after the show. Check out snaps from our trip on our updated photo page here. >>>

Then it was back to San Francisco for the Make-Out Room with Linda Draper. It was a sublime night of music, and it was good to see all your faces again! Oh, and suddenly all these YouTube videos of us are showing up, new and old:
Take a look. >>>

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04/25/07

Spring shows!

In a last-minute surprise, Allen's solo acoustic performance at the Stork Club has suddenly become an Orange Peels show. Mr. Clapp, Jill Pries, Bob Vickers and John Moremen will be comprising the band, playing songs from Square, So Far, Circling the Sun and some early stuff from One Hundred Percent Chance of Rain. So much for a low-profile, last-minute show. . . we've been found out by the East Bay Express and Oakland Magazine.

Then, we head east for the NYC Popfest on Memorial Day Weekend. We'll be headlining the closing show/party at Union Pool in Brooklyn on Monday, May 28. Can't wait to see our east coast fans again! And on our return to the West Coast, we play the Make-Out Room in San Francisco.

Also, Allen's singles and rarities compilation, "Something Strange Happens: Four-track Forecasts (1990-200)" has been picking up reviews on PopMatters, Mundane Sounds and All Music. >>>

And it's now available on the music store. It's also in our online Shop. >>>

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04/01/07

Hibernation complete

It's the middle of March, but it feels just like summer. . . I think it was a year just like this when I wrote the lyrics to "So Far." Every few years it happens like this. . . wildflowers everywhere, people in t-shirts before winter has relinquished his reign. But it's always surprising. The grass really IS greener! There's nothing like a month of summer to make you forget such a thing as rain ever existed.

Winter also marked the death of our old Pro Tools system. While visiting founding Orange Peel Larry Winther in the Portland area, I got a call from our friend and producer Bryan Hanna, asking if I could do a vocal for one of those cool Target commercials. He needed it the next morning. After arriving home in Sunnyvale after midnight, I went out to the studio and fired up the old computer. Nothing. At 4:30 a.m., I still couldn't get the system working. I reinstalled system software, re-cased hard drives, rebuilt the computer. Finally, even the monitor stopped working. After sunrise, I went out and racked up a huge credit card bill on new equipment, and eventually I managed to get a spaced-out, sleep-deprived, T-Rex-damaged vocal to him which probably won't be used. And now Mystery Lawn Studio has a much more up-to-date recording system that's more portable, has better converters, twice as many tracks and more input channels.

It's good to be out of hibernation. To prove it, I'm heading out with an acoustic guitar to play a Benefit Concert for Darfur next Saturday, April 7, in Redwood City, and the Stork Club in Oakland on April 28. Hope to see you out there!

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09/30/06

Band debuts new material on KFJC Monday!
We've just been invited to pop in to the lovely KFJC studios Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. to be guests on Apartment Life with Mitch Lemay. Allen, Oed and Jill won't be toting instruments and amps to the station though. Instead, they'll be bringing some brand new music from their new, uncompleted album which they've been recording off and on at Mystery Lawn studio since early this year.

Locals can tune in at 89.7 FM. The rest of you can listen to a live webcast of the broadcast here >>>

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09/12/06

Allen Clapp singles compilation coming Sept. 19, 2006
It's been six years since Brian Kirk at the Bus Stop Label and I first talked about putting together a compilation of my early singles, and I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but it's coming out next week! It's called Something Strange Happens: Four-track Forecasts by Allen Clapp (1990-2000).

The CD has 17 songs, and includes tracks from every official single, EP, or compilation that I appeared on between 1990 and 2000. There will also be unreleased outtakes from around the time of 100 Percent Chance of Rain and the period right before Minty Fresh signed us and we morphed into The Orange Peels.

After that first conversation it's taken forever, but we had lots to do -- getting master tapes back from various labels in various parts of the world, rescuing old unreleased songs from my mostly-broken Tascam Porta One 4-track, deciding on artwork and writing liner notes to chronicle the whole bedroom-rock experience.

It's available now on pre-order from our online shop, the Parasol shop, and will be widely available through Red Eye distribution on Sept. 19, the national release date.

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09/09/06

Oed, Allen featured on Rick Nelson tribute
We've been in writing and recording mode lately at Mystery Lawn studio, preparing new songs and sounds for you. Most of our efforts have been focused on a new album, which is sounding quite interesting and different. More on that later. . .

