3 Hand Stephen Stephen Cohen Artist, poet, musician.
Stephen provided entertainment at the block pARTy. His instruments and amplifiers are made from recycled or repurposed materials. We traded a Polaroid print for a 45rpm record. I think I got the good end of the deal, as I thoroughly enjoyed his wit, poetry and music. Dr. Ozda
Concerning 3 Hand Stephen's performance at the New Music Gathering 2023 at Portland State University:
Of all the dozens of performances at NMG2023 last week, yours is the most vivid in my memory. Your terrifically quirky sounds, clear but twisted narratives, and unexpected punch lines were just what I needed. Hope to hear more!
Tom Flaherty, Profesor of Music at Pomona College
Stephen Cohen used his invented instruments as a vehicle for profound messaging, humor and reflection.
Karen Bentley Pollick (one of America’s leading contemporary violinists and violists).
Of all the dozens of performances at NMG2023 last week, yours is the most vivid in my memory. Your terrifically quirky sounds, clear but twisted narratives, and unexpected punch lines were just what I needed. Hope to hear more!
Tom Flaherty, Profesor of Music at Pomona College
Stephen Cohen used his invented instruments as a vehicle for profound messaging, humor and reflection.
Karen Bentley Pollick (one of America’s leading contemporary violinists and violists).
Nice article and interview in FolkWorks.org by Deb Ewing about Stephen's music, his visual art, and his artistic travels, with photos and videos of his work: https://folkworks.org/.../looking-for-the-crossroads.../
3 Hand Stephen has succeeded in creating a whole new musical genre. Reverend Whatt -The Haven Art Studios, Portland, Oregon
Stephen's poem, The Closing List, was published in Rattle Magazine, one of the premier poetry magazines in the United States.
See the poem and hear Stephen read it here. Here are 2 reader comments:
Such pragmatism in the phrasing of the list, with its own movement towards completion even as the poet crafts the poem towards its end. It has an intentional sing-song swing that suggests an element of joy, or contentment, in what was a seemingly mundane daily routine. The mind moves and turns, the body strides and reaches, the reader follows so closely in the narrator's footsteps! I'm still looking for a way to describe it. It reminds me of my preparation time in my classroom each day before classes began. A routine both duly efficient and yet anticipatory. I once attended a writing workshop on writing the ending to poems. The facilitator talked about open endings and endings that locked the poem decidedly closed. The word "padlock" is crucial to this ending... heavy, cold, permanent, with a distinct final click. I love a skillfully rendered plainspoken poem (I love all poetry). This leaves me with that faint emotive question when one door closes another one opens... what's next? Mary Torregrossa
This poem hit home. Imagining how the owners of a favorite local restaurant felt permanently closing during the pandemic. The padlock says so much. Kris Beaver
reviews of Stephen's book, Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories- short stories, poems, lyrics and visual art:
Story about Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories in the Lake Oswego Review, Stephen's hometown newspaper:
https://pamplinmedia.com/lor/48-news/519942-415287-music-inspired-lake-oswego-resident-publishes-first-book
Stephen Cohen’s world is keenly observed and deeply felt. He shares all of it, in many media, with all of us. Stephen’ s deceptively simple poetry can pack an emotional punch. His music resonates on many levels- charming and playful, as are his hand-crafted jewelry, art and instruments, yet often poignant and bittersweet. His unique work is heartfelt, haunting and lovely. Amy Cohen- artist
I just read Stephen Cohen’s charming book. He provides the lucky reader with glimpses into his life by writing scintillating vignettes and sharing his art pieces, poems and lyrics. His is a rare kind of creativity, one that uses everything at his disposal to make something novel and enchanting. This book is proof of his creative genius. Bonnie Bostrom- author of Born Crazy
The stories, visual art, and songs in this book are magical and ominous portraits of humans in our times. Like T.C. Boyle or Neil Gaiman, Stephen creates an art stew that tastes innocent, earthy, playful and is tinged with pain. You will be full after reading, and will come back for more. Kate Davis- writer and social worker
To read Baggy Red Pants, is to be drawn into the magical world of Stephen Cohen, a world of eternal youth and innocence, crazy off-kilter rhythms, and infectious motifs. His writing, like his music, follows a syncopated beat with a logic of the heart. In his life of hippie hijinks, we glimpse a Tibetan sand painting, that dazzles with its colors and contours then is swept away and seen no more. Like a pair of magical baggy red trousers that dance across the landscape, then disappear into smoke and flames. Rich Hinrichsen- musician and mathematician
Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories brings Stephen’s psyche-folk-music mindset onto the page with stories that transport me across wide-open roads, from Gallup, NM to Canadian provinces, to hippie communes, to movie sets, to warehouse loading docks, to a music festival on Mars. We meet pig farmers, trash-talking dock workers, a crazed shooter, a Canadian Mountie, hippie girlfriends, an indie cult film director, and winos straight out of a John Steinbeck novel. The narrative gets as close as a switch-blade-to-the-neck and so far away that everything appears miniature, insignificant, unimportant — so why take ourselves so seriously? Why stress over the late bus? Let’s hitch a ride, take a trip with this hitchhiker and see where we go. After all, he’s wearing those far out baggy red pants! Christopher Shotola-Hardt- artist
3 Hand Stephen writes in the way he sings. He takes us on a gentle journey that lets us see the unexpected in everyday moments. A path that leaves us with the feeling that what seems to be normal could be magical if we open our eyes and see with our heart. Efrain Rozas- musical artist
See the poem and hear Stephen read it here. Here are 2 reader comments:
Such pragmatism in the phrasing of the list, with its own movement towards completion even as the poet crafts the poem towards its end. It has an intentional sing-song swing that suggests an element of joy, or contentment, in what was a seemingly mundane daily routine. The mind moves and turns, the body strides and reaches, the reader follows so closely in the narrator's footsteps! I'm still looking for a way to describe it. It reminds me of my preparation time in my classroom each day before classes began. A routine both duly efficient and yet anticipatory. I once attended a writing workshop on writing the ending to poems. The facilitator talked about open endings and endings that locked the poem decidedly closed. The word "padlock" is crucial to this ending... heavy, cold, permanent, with a distinct final click. I love a skillfully rendered plainspoken poem (I love all poetry). This leaves me with that faint emotive question when one door closes another one opens... what's next? Mary Torregrossa
This poem hit home. Imagining how the owners of a favorite local restaurant felt permanently closing during the pandemic. The padlock says so much. Kris Beaver
reviews of Stephen's book, Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories- short stories, poems, lyrics and visual art:
Story about Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories in the Lake Oswego Review, Stephen's hometown newspaper:
https://pamplinmedia.com/lor/48-news/519942-415287-music-inspired-lake-oswego-resident-publishes-first-book
Stephen Cohen’s world is keenly observed and deeply felt. He shares all of it, in many media, with all of us. Stephen’ s deceptively simple poetry can pack an emotional punch. His music resonates on many levels- charming and playful, as are his hand-crafted jewelry, art and instruments, yet often poignant and bittersweet. His unique work is heartfelt, haunting and lovely. Amy Cohen- artist
I just read Stephen Cohen’s charming book. He provides the lucky reader with glimpses into his life by writing scintillating vignettes and sharing his art pieces, poems and lyrics. His is a rare kind of creativity, one that uses everything at his disposal to make something novel and enchanting. This book is proof of his creative genius. Bonnie Bostrom- author of Born Crazy
The stories, visual art, and songs in this book are magical and ominous portraits of humans in our times. Like T.C. Boyle or Neil Gaiman, Stephen creates an art stew that tastes innocent, earthy, playful and is tinged with pain. You will be full after reading, and will come back for more. Kate Davis- writer and social worker
To read Baggy Red Pants, is to be drawn into the magical world of Stephen Cohen, a world of eternal youth and innocence, crazy off-kilter rhythms, and infectious motifs. His writing, like his music, follows a syncopated beat with a logic of the heart. In his life of hippie hijinks, we glimpse a Tibetan sand painting, that dazzles with its colors and contours then is swept away and seen no more. Like a pair of magical baggy red trousers that dance across the landscape, then disappear into smoke and flames. Rich Hinrichsen- musician and mathematician
Baggy Red Pants and Other Stories brings Stephen’s psyche-folk-music mindset onto the page with stories that transport me across wide-open roads, from Gallup, NM to Canadian provinces, to hippie communes, to movie sets, to warehouse loading docks, to a music festival on Mars. We meet pig farmers, trash-talking dock workers, a crazed shooter, a Canadian Mountie, hippie girlfriends, an indie cult film director, and winos straight out of a John Steinbeck novel. The narrative gets as close as a switch-blade-to-the-neck and so far away that everything appears miniature, insignificant, unimportant — so why take ourselves so seriously? Why stress over the late bus? Let’s hitch a ride, take a trip with this hitchhiker and see where we go. After all, he’s wearing those far out baggy red pants! Christopher Shotola-Hardt- artist
3 Hand Stephen writes in the way he sings. He takes us on a gentle journey that lets us see the unexpected in everyday moments. A path that leaves us with the feeling that what seems to be normal could be magical if we open our eyes and see with our heart. Efrain Rozas- musical artist
KBVR TV1.11K subscribers
3 Hand Stephen closes out our Fall 2020 season with a wide array of music performed on a wide array of instruments from his own home. His artistic attitude creates a wonderful sense of surrealism and, along with his delicate touch, his music exudes an incredible sense of nature.
3 Hand Stephen (Stephen Cohen), an extraordinary talent, is an incredible, multi-talented dude, a force, a tidal wave of artistic talent. He is not only an incredible musician and singer/songwriter, which is in a way very creative and amazing in its own right, he also has an art degree, he is a world traveller, makes his own instruments that he records songs on, and he's got an incredible internet presence. His story is well documented on his site, but you might not know him, he might be unknown to you, but I'm here to change that tonight.
Stephen Hamilton- Friday in the Fort.
Stephen Hamilton- Friday in the Fort.
Hi Fi Haven post about my film- the Cistern Symphony:
Has anyone heard of the Dan Harpole Cistern in Washington State?
It is a huge underground concrete water storage tank that has been retired, and, some people have been fortunate enough to perform and record in it.
It has a 45second reverb decay cycle. Lots of cool solo instruments played in this one, Cistern Symphony.
Didjeridoo at 9m45sy
Solo trombone at 4m30 - Intense!
This is well worth the time spent. This is a totally mind blowing auditory experience. cfrench- Hi Fi Haven
Has anyone heard of the Dan Harpole Cistern in Washington State?
It is a huge underground concrete water storage tank that has been retired, and, some people have been fortunate enough to perform and record in it.
It has a 45second reverb decay cycle. Lots of cool solo instruments played in this one, Cistern Symphony.
Didjeridoo at 9m45sy
Solo trombone at 4m30 - Intense!
This is well worth the time spent. This is a totally mind blowing auditory experience. cfrench- Hi Fi Haven
from a Facebook post previewing a family concert in Portland, Oregon:
Stephen Cohen is a brilliant composer for (and creator of) cigar box guitars and other completely unique types of guitars that you probably didn't even know were a thing. Robin Kallsen, singer, dancer, and writer
Stephen Cohen is a brilliant composer for (and creator of) cigar box guitars and other completely unique types of guitars that you probably didn't even know were a thing. Robin Kallsen, singer, dancer, and writer
Here is a review of my first album, The Tree People, first released in 1979, then reissued internationally by record companies in Japan and Spain in this century:
Same titled album by Oregon group Tree People has finally reached its deserved status after the excellent CD reissue released by Japanese label Tiliqua a couple years ago. "Tree People" is no other than a fantastic piece of hippie acid folk that clearly anticipates today's "Freak Folk" movement. Very clean production, with an Eastern flavour noticeable in many passages and using acoustic guitars, varied percussions and flutes, while the strong vocals of Stephen Cohen finalize the picture. Remastered sound from masters, has insert with rare photos.......The Tree People were an Oregon based acoustic group centered around guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Stephen Cohen (who had recently been transplanted hobo style - coffee house to coffee house - from Rhode Island). “The Tree People” was privately released in 1979 and quickly disappeared into specialists' collections. On the surface it would appear to be just another basic singer songwriter album, with an environmentalist message. Fortunately, it’s nothing of the sort. Rather “The Tree People” is a meditative, deeply introspective work, with a stunningly clear production, that really does make one feel they are amongst natural surroundings. The best tracks feature recorder and flute, such as ‘Opus’ (my personal favorite), ‘Pot of Gold’, ‘Morning Song’ and ‘The Pineapple Song’. Cohen has a slight rural twang in his voice, one that seems confident yet vulnerable. Despite the sparse nature of the recording, The Tree People are quite a distant cousin to the recent free-folk artists on exhibit today. For progressive folk fans, the comparisons go northwards towards some similarly minded Canadians. Perhaps most obvious would be the Vancouver based Ptarmigan, though there’s not a hint of aggression in The Tree People. But the acoustic guitar, fragile vocals and ample use of recorder are instantly recognizable. As well, there are similarities with their French speaking brethren in Quebec, such as L’Engoulevent or the earliest works by Connivence. I’ve seen comparisons as far-fetched as Comus, and I would say that’s about as far as one can get from The Tree People to be honest. Evil sounding aggressive pagan music? Not The Tree People! How about calling this a new movement such as Introspectica Americana? As is so often the case, due to family and career responsibilities, this was to be the end of the 4 piece band. They marched on as duo, even managing to get out a cassette in 1984 titled “Human Voices”. The CD reissue on Tiliqua Records is stunning. A beautiful Japanese mini-LP, extra thick cardboard, with a full history, photos, etc… It’s very obvious that this is a labor of love, and that the label owner is a huge fan of the album. Bravo....by.......ashratom.........~
https://johnkatsmc5.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-tree-people-tree-people-1979-us.html
Joshua Tree Music Festival
We're thrilled to have Stephen Cohen bringing his family of interactive musical sculptures to the 17th Annual Spring Joshua Tree Music Festival. His playable musical sculptures are made from wood, bamboo, copper, bronze, brass, guitar strings, and found and recycled materials 💖
Article about the Music OMI Basilica Improvisations concert. The article talks about Stephen talking about his homemade cigar box guitar:
HUDSON — The sky was the limit for a group of musicians who participated in the Guerilla Basilica Improvisations event at Basilica Hudson on Sunday.
A group of musicians from such countries as Nigeria and Australia, who are part of the OMI International Arts Center’s music residency program, performed improvised pieces of music together in different small groups after their names were randomly chosen out of a hat, OMI Music Residency Program Director Jeffrey Lependorf said. This is the third year of the event, but it is the first time it was held at Basilica.
“It could be a pretty weird ensemble,” Lependorf said of the musical improvisations. “I didn’t tell the musicians about it until yesterday night.”
The musicians, some of whom have never been to the United States before, have been at OMI in Ghent for the past two days and have gotten together in small rotating groups to perform with each other, Lependorf said.
“They’re all professionals — so no problem jumping in,” Lependorf said.
In Lependorf’s 18th year of doing the OMI music residency he has seen many of the participants go on to form ensembles of their own, tour and record music. Lependorf knows the program is successful if people enjoy the music and if musicians form bands following the residency.
“I know it’s successful if three years from now they write to me and they’re still playing with the group they created and they have a new recording coming out,” Lependorf said. “I can only assume this new cohort of OMI musicians will form ensembles they would have never thought they would form.”
The musicians performed with unique instruments such as an Iranian kamancheh, a type of fiddle, a Native American flute, as well as standard instruments that were played in offbeat ways. When people attend the event they expect to hear music they have never heard before, with combinations of instruments that normally are not heard in the same piece.
“That’s fun no matter what, and when people actually make great music, it’s even better,” Lependorf said. “You’re never going to get to hear exactly these ensembles again probably.”
Stephen Cohen, of Portland, Oregon, was one of the musicians who performed and talked about his love of cigar box guitars, which is seeing a resurgence in popularity with a website called Cigar Box Nation and festivals dedicated to the instrument, he said.
“I like it because every instrument has a different feeling, different tone, so every cigar box is different, too,” Cohen said. “I just tune them until they sound good to me.”
Over 150 years ago in the South, blues musicians would make guitars out of cigar boxes because they could not afford to purchase regular guitars, Cohen said before performing a little ditty on his guitar called “I Had a Dog Named Fred.”
“They’re cheap to make,” Cohen said. “This cigar box cost $6.”
Silvia Sauer, a vocalist from Germany, enjoyed jamming at the event and said one of the most important parts of improvising is to listen to what the other musicians are doing.
“You start with nothing,” Sauer said of improvising. “I think most of us are used to improvising, maybe some not, but it works very well for me.”
Sauer does not have any special techniques when she makes noises and listens to different vocalists to see if their voices come from their nose or the larynx, she said.
“I try to make these noises — I listen and I try to rebuild them and it’s a long experience to make it like this,” Sauer said. “I hear a lot of things — overtones, singing, world music.”
This is Sauer’s first residency and she has enjoyed meeting with the other musicians so far because they all bring their own experiences and backgrounds into the program, she said. Sauer is looking forward to getting to network with other people from around the world.
“It’s a good first step,” she said.
The residency program is free to apply to and attend for musicians from around the world, but very competitive, Lependorf said. The program is held once a year in August and in two weeks the musicians will perform pieces they wrote together during the residency.
“Part of our mission at OMI is international cultural exchange,” Lependorf said.
Victoria Kallen, of Hudson, enjoyed hearing the different types of musical instruments and genres that blended together for the performance.
“They did a good job, considering that they had no time to prepare,” Kallen said of the improvisations.
Jacqueline Monroe, of Sugar Loaf, follows OMI’s activities and wanted to come to the event and see what it had to offer. For Monroe, it did not disappoint, and she appreciated how one musician took the lead and the rest followed.
“Improv is something that’s threatening and fearful,” Monroe said.
Danny Rutigliano, also of Sugar Loaf, enjoyed what he heard and liked how vastly different instruments were used to create a piece of music.
“I find the combination of instruments you don’t normally hear, fascinating,” Rutigliano said.
Rutigliano, an actor, said this kind of musical improvisation is different from the type for actors because they are always given a character and situation to work with.
“This is a great performance space,” Rutigliano said of Basilica. “I’m thinking they should do theater here.”
Daniel Zuckerman, The Daily Mail
HUDSON — The sky was the limit for a group of musicians who participated in the Guerilla Basilica Improvisations event at Basilica Hudson on Sunday.
A group of musicians from such countries as Nigeria and Australia, who are part of the OMI International Arts Center’s music residency program, performed improvised pieces of music together in different small groups after their names were randomly chosen out of a hat, OMI Music Residency Program Director Jeffrey Lependorf said. This is the third year of the event, but it is the first time it was held at Basilica.
“It could be a pretty weird ensemble,” Lependorf said of the musical improvisations. “I didn’t tell the musicians about it until yesterday night.”
The musicians, some of whom have never been to the United States before, have been at OMI in Ghent for the past two days and have gotten together in small rotating groups to perform with each other, Lependorf said.
“They’re all professionals — so no problem jumping in,” Lependorf said.
In Lependorf’s 18th year of doing the OMI music residency he has seen many of the participants go on to form ensembles of their own, tour and record music. Lependorf knows the program is successful if people enjoy the music and if musicians form bands following the residency.
“I know it’s successful if three years from now they write to me and they’re still playing with the group they created and they have a new recording coming out,” Lependorf said. “I can only assume this new cohort of OMI musicians will form ensembles they would have never thought they would form.”
The musicians performed with unique instruments such as an Iranian kamancheh, a type of fiddle, a Native American flute, as well as standard instruments that were played in offbeat ways. When people attend the event they expect to hear music they have never heard before, with combinations of instruments that normally are not heard in the same piece.
“That’s fun no matter what, and when people actually make great music, it’s even better,” Lependorf said. “You’re never going to get to hear exactly these ensembles again probably.”
Stephen Cohen, of Portland, Oregon, was one of the musicians who performed and talked about his love of cigar box guitars, which is seeing a resurgence in popularity with a website called Cigar Box Nation and festivals dedicated to the instrument, he said.
“I like it because every instrument has a different feeling, different tone, so every cigar box is different, too,” Cohen said. “I just tune them until they sound good to me.”
