2008 Woodie Awards
Grizzly Bear roars at Blind Pig
Rachelle Marshall
Issue date: 3/12/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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Grizzly Bear has been together for two years, and the members met through each other, in Brooklyn, New York. The band consists of Christopher Bear (drums/percussion/vocals), Edward Droste (vocals/guitar/keyboard/autoharp), Daniel Rossen (vocals/autoharp/banjo/guitar/piano), and Christopher Taylor (bass/woodwinds/electronics/horns/vocals). Bear's last name is a coincidence with the name of the band, which is actually a reference to a nickname of one of its member's ex-boyfriends.
Droste started the band and contributed most of the material on their first album, Horn of Plenty, according to Taylor in an interview at the Blind Pig show. Yellow House, their latest release, was a more collaborative effort. Taylor engineered and produced the CD, which he refers to as a "heavily labored album." It took the band eight months to complete Yellow House, which was released in Sept. 2006. In Mar. 2006, they signed with Warp Records, and have been touring consistently since late Aug. of the same year.
This February was the first time Grizzly Bear played in Ann Arbor. You certainly wouldn't have known that by the size of the audience they drew. Taylor was especially excited to play at the Blind Pig because it is the first club he's performed at where Nirvana, one of his all time favorite bands, had also played. He called the experience "humbling."
Grizzly Bear played songs from both albums, and added a cover of what is believed to be, "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)," written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King from the band The Crystals, in 1962. Droste promised a Reuben sandwich to the first person in the audience to guess the song correctly, but when no one contributed an answer, it was left at that.
The set was kept short, simple, and sweet, with limited stage banter and several songs that led into one another. The opening act was also a band out of New York, called the Dirty Projectors. Taylor engineered and produced their album, as well, and Grizzly Bear were excited to have friends from Brooklyn with them on tour.
The Grizzly Bear tour moves west from Ann Arbor, and then overseas, but Taylor insists on Ann Arborite attendance the next time they come around because, he said, "We try really hard to put on a good show and make it our priority. We also don't just play the album, we reinterpret the sound for the live environment."
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