But we've also taken time out to contribute a couple tracks to a recent compilation tribute to the great Rick Nelson called Easy to be Free. It's out now on Planting Seeds Records >>>

Oed Ronne worked up a dreamy arrangement of "Take a Broken Heart," which he croons mighty nicely, and Allen Clapp has turned in a sparse and spooky version of "Lonesome Town." Both are now available on iTunes. There are also cool tracks by Aaron Booth, the Primary 5, Marshall Crenshaw and our Minneapolis friends the fabulous Autumn Leaves.

>>>

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02/11/06

Coke commercials on "American Idol" use Allen's music from "Available Light"
We'd like to teach the world to sing. . . and until we do, you can catch the music of head Orange Peel
Allen Clapp on one of the latest batch of Coca Cola television commercials. An east coast fan first spotted the spot while watching a recent episode of American Idol. (Don't worry, we won't reveal your identity).

It's short and sweet, featuring the dreamy Fender Rhodes intro from "Solstice (Song for David)" off Allen's 2002 solo album Available Light. Recorded in his Eichler garage during a cold Northern California winter while the band was on hiatus, the song's chilly, magical vibe is now being beamed into homes across the country. Crazy.

Read what the critics had to say about the album >>>

Maybe you'll catch it while you're watching the Olympics over the next couple weeks.

View a quicktime version of the ad >>

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04/24/06

Four-track demos from "Square" released in Podcast
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we had put out our first record the way we originally conceived it: a home-recorded four-track frenzy. Of course I love how our first album came out. Recording at the Terrarium for the first time with Bryan Hanna is what transformed us from Allen Clapp and his Orchestra into The Orange Peels. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

However, while going back into the four-track cassette tapes that contain some of the masters of my early singles, I stumbled across the early, crazed versions of the songs off of "Square," in all their reckless abandon and questionable fidelity. So we thought we should share them. Tune into our latest Podcast and you'll hear demos for "She is Like a Rose," "All the World Could Pass Me By," "Everybody's Gone," "Slow Train," "On the Way to Somewhere," "Take Me Over," and even a live performance broadcast on KFJC of us covering the Charlatans' mid-60s tune, "No. 1." We were just a three-piece back then, and our soon-to-be guitarist Larry Winther was playing drums.

There's also a super late-night early recording of "I Don't Mind the Rain," where lack of sleep has clearly put me into an altered state of consciousness. Listen to the Podcast >>>

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09/10/05
Japanese release
Circling the Sun is out in Japan! Visit our friends at Quince Records and check it out. There's even an Orange Peels blog on their site, which we're dying to read. If you get a good translation, let us know! The Japanese version of the album has 2 previously unreleased bonus tracks: Time Waits, which was recorded at Mystery Lawn with Don Bourne on drums and Brent Mausbach on guitar; and a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's gorgeous April, Come She Will, which we've been wanting to record for some time. Listen to a sample of it here>>>

We had such a great time in the midwest. Thanks again to all who came out and helped make our trip a success. Anyone spot us in Entertainment Weekly while we were away?

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08/20/05
Midwest tour update
We're in the midwest! We've brought all the elements needed to recreate the West Coast Sound outside of a laboratory environment -- even if we did need an electric fan on stage in Cincinnati to complete the effect. Dates are on our Shows page, and we've just added in-store shows in St. Louis and Chicago.

Other developments include critic's picks in St. Louis at the Riverfront Times and the Post-Dispatch ... and "Something in You" landing in the new Paste magazine sampler (track No. 4). And the Guardian puts you in the front row of our July performance on night No. 2 of the Pop Crush festival at the Rickshaw Stop.

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06/23/05
Thank you. . .
Thank you to all who turned out for our West Coast record-release shows. It's great to see your beautiful faces again! We caught a few of you mouthing the lyrics to our new songs already - nice touch. Let it never be said Orange Peels fans aren't quick studies. See you again soon. . .
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06/14/05
Release day!
Today is the day. Circling the Sun is here! We woke up this morning not only to a cinematic Northern California sunrise, but also to the news that the All Music Guide is calling our record our masterpiece!

Come help us celebrate at one of our West Coast record-release shows this week. Thursday, we're in San Francisco at the Bottom of the Hill, Friday we're in Los Angeles at Spaceland. Midwest and east coast shows coming together for later in summer, so stay tuned. Made mostly at the Terrarium in Minneapolis with producer Bryan Hanna (but partially at the band's Eichler headquarters over summers) it's the album the band has always wanted to make. And it's already available direct from Parasol Records>>>

Sweeping soundscapes, fluttering string sections and chiming guitars are scuffed up with a bit of grit -- just like sand in your shoes after a visit to the beach. Tune into our series of Podcasts to catch up on the between-album intrigue and the band's new lineup.
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02/23/04:
Circling the Sun
After a year of on-and-off recording, the Peels are finally finished with their third full-length album, Circling the Sun. Made mostly at the Terrarium in Minneapolis with producer Bryan Hanna (but partially at the peels' Eichler headquarters over the summer,) it's the album the band has always wanted to make.

Sweeping soundscapes, fluttering string sections, chiming guitars are scuffed up with a bit of grit -- just like sand in your shoes after a visit to the beach.

Curious? Tune in to Live 105 (105.3 FM) between 4 and 5 p.m. Wed., Feb. 25 for a sneak peek of the band's summer single and title track, Circling the Sun. It's part of the station's new music program, Fast Forward.

08/22/03:

Back in the studio
First off, thanks to all who came out of the woodwork for our Aug. 9 show with the Tyde! It was great to see you all again. We promise to try and play live in San Francisco more often.

Second, we sneaked in a week of recording sessions prior to the show, recording two new songs -- one of which is available as an audio sample here. We've also got a few photos from the sessions. . .

We're making headway on completing the new album. We'll be overdubbing and mixing this fall, and hopefully be ready to announce something like a release date soon after.

See you.
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07/02/03:
Golden season
The hills in the San Francisco Bay Area have put on their golden summer mantles and the weather is finally cooperating. Time for a quick summer update on the peels! A couple things are brewing at the moment, not the least of which is the band's first local show since its winter recording sessions.

They'll be debuting a bunch of new material and playing some old faves Aug. 9 at the Bottom of the Hill. Allen Clapp (vocals, guitar, piano) and Jill Pries (bass guitar) will be joined by Oed Ronne (lead guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), and original peels drummer Bob Vickers!

Our favorite California dreamers are sharing the bill with The Tyde -- an LA band featuring Darren and Brent Rademaker, who used to lead the 90s indie band Further before Brent split to form the Beachwood Sparks. Their new album, Twice (a sparkly follow up to their debut CD, Once,) is just out on Rough Trade.

Also, one of the band's new songs, Circling the Sun, has landed on a compilation just out by the Alternative Weekly Network (AWN), a group representing the nation's alternative weekly newspapers. It's currently going out to college radio and, obviously, the press. Keep your ears open for it.

Ta ta!
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06/01/03:
New recordings!
It's been a while since our last post, and much has been done. Our 3rd album is nearing completion. Most of it happened over winter during sessions at the Terrarium in Minneapolis under the guidance of producer Bryan Hanna. We're not quite ready to announce release or tour dates, but we can at least show you some photos from our trip.

It was wonderful. The recordings came out better than we could have hoped. The new rooms at the Terrarium really opened up the sounds we were able to capture, and the songs came together swiftly.

Our show with the Autumn Leaves was a delight. . . we'll have to book a bigger venue next time. It sold out rather quickly, and some of our friends didn't make it in. Hats off to Mr. David Beckey and Co. for a fab evening.

We hope to have some more tangible news soon, so check in from time to time.

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10/25/02:
Changes afoot
A new chapter in the Orange Peels melodrama is unfolding this autumn. After writing half their new album and rocking the east coast in summer, the Peels are going through a major transition: longtime lead-guitarist and founding member Larry Winther and Peels drummer, John Moremen are moving on.

It's a real california bummer.

Help us bid a fond farewell to them when the Peels play the last show with their current lineup at the 2002 Baypop Festival, Nov. 15 at 330 Ritch in San Francisco.

The band has lost and gained members in the past, and it seems like the group isn't capable of making a record without surviving some sort of major transformation. . . which begs the question -- Why can't this just be EASIER?

It's a question the band has asked itself in the past, and the answer has always come in the form of beats, melodies and harmonies. I wouldn't expect the result to be any different this time.

We wish John and Larry our best, and are sad to see them go.

In the meantime, John Moremen and Allen Clapp both have some solo shows coming up. John and his band will be on the west coast, Mr. Clapp and his crew will be out east for CMJ. . .

Check back for more news before the year's end. We hope to have some interesting announcements.