Over 150 years ago in the South, blues musicians would make guitars out of cigar boxes because they could not afford to purchase regular guitars, Cohen said before performing a little ditty on his guitar called “I Had a Dog Named Fred.”
“They’re cheap to make,” Cohen said. “This cigar box cost $6.”
Silvia Sauer, a vocalist from Germany, enjoyed jamming at the event and said one of the most important parts of improvising is to listen to what the other musicians are doing.
“You start with nothing,” Sauer said of improvising. “I think most of us are used to improvising, maybe some not, but it works very well for me.”
Sauer does not have any special techniques when she makes noises and listens to different vocalists to see if their voices come from their nose or the larynx, she said.
“I try to make these noises — I listen and I try to rebuild them and it’s a long experience to make it like this,” Sauer said. “I hear a lot of things — overtones, singing, world music.”
This is Sauer’s first residency and she has enjoyed meeting with the other musicians so far because they all bring their own experiences and backgrounds into the program, she said. Sauer is looking forward to getting to network with other people from around the world.
“It’s a good first step,” she said.
The residency program is free to apply to and attend for musicians from around the world, but very competitive, Lependorf said. The program is held once a year in August and in two weeks the musicians will perform pieces they wrote together during the residency.
“Part of our mission at OMI is international cultural exchange,” Lependorf said.
Victoria Kallen, of Hudson, enjoyed hearing the different types of musical instruments and genres that blended together for the performance.
“They did a good job, considering that they had no time to prepare,” Kallen said of the improvisations.
Jacqueline Monroe, of Sugar Loaf, follows OMI’s activities and wanted to come to the event and see what it had to offer. For Monroe, it did not disappoint, and she appreciated how one musician took the lead and the rest followed.
“Improv is something that’s threatening and fearful,” Monroe said.
Danny Rutigliano, also of Sugar Loaf, enjoyed what he heard and liked how vastly different instruments were used to create a piece of music.
“I find the combination of instruments you don’t normally hear, fascinating,” Rutigliano said.
Rutigliano, an actor, said this kind of musical improvisation is different from the type for actors because they are always given a character and situation to work with.
“This is a great performance space,” Rutigliano said of Basilica. “I’m thinking they should do theater here.”
Daniel Zuckerman, The Daily Mail
Front page Salem Statesman Journal article about Stephen and his String King musical sculpture creation:
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Salem Weekly article on Stephen's Salem Arts Association residency:
AN INSTRUMENT, A SCULPTURE, AN INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE Posted by Judith Walden | Jun 22, 2017 | Art
Found object sculpture meets music with incoming Artist in Residence, Oregon composer, singer/songwriter, filmmaker, and artist Stephen Cohen, who is promising to design and create a “very, very big, playable string instrument using wood, metals and found objects” during his residency at Bush Barn Art center. The piece will then be available to view and play during the Salem Art Fair.
Cohen started playing guitar in his teens. He performed professionally, recorded albums with his first band The Tree People, and earned a bachelors degree in art from the University of Oregon, where he began making music themed jewelry pieces which sold at shows and in galleries. The jump from musician/performer/jewelry maker to creator of found object instruments came, logically, but kind of accidentally, when Cohen wanted a percussion piece he could play while playing the guitar. The result was a sculptural percussion instrument, and a new avenue for his creativity. He explains the experience “led me to do a series of workshops and residencies at schools and museums where I assisted participants in making their own instruments out of found and recycled materials. And, always looking for new inspiration and new instruments to play, I made a my own cigar box guitar, and an original “5 String Thing” instrument.”
During his residency Cohen will be bringing in materials, designing, and building the instrument, which he projects will be 6 to 10 feet high, 3 feet wide and a few feet deep. He has created a template which has the appearance of a humanoid/robotic figure. The strings on the instrument will be plucked and also played like a slide guitar, and the metal tube legs and other metal and wood parts could be hit with a mallet like a drum. There could be up to 15 strings with a full range of notes. He also plans to adorn the piece with some of his guitar string bracelets and other jewelry.
The technical aspects of putting together a piece like this are complex, but Cohen looks at them as more interesting puzzles than roadblocks. He points out that it needs to be solid enough to stand on its own, and that the woods and metals must resonate when strings (guitar and harp strings, fishing wire, etc.) are attached. Possible materials include hardwoods, plywood, acrylic paints, cigar boxes, brass and copper, and “whatever found materials I can find that will work.” The goal he says is to “make this piece as much a visual work as a musical work.”
Cohen hopes visitors will have fun, be inspired to think, be creative and take a sense of wonder from the experience. He says, “I love interactive creativity because it has the element of spontaneous human communication.” The schedule of when he will be at the Annex will be available on his website, and anyone interested in participating is welcome to stop by, to observe, listen, share ideas, help with some of the artistic construction, and play the instrument when it is ready.
AN INSTRUMENT, A SCULPTURE, AN INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE Posted by Judith Walden | Jun 22, 2017 | Art
Found object sculpture meets music with incoming Artist in Residence, Oregon composer, singer/songwriter, filmmaker, and artist Stephen Cohen, who is promising to design and create a “very, very big, playable string instrument using wood, metals and found objects” during his residency at Bush Barn Art center. The piece will then be available to view and play during the Salem Art Fair.
Cohen started playing guitar in his teens. He performed professionally, recorded albums with his first band The Tree People, and earned a bachelors degree in art from the University of Oregon, where he began making music themed jewelry pieces which sold at shows and in galleries. The jump from musician/performer/jewelry maker to creator of found object instruments came, logically, but kind of accidentally, when Cohen wanted a percussion piece he could play while playing the guitar. The result was a sculptural percussion instrument, and a new avenue for his creativity. He explains the experience “led me to do a series of workshops and residencies at schools and museums where I assisted participants in making their own instruments out of found and recycled materials. And, always looking for new inspiration and new instruments to play, I made a my own cigar box guitar, and an original “5 String Thing” instrument.”
During his residency Cohen will be bringing in materials, designing, and building the instrument, which he projects will be 6 to 10 feet high, 3 feet wide and a few feet deep. He has created a template which has the appearance of a humanoid/robotic figure. The strings on the instrument will be plucked and also played like a slide guitar, and the metal tube legs and other metal and wood parts could be hit with a mallet like a drum. There could be up to 15 strings with a full range of notes. He also plans to adorn the piece with some of his guitar string bracelets and other jewelry.
The technical aspects of putting together a piece like this are complex, but Cohen looks at them as more interesting puzzles than roadblocks. He points out that it needs to be solid enough to stand on its own, and that the woods and metals must resonate when strings (guitar and harp strings, fishing wire, etc.) are attached. Possible materials include hardwoods, plywood, acrylic paints, cigar boxes, brass and copper, and “whatever found materials I can find that will work.” The goal he says is to “make this piece as much a visual work as a musical work.”
Cohen hopes visitors will have fun, be inspired to think, be creative and take a sense of wonder from the experience. He says, “I love interactive creativity because it has the element of spontaneous human communication.” The schedule of when he will be at the Annex will be available on his website, and anyone interested in participating is welcome to stop by, to observe, listen, share ideas, help with some of the artistic construction, and play the instrument when it is ready.
Shane Speal , King of Cigar Box Guitar, posts about sharing the stage with Stephen:
I've shared concert stages with Portland based, 3-String Stephen Cohen on two occasions. Each time was a surreal experience.
Cohen mixes psychedelic Dr. Seuss style poetry with drones and strange slide sounds. It's outsider music in the tradition of Jandek and Stone Breath. He has made his way across the US, performing at as many cigar box guitar festivals as possible.
In a world of blues-based cigar box guitarists, 3-String Stephen is a breath of fresh air. Shane Speal
I've shared concert stages with Portland based, 3-String Stephen Cohen on two occasions. Each time was a surreal experience.
Cohen mixes psychedelic Dr. Seuss style poetry with drones and strange slide sounds. It's outsider music in the tradition of Jandek and Stone Breath. He has made his way across the US, performing at as many cigar box guitar festivals as possible.
In a world of blues-based cigar box guitarists, 3-String Stephen is a breath of fresh air. Shane Speal
SE Examiner The music goes on for another season of concerts, song swaps and open mics at Café Artichoke. This month is a triple header of outstanding performers playing at 3130 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Tickets are $15
• Saturday, Oct. 1, 8 pm
SE Portland’s Stephen Cohen has lived in a tree house in the mountains, in geodesic domes and makeshift shacks in several communes and is a performing, recording and visual artist using voice, cigar box guitars, acoustic guitar and a one of a kind miniature guitar in one of a kind performances.
In 1979, Cohen and his friends recorded Tree People a highly-regarded and very collectible psychedelic folk album recorded during a weekend at The Rockin’ A Ranch in Greenleaf, Oregon.
His new single is Miniature Planet, a musical contemplation like no other so very relevant in these fractured times of hairpin turns and rivers that turn many colors.
http://3stringstephenplayscigarboxguitar.blogspot.com/2014/11/early-review-in-from-canada-for-3.html
A solo album by Stephen Cohen (of the bands The Tree People and Walking Willows), here playing... a three-string cigar-box guitar. And singing with in childlike voice. Eleven pieces, some of them instrumentals, and new versions of Walking Willows’ “Ride the Train” and The Tree People’s “The Change in Kate.” Gorgeous, simple, bluesy: Cohen draws the most out of his instrument and adds a handful of songs to his repertoire, a repertoire full of magical simplicity. Songs out of time. My only complaint is one I have made about all his albums: it’s too short! Francois Couture
My favorite act at the PA Cigar Box Guitar Fest this year. Dude is authentic. He totally FLOORED me when I saw him play. His music is coming from another galaxy and it's a much needed alternative to the primal blues seen in cigar box guitar music. Shane Speal
A solo album by Stephen Cohen (of the bands The Tree People and Walking Willows), here playing... a three-string cigar-box guitar. And singing with in childlike voice. Eleven pieces, some of them instrumentals, and new versions of Walking Willows’ “Ride the Train” and The Tree People’s “The Change in Kate.” Gorgeous, simple, bluesy: Cohen draws the most out of his instrument and adds a handful of songs to his repertoire, a repertoire full of magical simplicity. Songs out of time. My only complaint is one I have made about all his albums: it’s too short! Francois Couture
My favorite act at the PA Cigar Box Guitar Fest this year. Dude is authentic. He totally FLOORED me when I saw him play. His music is coming from another galaxy and it's a much needed alternative to the primal blues seen in cigar box guitar music. Shane Speal
http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/the-walking-willows/Event?oid=7491408 :
Stephen Cohen's old group, the Eugene-based psychedelic folk band the Tree People, didn't garner a ton of attention during their initial stint, but they were posthumously discovered by record collectors worldwide and eventually had their 1979 and 1984 albums reissued. Now Cohen's new band, the Walking Willows, have a record that should similarly delight record collectors and fans of off-the-beaten-path folk. By Hand is a sparse, playful collection of songs performed by Cohen and double bassist Rich Hinrichsen, and they're performed with clarity, precision, and vibrant humor, as on "1 Hit Song" and "Mathematics." There's also some good old-fashioned, rain-sodden Oregon weirdness, and the result is a unique, entrancing folk record that doesn't sound like anything you've heard before. NED LANNAMANN
The Tree People’s journey ended in March 2011 with the retirement of flute player Jeff Stier. Singer-songwriter/guitarist Stephen Cohen and his trusty double bassist Rich Hinrichsen decided to carry on under a different name, The Walking Willows. And this new duo recently released their debut CD, By Hand, 27 minutes of hand-made delight. The Tree People’s naive folk is still there, and so is Cohen’s sweet voice, and the delicate instrumentals – a stripped down and coherent soundworld, songs for grown-up children. I do miss the flute in some places, but only a little. “1 hit song” and “Movie lot” are fantastic (and fantastically simple) songs. Francois Couture
Stephen Cohen's old group, the Eugene-based psychedelic folk band the Tree People, didn't garner a ton of attention during their initial stint, but they were posthumously discovered by record collectors worldwide and eventually had their 1979 and 1984 albums reissued. Now Cohen's new band, the Walking Willows, have a record that should similarly delight record collectors and fans of off-the-beaten-path folk. By Hand is a sparse, playful collection of songs performed by Cohen and double bassist Rich Hinrichsen, and they're performed with clarity, precision, and vibrant humor, as on "1 Hit Song" and "Mathematics." There's also some good old-fashioned, rain-sodden Oregon weirdness, and the result is a unique, entrancing folk record that doesn't sound like anything you've heard before. NED LANNAMANN
The Tree People’s journey ended in March 2011 with the retirement of flute player Jeff Stier. Singer-songwriter/guitarist Stephen Cohen and his trusty double bassist Rich Hinrichsen decided to carry on under a different name, The Walking Willows. And this new duo recently released their debut CD, By Hand, 27 minutes of hand-made delight. The Tree People’s naive folk is still there, and so is Cohen’s sweet voice, and the delicate instrumentals – a stripped down and coherent soundworld, songs for grown-up children. I do miss the flute in some places, but only a little. “1 hit song” and “Movie lot” are fantastic (and fantastically simple) songs. Francois Couture
Here are liner notes by Gerald Van Waes for It's My Story, the third and last album by Stephen's group, the Tree People;
Guerssen Rec. The Tree People : It's My Story (US,2010)****
A few years ago Johan Wellens from Tiliqua Records (at that time living in Tokyo, but he was an Antwerp friend of mine before he left) told me, knowing I loved the acid folk genre, I should check out Tree People. For him their albums were among his favorites of the genre and he was going to re-release their first album. Also the second album was going to be released on the label too but Guerssen took over the job, and now we have this, third album which fitted perfectly with the previous recordings. In fact it might even be the best of the three. And that is a strange thing because it is recorded some 31 years later as the first album without having lost any of its early charm. I did not even realize when I first heard the master that I was listening to a new recording at all!
One of the elements which I liked very much from the beginning are the open, natural improvisations, leading to the more epic moments of songs, which reminded me like in the first album also of Ptarmigan, which I took as an example because such calm, breathy, natural landscapes of atmospheres working like breathing seashores around islands of songs are rarely dug out as inspirational sources in musical albums. These pieces are built from picking, double bass, glockenspiel and marvellous flute improvisations. The songs have touches of humour before they start like this child imitating an old women or the dog barking its share into the song, but also the songs themselves take life from the lightest side of seriousness. One of Stephen Cohen’s stronger later songs from his Stephen and the Talk Talk band reappears here as a perfect introduction as if saying musicians want to share the music. They have to share them like stories. Whatever people do with them does not matter. These stories take their own life. Stephen Cohen after Tree People (before the group was re-established again just recently) had gained experience in the narrative and epic field, after having worked with children and made also an album with songs for them (perhaps a part of that period relived in some songs like in “Living with the animals”). And this experience helped in picking out the right tracks to focus upon in this album. Also a new version of "Space Heater" from the first Tree People album reappears, but for the rest they are new songs. But more amazing are the improvisations, how after all these years Stephen succeeded to make this style advance so much after all these years. Perhaps not only this is the best Tree People album, I’m sure this will be a future classic too.
Pop Matters review of the Tree People "It's My Story" album:
The Tree People It's My Story (Guerssen; US: 31 Aug 2010; UK: 21 Jul 2010)
The Tree People It's My Story By Ron Hart 5 April 2011
Known as Oregon’s forefathers of freak folk, the Tree People were recording songs of heady, rustic psychedelia in an era when skinny ties and synthesizers were the prominent means of creative expression. The trio already has a pair of mellow masterpieces under its belt in its eponymous 1979 debut and the 1983 follow-up, Human Voices. Now, after a three-decade break from action, the tree men return with It’s My Story, 12 new songs for acoustic guitar, bass, recorder, flute and percussion that fit perfectly into the mood of the modern-day freakscene made famous by the likes of Vetiver, Wooden Wand and Six Organs of Admittance. The album also pays homage to the English Canterbury movement that gave us Fairport Convention and Pentangle. Highlights include the cheeky “More Than Yoko” and a new version of their classic song “Space Heater”.
THE TREE PEOPLE / It’s My Story (Guerssen)
Damn, I actually cried while listening to It’s My Story. No kidding. The very existence of this record moves me to tears. I love The Tree People’s second album, a cassette form the early ‘80s, reissued last year by Guerssen. And now, due to the critical praise for the reissue of the band’s two albums, the Oregon trio has reconvened. AND this new record effortlessly bridges the 30-year gap. Stephen Cohen still has this wonderfully innocent voice of child in wonderment of life’s simplest things. And the arrangements (usually, acoustic guitar/flute/doublebass) are still as light, tender, and timelessly melodic as ever. It’s beautiful, it’s a dream come true, it’s impossible, and yet it’s here, in my hands, I’m listening to it, it exists against all odds and it’s JUST AS GOOD as the music they were doing three decades ago. More! I want more! Please, Stephen, tell us more of your stories! Francois Couture
The Tree People, “More than Yoko,” It’s My Story (Guerssen)
November 19th, 2010 Posted by: Casey Jarman
It’s hard to set a poem to a song and not have it just sound like a poem and a song, competing for attention. The Tree People manage it on “More than Yoko.” I’m a big fan of Stephen Cohen’s delivery, and he’s all alone on this particular tune, so he gets to set the pace and the tone with just his guitar and his vocals. It’s a little moment, one imagines the exchange taking place under covers in a warm room with rain falling outside. Or maybe in the car on the way to the airport (because no one says goodbye AT the airport anymore. In that regard, the terrorists have won). Keeping my thoughts short and sweet here (like the song), but you really should check out the Tree People. A sound clip from “More than Yoko.”
Casey Jarman's review of It's My Story in Willamette Week:
The Tree People It’s My Story (Guerssen)
[MINIMAL FOLK] Following up a great album is hard to do. Following it up after a 26-year recording hiatus is just dumb. And yet, the Tree People have picked up right where they left off. The Portland-via-Eugene psychedelic folk group’s reunion disc, It’s My Story, is an album that showcases the same off-kilter beauty of its predecessor, Human Voices, a disc released in 1984 and widely considered a lost folk gem until its reissue last year.
The Tree People are a hard outfit to explain, because on paper the music sounds like your standard country fair fare: They’re called the Tree People, for chrissakes, and the instrumentation includes stand-up bass, panpipes, penny whistle and “throat singing.” But the band—multi-instrumentalists Stephen Cohen, Jeff Stier and Rich Hinrichsen—share a vision that’s more Sendak than Tolkien, and more Van Morrison than Donovan.
This is especially true of the vocal tracks: The title track proves that the group’s singer-songwriter, Cohen (a guy who can pull off a beret), remains an expert of vocal pacing and delivery. “The Change in Kate” has the jazzy feel of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” (“You can hear soulful singing when she talks/ You can see joyous dancing where she walks,” he sings) without the heroin-chic. Cohen’s strength is in a childlike wonder and charm that hasn’t diluted over the years. In fact, if the disc has a weakness, it’s that we could use a little more of Cohen’s striking vocals. “X Times Y”—a Danny Elfman-esque psych-folk instrumental with strings that sound like pigeons overhead or the upstairs neighbors’ squeaky box spring—fares well without a voice, as does the touching “Melody for 3,” but “Sunday” and “Hearing Test” feel like freak-funk jams without the funk, and will probably leave pop-oriented listeners hitting skip. Still, Cohen uses his limited time on the mic to its fullest. “More Than Yoko” is a 30-word beat poem set to song, and it comprises two of the album’s strongest minutes—another reason the Tree People deserve your attention. CASEY JARMAN
The Oregonian:
There's a platitude that holds that everything happens at the right time, in the right place and for the right reason. It's taken 26 years for the Tree People to release a third album, but "It's My Story" feels like it's been delivered exactly on time.
Devendra Banhart and his cohorts may have revitalized the genre, but freak/acid-folk has deep roots -- roots that wrap around the Tree People, who released their first album way back in 1979.
While a lot has changed in the world at large, time has stood still in the best possible way in this kingdom. Finger-picked guitar, simple lyrics and whimsical flute/recorder lines create an alternate world of innocence and improvisation saturated by love and nature.
Mainstays Stephen Cohen and Jeff Stier reunited in 2007, but there's a lot that could be attributed to 1967 here. Like a time machine devoted to transporting the listener back to a kinder, gentler, more wide-eyed age, this is a ticket to the Autumn of Love -- there's both beauty and sadness in the instrumental tracks, and Cohen's almost childlike vocals carry a weight (and a hope) that scores an emotional, complex bulls-eye.
Cohen intones on "Legends of the Tree People." If you're allergic to patchouli, there's nothing to see here. If part of you secretly yearns for a positive pied piper to help you transcend the here and now, you should reacquaint yourself with the Tree People.
Barbara Mitchell
HI-Fi World magazine (U.K.) Audiophile Vinyl pick:
THE TREE PEOPLE
It's My Story
Guerssen
I have to hold my hands up and admit that I'd never heard of this outfit before who hail from Oregon, U.S.A. After some investigations I found that they released their first album (self-titled) in 1979 and then followed that up with another ("Human Voices") five years later. I knew that teachers had long holidays, but this is ridiculous because this album is the band's third release- was it worth the wait? The current incarnation consists of Stephen Cohen (acoustic guitar), Jeff Stier (flute) and Rich Hinrichsen (double bass) with the added occasional voices of Maeve Stier and Nicole Campbell. Their music is basically folk but it's not as simple as that. There's to many tweaks in their work for them to be labelled with such a simple word. Which is why you will see the words "freak folk", "psych folk", and "alt-folk" tagged rather uncertainly to them.
Whatever you call them, "It's My Story" is a wholly engaging album that, right from the start, pulls you into their head space. Beautifully melodic, the album is both busy and calming in its presentation. The title track, the first on Side One, grabs you immediately with a delicious selection of hooks while the next track on the side, "Sunday", takes you on an organic ambient journey of flute, double bass and acoustic guitar. And so it goes on, mixing instrumentals and vocal tracks throughout, in a wonderfully dreamy manner. For those wondering what the band was up to during its earlier days, you can get a flavor by checking out the track "Space Heater", which sits on Side Two and is a remake of the track which appeared on their debut release. A series of complicated ideas simply executed to form a magical album.
Guerssen Rec. The Tree People : It's My Story (US,2010)****
A few years ago Johan Wellens from Tiliqua Records (at that time living in Tokyo, but he was an Antwerp friend of mine before he left) told me, knowing I loved the acid folk genre, I should check out Tree People. For him their albums were among his favorites of the genre and he was going to re-release their first album. Also the second album was going to be released on the label too but Guerssen took over the job, and now we have this, third album which fitted perfectly with the previous recordings. In fact it might even be the best of the three. And that is a strange thing because it is recorded some 31 years later as the first album without having lost any of its early charm. I did not even realize when I first heard the master that I was listening to a new recording at all!
One of the elements which I liked very much from the beginning are the open, natural improvisations, leading to the more epic moments of songs, which reminded me like in the first album also of Ptarmigan, which I took as an example because such calm, breathy, natural landscapes of atmospheres working like breathing seashores around islands of songs are rarely dug out as inspirational sources in musical albums. These pieces are built from picking, double bass, glockenspiel and marvellous flute improvisations. The songs have touches of humour before they start like this child imitating an old women or the dog barking its share into the song, but also the songs themselves take life from the lightest side of seriousness. One of Stephen Cohen’s stronger later songs from his Stephen and the Talk Talk band reappears here as a perfect introduction as if saying musicians want to share the music. They have to share them like stories. Whatever people do with them does not matter. These stories take their own life. Stephen Cohen after Tree People (before the group was re-established again just recently) had gained experience in the narrative and epic field, after having worked with children and made also an album with songs for them (perhaps a part of that period relived in some songs like in “Living with the animals”). And this experience helped in picking out the right tracks to focus upon in this album. Also a new version of "Space Heater" from the first Tree People album reappears, but for the rest they are new songs. But more amazing are the improvisations, how after all these years Stephen succeeded to make this style advance so much after all these years. Perhaps not only this is the best Tree People album, I’m sure this will be a future classic too.
Pop Matters review of the Tree People "It's My Story" album:
The Tree People It's My Story (Guerssen; US: 31 Aug 2010; UK: 21 Jul 2010)
The Tree People It's My Story By Ron Hart 5 April 2011
Known as Oregon’s forefathers of freak folk, the Tree People were recording songs of heady, rustic psychedelia in an era when skinny ties and synthesizers were the prominent means of creative expression. The trio already has a pair of mellow masterpieces under its belt in its eponymous 1979 debut and the 1983 follow-up, Human Voices. Now, after a three-decade break from action, the tree men return with It’s My Story, 12 new songs for acoustic guitar, bass, recorder, flute and percussion that fit perfectly into the mood of the modern-day freakscene made famous by the likes of Vetiver, Wooden Wand and Six Organs of Admittance. The album also pays homage to the English Canterbury movement that gave us Fairport Convention and Pentangle. Highlights include the cheeky “More Than Yoko” and a new version of their classic song “Space Heater”.
THE TREE PEOPLE / It’s My Story (Guerssen)
Damn, I actually cried while listening to It’s My Story. No kidding. The very existence of this record moves me to tears. I love The Tree People’s second album, a cassette form the early ‘80s, reissued last year by Guerssen. And now, due to the critical praise for the reissue of the band’s two albums, the Oregon trio has reconvened. AND this new record effortlessly bridges the 30-year gap. Stephen Cohen still has this wonderfully innocent voice of child in wonderment of life’s simplest things. And the arrangements (usually, acoustic guitar/flute/doublebass) are still as light, tender, and timelessly melodic as ever. It’s beautiful, it’s a dream come true, it’s impossible, and yet it’s here, in my hands, I’m listening to it, it exists against all odds and it’s JUST AS GOOD as the music they were doing three decades ago. More! I want more! Please, Stephen, tell us more of your stories! Francois Couture
The Tree People, “More than Yoko,” It’s My Story (Guerssen)
November 19th, 2010 Posted by: Casey Jarman
It’s hard to set a poem to a song and not have it just sound like a poem and a song, competing for attention. The Tree People manage it on “More than Yoko.” I’m a big fan of Stephen Cohen’s delivery, and he’s all alone on this particular tune, so he gets to set the pace and the tone with just his guitar and his vocals. It’s a little moment, one imagines the exchange taking place under covers in a warm room with rain falling outside. Or maybe in the car on the way to the airport (because no one says goodbye AT the airport anymore. In that regard, the terrorists have won). Keeping my thoughts short and sweet here (like the song), but you really should check out the Tree People. A sound clip from “More than Yoko.”
Casey Jarman's review of It's My Story in Willamette Week:
The Tree People It’s My Story (Guerssen)
[MINIMAL FOLK] Following up a great album is hard to do. Following it up after a 26-year recording hiatus is just dumb. And yet, the Tree People have picked up right where they left off. The Portland-via-Eugene psychedelic folk group’s reunion disc, It’s My Story, is an album that showcases the same off-kilter beauty of its predecessor, Human Voices, a disc released in 1984 and widely considered a lost folk gem until its reissue last year.
The Tree People are a hard outfit to explain, because on paper the music sounds like your standard country fair fare: They’re called the Tree People, for chrissakes, and the instrumentation includes stand-up bass, panpipes, penny whistle and “throat singing.” But the band—multi-instrumentalists Stephen Cohen, Jeff Stier and Rich Hinrichsen—share a vision that’s more Sendak than Tolkien, and more Van Morrison than Donovan.
This is especially true of the vocal tracks: The title track proves that the group’s singer-songwriter, Cohen (a guy who can pull off a beret), remains an expert of vocal pacing and delivery. “The Change in Kate” has the jazzy feel of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” (“You can hear soulful singing when she talks/ You can see joyous dancing where she walks,” he sings) without the heroin-chic. Cohen’s strength is in a childlike wonder and charm that hasn’t diluted over the years. In fact, if the disc has a weakness, it’s that we could use a little more of Cohen’s striking vocals. “X Times Y”—a Danny Elfman-esque psych-folk instrumental with strings that sound like pigeons overhead or the upstairs neighbors’ squeaky box spring—fares well without a voice, as does the touching “Melody for 3,” but “Sunday” and “Hearing Test” feel like freak-funk jams without the funk, and will probably leave pop-oriented listeners hitting skip. Still, Cohen uses his limited time on the mic to its fullest. “More Than Yoko” is a 30-word beat poem set to song, and it comprises two of the album’s strongest minutes—another reason the Tree People deserve your attention. CASEY JARMAN
The Oregonian:
There's a platitude that holds that everything happens at the right time, in the right place and for the right reason. It's taken 26 years for the Tree People to release a third album, but "It's My Story" feels like it's been delivered exactly on time.
Devendra Banhart and his cohorts may have revitalized the genre, but freak/acid-folk has deep roots -- roots that wrap around the Tree People, who released their first album way back in 1979.
While a lot has changed in the world at large, time has stood still in the best possible way in this kingdom. Finger-picked guitar, simple lyrics and whimsical flute/recorder lines create an alternate world of innocence and improvisation saturated by love and nature.
Mainstays Stephen Cohen and Jeff Stier reunited in 2007, but there's a lot that could be attributed to 1967 here. Like a time machine devoted to transporting the listener back to a kinder, gentler, more wide-eyed age, this is a ticket to the Autumn of Love -- there's both beauty and sadness in the instrumental tracks, and Cohen's almost childlike vocals carry a weight (and a hope) that scores an emotional, complex bulls-eye.
Cohen intones on "Legends of the Tree People." If you're allergic to patchouli, there's nothing to see here. If part of you secretly yearns for a positive pied piper to help you transcend the here and now, you should reacquaint yourself with the Tree People.
Barbara Mitchell
HI-Fi World magazine (U.K.) Audiophile Vinyl pick:
THE TREE PEOPLE
It's My Story
Guerssen
I have to hold my hands up and admit that I'd never heard of this outfit before who hail from Oregon, U.S.A. After some investigations I found that they released their first album (self-titled) in 1979 and then followed that up with another ("Human Voices") five years later. I knew that teachers had long holidays, but this is ridiculous because this album is the band's third release- was it worth the wait? The current incarnation consists of Stephen Cohen (acoustic guitar), Jeff Stier (flute) and Rich Hinrichsen (double bass) with the added occasional voices of Maeve Stier and Nicole Campbell. Their music is basically folk but it's not as simple as that. There's to many tweaks in their work for them to be labelled with such a simple word. Which is why you will see the words "freak folk", "psych folk", and "alt-folk" tagged rather uncertainly to them.
Whatever you call them, "It's My Story" is a wholly engaging album that, right from the start, pulls you into their head space. Beautifully melodic, the album is both busy and calming in its presentation. The title track, the first on Side One, grabs you immediately with a delicious selection of hooks while the next track on the side, "Sunday", takes you on an organic ambient journey of flute, double bass and acoustic guitar. And so it goes on, mixing instrumentals and vocal tracks throughout, in a wonderfully dreamy manner. For those wondering what the band was up to during its earlier days, you can get a flavor by checking out the track "Space Heater", which sits on Side Two and is a remake of the track which appeared on their debut release. A series of complicated ideas simply executed to form a magical album.
Here Comes Your Fan: Out of the Woods
December 12th, 2007 Posted by: AMY MCCULLOUGH, Willamette Week
About a month ago, I received an email that made me think ’90s punk-grunge outfit the Treepeople (featuring Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch) was reuniting. And, based solely on that band’s dirtied-up, angsty cover of the Smiths’ “Bigmouth Strikes Again”—not to mention my immense BTS fanhood—I was pretty excited. Little did I know I’d learn an underground history lesson in Northwest psych folk instead.
See, Martsch’s Treepeople weren’t the first. Back in 1979, a man named Stephen Cohen went into “a studio in the woods near Eugene” (now-defunct Rockin’ A Ranch) and recorded a self-titled album under the Tree People name—an album one fan laid down 150 bucks for at Portland music store Exiled Records. “It didn’t last for very long,” Exiled owner Scott Simmons recalls. Cohen, who continued to play after the Tree People called it quits in 1985, says of the album’s 2006 Japanese reissue: “It is a nice feeling to do something, have it sit for years, and then be around to see it appreciated.” But to some, that original was already sonic gold: “People into psychedelic folk definitely know about it,” says Simmons.
Here in Portland, plenty of music fans are into psychedelic folk, and—whether those fans know it or not—they could lump the Tree People’s spooky, hypnotic forest folk in with that of legendary faves like Texan duo Charalambides or British psych-folkstress Vashti Bunyan. All share a key aesthetic: a sound that’s one with nature, whether it be evoked by cryptic lyrics, sylvan flute, hand percussion or experimental forays into trancelike string noise.
So why did the Tree People vanish? Cohen’s then-young children made touring a non-option, and original bandmate Jeff Stier (recorders, flute, hand drums) eventually moved to Washington, D.C., for work. When the kind-voiced Cohen started hearing from “collectors [and] music fans who all had somehow discovered our first vinyl album,” he contacted Stier only to find that he was moving back to Oregon. “The enthusiasm for our older recorded output [played] a big part in inspiring us to play again,” says Cohen.
The reincarnated band—which is already working on fresh material with new double-bassist Rich Hinrichsen—played a “small, warm-up performance” this past Saturday at a coffee shop in Seattle. “It was great to get our feet wet again,” says Cohen. Simmons’ response when told the Tree People are playing Portland this week? “Oh, weird.” Yup, and pretty awesome, too.
The Tree People play Friday, Dec. 14, with Jon Koonce and Maggie’s Choice at the White Eagle. 9:30 pm
Rising Storm http://therisingstorm.net/the-tree-people-human-voices review:
Human Voices, the Tree People’s second album from 1984, is a solid dose of American folk-rock. The group hailed from Eugene Oregon, releasing their debut LP in 1979. Human Voices was a limited edition cassette only release, of which only 300 copies were pressed. Stephen Cohen (guitar and voice), Jeff Stier (recorder, flue, bells and percussion) and Denis Mochary (drums) recorded the album at The Recording Arts Center. It’s an album that sounds wonderfully out of step with the post-punk times.
Allmusic.com refers to the album as a “mini gem” while psychedelicfolk.com notes that Human Voices is “a very strong album, that should be regarded as a classic for the genre.” A few songs, such as the album opening title track, have an English folk influence (early 70s) but the rest of this LP is original American folk/folk-rock music. Highlights include “Grandfather,” a moody singer-songwriter number, “Thomas,” a great, ahead of its time indie sounding composition, the freeform “If That’s Entertainment” and a superb folk instrumental titled “Opus III,” which delves into spacy soundscapes. Human Voices is evenly divided between instrumentals and vocal arrangements.
Guerssen Records, a reissue company based in Spain, reissued this very impressive title on vinyl and cd – it’s well worth a spin and highly recommend to those who are into freakier folk sounds.
Foxy Digitalis website:
The Tree People "Human Voices"
Guerssen
This is a welcome 25th anniversary reissue of this Oregon trio’s rare, cassette-only sophomore effort. Dreamy, mellow folk tunes paved the way for the current new folk movement and unique touches like the echoed vocals on “Grandfather” and the tinkling bells on “Rain, Rain” make this something special. Jeff Stier’s flute and recorder establishes a warm, floating vibe throughout the mostly instrumental album, and the liner notes from main composer Stephen Cohen are both historical and informative. The Spanish air to Cohen’s guitar on the lengthy “Things Fall Apart” is both hesitant and inviting, and draws the listener in to Stier’s recorder/flute flourishes, transporting the listener to an otherworldly plane, part gypsy dance, part ominous bullfight. (Note: The bonus track, “Sketches,” also benefits from this earthy, European vibe and is generously dedicated to the band’s part-time drummer, Denis Mochary, who played on it and several other tracks and who passed away in Japan several years ago.)
“Thomas” is a live favorite that’s part Simon & Garfunkle, part Peter, Paul & Mary and 100% fun – the harmonies are particularly well-arranged, weaving wonderfully around Stier’s recorders. This is one for those rainy day dreamaways where you find your mind wandering off to lonely strolls through the park, or navel gazing under the old apple tree out back. And if you can’t get up and do the jolly jig to “Dance,” then your get up and go has got up and gone and it’s time to return to your armchair traveling…back to the kinder, gentler times of 1984 to climb up and build a tree house to hang out with The Tree People and mellow out to “Human Voices.”
Jeff Penczak (11 August, 2009)
December 12th, 2007 Posted by: AMY MCCULLOUGH, Willamette Week
About a month ago, I received an email that made me think ’90s punk-grunge outfit the Treepeople (featuring Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch) was reuniting. And, based solely on that band’s dirtied-up, angsty cover of the Smiths’ “Bigmouth Strikes Again”—not to mention my immense BTS fanhood—I was pretty excited. Little did I know I’d learn an underground history lesson in Northwest psych folk instead.
See, Martsch’s Treepeople weren’t the first. Back in 1979, a man named Stephen Cohen went into “a studio in the woods near Eugene” (now-defunct Rockin’ A Ranch) and recorded a self-titled album under the Tree People name—an album one fan laid down 150 bucks for at Portland music store Exiled Records. “It didn’t last for very long,” Exiled owner Scott Simmons recalls. Cohen, who continued to play after the Tree People called it quits in 1985, says of the album’s 2006 Japanese reissue: “It is a nice feeling to do something, have it sit for years, and then be around to see it appreciated.” But to some, that original was already sonic gold: “People into psychedelic folk definitely know about it,” says Simmons.
Here in Portland, plenty of music fans are into psychedelic folk, and—whether those fans know it or not—they could lump the Tree People’s spooky, hypnotic forest folk in with that of legendary faves like Texan duo Charalambides or British psych-folkstress Vashti Bunyan. All share a key aesthetic: a sound that’s one with nature, whether it be evoked by cryptic lyrics, sylvan flute, hand percussion or experimental forays into trancelike string noise.
So why did the Tree People vanish? Cohen’s then-young children made touring a non-option, and original bandmate Jeff Stier (recorders, flute, hand drums) eventually moved to Washington, D.C., for work. When the kind-voiced Cohen started hearing from “collectors [and] music fans who all had somehow discovered our first vinyl album,” he contacted Stier only to find that he was moving back to Oregon. “The enthusiasm for our older recorded output [played] a big part in inspiring us to play again,” says Cohen.
The reincarnated band—which is already working on fresh material with new double-bassist Rich Hinrichsen—played a “small, warm-up performance” this past Saturday at a coffee shop in Seattle. “It was great to get our feet wet again,” says Cohen. Simmons’ response when told the Tree People are playing Portland this week? “Oh, weird.” Yup, and pretty awesome, too.
The Tree People play Friday, Dec. 14, with Jon Koonce and Maggie’s Choice at the White Eagle. 9:30 pm
Rising Storm http://therisingstorm.net/the-tree-people-human-voices review:
Human Voices, the Tree People’s second album from 1984, is a solid dose of American folk-rock. The group hailed from Eugene Oregon, releasing their debut LP in 1979. Human Voices was a limited edition cassette only release, of which only 300 copies were pressed. Stephen Cohen (guitar and voice), Jeff Stier (recorder, flue, bells and percussion) and Denis Mochary (drums) recorded the album at The Recording Arts Center. It’s an album that sounds wonderfully out of step with the post-punk times.
Allmusic.com refers to the album as a “mini gem” while psychedelicfolk.com notes that Human Voices is “a very strong album, that should be regarded as a classic for the genre.” A few songs, such as the album opening title track, have an English folk influence (early 70s) but the rest of this LP is original American folk/folk-rock music. Highlights include “Grandfather,” a moody singer-songwriter number, “Thomas,” a great, ahead of its time indie sounding composition, the freeform “If That’s Entertainment” and a superb folk instrumental titled “Opus III,” which delves into spacy soundscapes. Human Voices is evenly divided between instrumentals and vocal arrangements.
Guerssen Records, a reissue company based in Spain, reissued this very impressive title on vinyl and cd – it’s well worth a spin and highly recommend to those who are into freakier folk sounds.
Foxy Digitalis website:
The Tree People "Human Voices"
Guerssen
This is a welcome 25th anniversary reissue of this Oregon trio’s rare, cassette-only sophomore effort. Dreamy, mellow folk tunes paved the way for the current new folk movement and unique touches like the echoed vocals on “Grandfather” and the tinkling bells on “Rain, Rain” make this something special. Jeff Stier’s flute and recorder establishes a warm, floating vibe throughout the mostly instrumental album, and the liner notes from main composer Stephen Cohen are both historical and informative. The Spanish air to Cohen’s guitar on the lengthy “Things Fall Apart” is both hesitant and inviting, and draws the listener in to Stier’s recorder/flute flourishes, transporting the listener to an otherworldly plane, part gypsy dance, part ominous bullfight. (Note: The bonus track, “Sketches,” also benefits from this earthy, European vibe and is generously dedicated to the band’s part-time drummer, Denis Mochary, who played on it and several other tracks and who passed away in Japan several years ago.)
“Thomas” is a live favorite that’s part Simon & Garfunkle, part Peter, Paul & Mary and 100% fun – the harmonies are particularly well-arranged, weaving wonderfully around Stier’s recorders. This is one for those rainy day dreamaways where you find your mind wandering off to lonely strolls through the park, or navel gazing under the old apple tree out back. And if you can’t get up and do the jolly jig to “Dance,” then your get up and go has got up and gone and it’s time to return to your armchair traveling…back to the kinder, gentler times of 1984 to climb up and build a tree house to hang out with The Tree People and mellow out to “Human Voices.”
Jeff Penczak (11 August, 2009)
Liner notes by Johann Wellens of Tiliqua Records:
Tiliqua Records is psyched about being able to present a whole new audience and generation with the lysergic beauty of the Tree People's sole recorded artifact, a privately released acid folk gem out of 1979. In times when people are all getting excited about media-created scenes like “New Weird America” and “Freak Folk”, they seem to overlook the fact that such music was already being created decades ago. The Tree People is evidence of such a splash of creativity that sadly enough was doomed to disappear within the cracks of obscurity. Until now. Tiliqua was granted the opportunity to restore this gem and with the kind collaboration of Mr. Cohen of the Tree People, who provided me with the master tapes and a seemingly unlimited support, Tiliqua was able to prepare this reissue. To me, this album is one of the singular most beautiful gems to have crossed my path and words always fall short in an attempt to describe the aural sensation it unleashes. “Upon listening today this hushed and intimate feeling still resonates through the music – the record possesses an extraordinarily potent atmosphere that still intoxicates the senses after so many years. Over a combustible backing dominated by shimmering strings, bone-shaking hand percussion rhythms, and quivering sensuous threads of eastern-toned flute playing, the group succeeded in concocting up a syncretic combination of meditative Indian raga, western folk stylings and idiosyncratic melodic ideas. The music breathes out intimacy and communicates with a rare directness - hooking you instantly with sheer aural bliss derived from the melody, from the flowing beat, from the sound of the words and syllables and of all those separate elements interacting with each other, rendered into a concentrated, gracious flow of lunar notes. The album's compositions have so many hidden qualities, all breathing out deep and affectionate sentiments that reveal, just like a lotus flower centered on the axis with its petals unfolding towards the circumference, a streamlined adhesion towards the group's' own singular creed. Listen to it and you may feel like awakening from a deep slumber, your unconsciousness leaking away as aspects of reality slowly mix in with the rest of your already blurred mindset.” First time ever official reissue, housed in a sturdy mini-LP styled gatefold sleeve.
The Tree People
Tiliqua
2006
The forgotten legacy of the Tree People can be pretty accurately traced to one summer weekend in 1979 when Stephen Cohen, Jeff Stier, and Rachel Laderman, headed down to the secluded Rockin’ A Ranch Studio located somewhere in the backwaters of Oregon to record an album. Originally released as a limited run LP, the record slipped almost unnoticed into the dusty annals of history before Johan Wellens (owner and music archivist of Tokyo-based label Tiliqua records) salvaged the album from obscurity and re-released it on his own label. 28 years later, this long-neglected album flags up the telling historical debt that modern folk, in all its freaky derivations, owes to those early, unsung pioneers.
While Cohen’s voice and acoustic guitar predominate, the contributions of Stier (percussion, recorder) and Laderman (flute) are just as essential. They react to his playing almost instinctively. It’s a good thing: the album’s nine songs often feel as though the group is merely jamming around pretty loose structures. (The quietly terrifying “Opus” might exemplify the group’s sensitivity to each other’s tonal fluctuations best.) Even the structured hippy rumba of “Morning Song” still sees Laderman frolicking with abandon on her flute over the syncopated rhythm.
Perhaps as a result of their free-form approach, the tone of the album modulates between a dreamy acquiescence and a jagged purposefulness; the soothingly lyrical “Pot of Gold” and “The Pineapple Song,” the most structured pieces, contrast with the ad hoc violence of “Sliding”’s raw, steel-stringed riffs and raga-esque hand drum and the deliriously heathen cadenzas on “Space Heater” and “No More School.” These impromptu asides make listening to the album slightly unnerving, but hugely compelling—you never know when the next jarring slide or dissonant note is going to land.
Like the reissue of Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day in 2000, this re-release goes some way toward preserving the easily overlooked tradition of outsider / psych folk from sliding into the realm of self-perpetuating myth. But to appreciate this album from a historical perspective, as the mere totem ancestor to folkies like Devendra, Espers, Six Organs of Admittance et al., would be to do it a gross disservice. Of even greater value, The Tree People is an album of exquisitely crafted music, regardless of its undoubted historical import. Here’s to their Lookaftering.
Reviewed by: Paul Teasdale, Stylus Magazine
Tom Hayes, Gnosis website
8-June-2007The Tree People
The Tree People were an Oregon based acoustic group centered around guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Stephen Cohen (who had recently been transplanted, hobo style coffee house to coffee house, from Rhode Island). “The Tree People” was privately released in 1979 and quickly disappeared into specialists collections. On the surface it would appear to be just another basic singer songwriter album, with an environmentalist message. Fortunately, it’s nothing of the sort. Rather “The Tree People” is a meditative, deeply introspective work, with a stunningly clear production, that really does make one feel they are amongst natural surroundings. The best tracks feature recorder and flute, such as ‘Opus’ (my personal favorite), ‘Pot of Gold’, ‘Morning Song’ and ‘The Pineapple Song’. Cohen has a slight rural twang in his voice, one that seems confident yet vulnerable. Despite the sparse nature of the recording, The Tree People are quite a distant cousin to the recent free-folk artists on exhibit today. For progressive folk fans, the comparisons go northwards towards some similarly minded Canadians. Perhaps most obvious would be the Vancouver based Ptarmigan, though there’s not a hint of aggression in The Tree People. But the acoustic guitar, fragile vocals and ample use of recorder are instantly recognizable. As well, there are similarities with their French speaking brethren in Quebec, such as L’Engouvelent or the earliest works by Connivence. I’ve seen comparisons as far-fetched as Comus, and I would say that’s about as far as one can get from The Tree People. Evil sounding aggressive pagan music? Not The Tree People! How about a new movement called Introspectica Americana? As is so often the case, due to family and career responsibilities, this was to be the end of the 4 piece band. They marched on as duo, even managing to get out a cassette in 1984 titled “Human Voices”. The CD reissue on Tiliqua Records is stunning. A beautiful Japanese mini-LP, extra thick cardboard, with a full history, photos, etc… It’s very obvious that this is a labor of love, and that the label owner is a huge fan of the album. Bravo.
Aquarius Records review of The Tree People
TREE PEOPLE, THE s/t (Tiliqua)
Not to be confused with Doug Martsch's amazing nineties outfit, the Treepeople, -these- Tree People are equally amazing, but are a whole different proposition.
This disc was originally released as a super limited lp way back in 1979 and managed to quietly disappear. Now, here we are nearly three decades later, and whattaya know? There's a whole movement of modern free folk, 'freak' folk and the like, and if you didn't know better, pretty sure we could pass this off as some strange super limited cd-r by some modern folk revivalists. But keen ears would certainly be able to tell. This is so entirely original (especially for the time) and genuine sounding. Mostly acoustic guitars, flute and vocals, the Tree People had two distinct sounds, the first, a lilting melancholy moonlit folk, like Cat Stevens or Van Morrison, a gorgeous lazy drawl, rich and lustrous, over simple folk and fluttering flutes, dreamy and gorgeous, sounding like some lost folk classic one minute, a strange "Girl From Ipanema" style shuffle the next. But even at it's sweetest and softest, the record seems to always have a hint of melancholy, sometimes even a trace of ominous foreboding. Which definitely gives the songs a subtly dark undercurrent. The majority of the record however is spent in full on hippy jam mode. Very Comus-like at times (especially on track two, "Sliding"), wild steel string excursions, dense tangles of fingerpicked melodies and aggressive strummed riffs, with a definite raga like vibe, all over a smattering of hand drums and tablas, a glorious drifting buzzing steel string dronefolk, that just sounds so incredibly timeless. Elsewhere, the same jams evolve into more tranquil acoustic dreaminess, with the flutes floating over sweet lilting melodies, but even then, the songs will be peppered with sudden bursts of buzzing slide guitar, or brief squalls of atonal fingerpicking. SO cool. And considering the current love of all things freaky and folky, it's sort of amazing that stuff like this was already being made 27 years ago!
Obviously, fans of the current crop of modern folk troubadours will find this absolutely essential, Devandra, Vetiver, Espers, Newsom, whatever your particular poison, the Tree People will fit in frighteningly well. Hard to say whether it speaks to the prescience of the Tree People, or just to how much these modern bands have actually been 'borrowing'. Either way, this is absolutely essential.
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese! www.aquariusrecords.org
Other Music review of The Tree People
The Tree People
(Tiliqua)
Thought this might've been unreleased songs by Doug Martsch's old band, but this is a reissue of a legendary late '70s private-press folk album out of Oregon, led by guitarist and songwriter Stephen Cohen. Within lie nine thoroughly stunning examples of outsider folk, informed by the heat of Delta blues and the darker direction of serious, post-Woodstock singer-songwriter a la Joni Mitchell or Van Morrison, all the while serving within and without the traditions of American folk. The arrangements here are cunning yet gentle; the playing assured in stature but evocative and searching in execution. Rests aside the Gary Higgins and Virgin Insanity reissues as a pinnacle of beatific, pristinely executed 20th century folk. Cohen's musicianship is something you could get lost in for hours on end. [DM]
The Tree People a pick in Toronto
A weekly dig through the creates for the stuff you really need to hear By Tim Perlich
2008/01/16 Now Magazine, Toronto
Tree for all. Whether you call it freak folk, real people psych or new weird American music, the gently trippy self-titled debut from Oregon’s Tree People – recorded in 79 though it sounds like 69 – has risen to the top of the heap of the genre’s collectible artifacts. And once you hear the eerie flute, wistful strumming and entrancing hand percussion on the magnificently packaged reissue from Tiliqua Records, you’ll quickly understand why this fragile masterwork is so revered by connoisseurs of backwoods hippie hijinks. Fans of Espers, MV & EE and Voice of the Seven Woods should investigate.
Above are reviews of The Tree People after it was reissued internationally in the 21st century.
Here are 3 local reviews of The Tree People on its initial release in the 20th century:
"Eugene singer-guitarist Stephen Cohen has produced an excellent album. What's more he's done it on his own and with his own finances. The sacrificies were worth the pain. The Tree People, recorded in Greenleaf by Michael Ayling, is simply a beautiful album.There is much here to like; maybe too much. In an effort to display all of Cohen's talents, the album contains five vocals and four instrumentals. The result is disconcerting. Just when the listener settles into one of Cohen's fine guitar grooves, Cohen breaks the mood with a vocal. And visa versa. The next time out Cohen might do well to settle on one style or another. The question is, which one? Cohen's vocals are wispy affairs reminescent of Leonard Cohen's. His voice is full of gentleness and melancholy, his songs long on fragmented melodies. The appeal is immediate. His guitar playing is delightful. His uses a variety of techniques to effectively tell his stories. Although every cut is a winner, the most rewarding are the vocals "Stranger," "Pot of Gold," and "Morning Song" and the instrumentals "Sliding," "Opus," and "Space Heater." Accompanying him is an excellent trio consisting of Rachel Laderman, flute; Jeff Stier, recorder; and James Thornbury, bass. They greatly enchance Cohen's haunting moods."
-Fred Crafts, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, November 15, 1979
LPs- The Tree People
"New musicians, especially local musicians, often receive a great deal of scrutiny before being accepted into the "musical world." But Stephen Cohen is one step ahead of the rest of the new artists who pop up on the scene. Cohen's album, The Tree People, recorded at Rockin' A Ranch near Eugene, is a fresh look at traditional "coffee house music", interweaving the guitar, flute, vocals, percussion and recorder into simple, exciting pieces... Overall, Cohen and The Tree People have established themselves in Eugene as top coffee house musicians. Their music, as demonstrated in The Tree People, is fresh and exciting and worth listening to, whether on the album or live at the Home Fried Truck Stop. -Tamara Swenson, The Daily Emerald (University or Oregon), 1979
Light and Unjaded
"In the age of new wave music, it's nice to be reminded that some musicians are still in touch with a quieter, more meditative sensibility. Because they're so soft spoken, one rarely hears about them. And a hunger for publicity and financial success may not churn their stomachs, but they are out there. One of the best is Eugene's Stephen Cohen, a guitarist and singer whose group (Cohen, Jeff Stier, and Rachel Laderman) recently released it's first album, called The Tree People, which is also the name of the trio.
The album was recorded and produced last August at the Rockin' A Ranch in Greenleaf, Oregon almost as if it were a live performance. Very little was over-dubbed and several custs were played straight through on the first take. Furthermore, the music's intensity is enchanced because the group carefully timed its studio appearance, recording when the were total control of the material and when their energies were at their creative peak, Cohen says. All nine songs were composed by Cohen and arranged by Cohen and Stier.
Because Cohen's music is so distinctive, it creates a problem for those unimaginative reviewers who explain new music only in terms of which major artist it sounds like. I know I've never heard anything like it. But from the child-like cover illustration through the final note, the album is so fresh and unjaded it's like a breath of clean air.
Certainly, as Cohen himself says, his music has a foreign feel, particulaly on instrumental numbers such as "Sliding", in which percussionist Stier cooks along on his bongos and Cohen makes his guitar alternately whine like a sitar and pound like a piano while following an almost Mid-Eastern rhythm. Stier, a versatile musician, is equally at ease adding eerie, mystical effects with a cymbal and wimsical, airy touches with bells throughout the album. The strong, classical elements in Cohen's music are highlighted by Laderman's flute and Stier's recorder. There's also James Thornbury's tasteful bass and back-up vocal work. Thornbury took time out from his own band, "The Raccoons" to sit in with the Tree People and his appearance is an impressive departure from his usual hard-driving style. But above all, Cohen's guitar dominates.
For some unexplicable reason, the few critics who reviewed the album nagged Cohen for mixing vocal and instrumental numbers. Acually, it's a much stronger record because of the blend.
Cohen refuses to single out his influences because it's impossible: there are just too many. And he has difficulty describing his music in words. "The main thing I go for is mood... that's why I play it I guess. There's a certain mood I'm just trying
to get and I just play it... When I first started playing at 14, I could hear the way I should be playing guitar and it wasn't any way I heard anybody else playing. I could even hear notes that I would be playing and years later I was playing them. I still work that way a lot."
The 1,000 albums he pressed are gradually selling- some at stores but mainly at the group's performances and straight out of Cohen's and the other Tree People's backpacks. Whatever happens, The Tree People proves that unadulterated acoustic music is alive and well. Although it may be a little hard to find, it's worth the search."
-Peter Leibik, Eugene Magazine, May 1980
Tiliqua Records is psyched about being able to present a whole new audience and generation with the lysergic beauty of the Tree People's sole recorded artifact, a privately released acid folk gem out of 1979. In times when people are all getting excited about media-created scenes like “New Weird America” and “Freak Folk”, they seem to overlook the fact that such music was already being created decades ago. The Tree People is evidence of such a splash of creativity that sadly enough was doomed to disappear within the cracks of obscurity. Until now. Tiliqua was granted the opportunity to restore this gem and with the kind collaboration of Mr. Cohen of the Tree People, who provided me with the master tapes and a seemingly unlimited support, Tiliqua was able to prepare this reissue. To me, this album is one of the singular most beautiful gems to have crossed my path and words always fall short in an attempt to describe the aural sensation it unleashes. “Upon listening today this hushed and intimate feeling still resonates through the music – the record possesses an extraordinarily potent atmosphere that still intoxicates the senses after so many years. Over a combustible backing dominated by shimmering strings, bone-shaking hand percussion rhythms, and quivering sensuous threads of eastern-toned flute playing, the group succeeded in concocting up a syncretic combination of meditative Indian raga, western folk stylings and idiosyncratic melodic ideas. The music breathes out intimacy and communicates with a rare directness - hooking you instantly with sheer aural bliss derived from the melody, from the flowing beat, from the sound of the words and syllables and of all those separate elements interacting with each other, rendered into a concentrated, gracious flow of lunar notes. The album's compositions have so many hidden qualities, all breathing out deep and affectionate sentiments that reveal, just like a lotus flower centered on the axis with its petals unfolding towards the circumference, a streamlined adhesion towards the group's' own singular creed. Listen to it and you may feel like awakening from a deep slumber, your unconsciousness leaking away as aspects of reality slowly mix in with the rest of your already blurred mindset.” First time ever official reissue, housed in a sturdy mini-LP styled gatefold sleeve.
The Tree People
Tiliqua
2006
The forgotten legacy of the Tree People can be pretty accurately traced to one summer weekend in 1979 when Stephen Cohen, Jeff Stier, and Rachel Laderman, headed down to the secluded Rockin’ A Ranch Studio located somewhere in the backwaters of Oregon to record an album. Originally released as a limited run LP, the record slipped almost unnoticed into the dusty annals of history before Johan Wellens (owner and music archivist of Tokyo-based label Tiliqua records) salvaged the album from obscurity and re-released it on his own label. 28 years later, this long-neglected album flags up the telling historical debt that modern folk, in all its freaky derivations, owes to those early, unsung pioneers.
While Cohen’s voice and acoustic guitar predominate, the contributions of Stier (percussion, recorder) and Laderman (flute) are just as essential. They react to his playing almost instinctively. It’s a good thing: the album’s nine songs often feel as though the group is merely jamming around pretty loose structures. (The quietly terrifying “Opus” might exemplify the group’s sensitivity to each other’s tonal fluctuations best.) Even the structured hippy rumba of “Morning Song” still sees Laderman frolicking with abandon on her flute over the syncopated rhythm.
Perhaps as a result of their free-form approach, the tone of the album modulates between a dreamy acquiescence and a jagged purposefulness; the soothingly lyrical “Pot of Gold” and “The Pineapple Song,” the most structured pieces, contrast with the ad hoc violence of “Sliding”’s raw, steel-stringed riffs and raga-esque hand drum and the deliriously heathen cadenzas on “Space Heater” and “No More School.” These impromptu asides make listening to the album slightly unnerving, but hugely compelling—you never know when the next jarring slide or dissonant note is going to land.
Like the reissue of Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day in 2000, this re-release goes some way toward preserving the easily overlooked tradition of outsider / psych folk from sliding into the realm of self-perpetuating myth. But to appreciate this album from a historical perspective, as the mere totem ancestor to folkies like Devendra, Espers, Six Organs of Admittance et al., would be to do it a gross disservice. Of even greater value, The Tree People is an album of exquisitely crafted music, regardless of its undoubted historical import. Here’s to their Lookaftering.
Reviewed by: Paul Teasdale, Stylus Magazine
Tom Hayes, Gnosis website
8-June-2007The Tree People
The Tree People were an Oregon based acoustic group centered around guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Stephen Cohen (who had recently been transplanted, hobo style coffee house to coffee house, from Rhode Island). “The Tree People” was privately released in 1979 and quickly disappeared into specialists collections. On the surface it would appear to be just another basic singer songwriter album, with an environmentalist message. Fortunately, it’s nothing of the sort. