MP3: Spark via SF Weekly
Grand Lake – Spark from Ryan Pierce on Vimeo.
Caleb Nichols and Jameson Swanagon, the musical force that along with drummer John Pomeroy is Oakland’s Grand Lake, began their musical collaboration in their friendship. Over the next 15 years, the pair parted ways and reunited more than once – working together at a bookstore in their early twenties, they compared notes on their mutual love of the Pixies, the Flaming Lips, Ernest Hemingway and Dave Eggers. Later, they would form a band called The Bloody Heads which would last for less than a year before the duo was again separated by circumstance – Nichols went on to join Oakland indie band Port O’Brien, and Swanagon moved with his soon-to-be wife, Danae, to Boston where he studied improvisation with the likes of Anthony Coleman and Joe Morris. Two years later, Nichols and Swanagon found themselves together again – on opposite sides of the San Francisco Bay – and formed Grand Lake. Shortly after recording their debut EP for 500 Records, they played their first show, with Man/Miracle at ABCo Art Space in West Oakland.
Grand Lake’s debut full-length offering, Blood Sea Dream, is the culmination of a decade and a half of friendship and musical camaraderie. Anchored in the youthful, exuberant drumming of John Pomeroy (Nichols’ boyfriend), the album twists and turns sonically and topically – winding its way from the angst-filled art-rock of “Louise (I Live In A Fantasy)”, the anthemic “Spark,” to the gently lumbering, orchestral waltz that is “Our Divorce.” Through two sides and twelve tracks, the musical and lyrical juxtapositions of Grand Lake’s Blood Sea Dream weave in and out of each other to tell a story familiar to all – the facing-down of demons on the long drive home.
Grand Lake has played shows on the west coast with the likes of Starfucker, Maus Haus, Man/Miracle, Thao With The Get Down Stay Down, The Thermals, Alec Ounsworth (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), The Donkeys, Cryptacize, Turbo Fruits, Greg Ashley, The Blank Tapes, and more.
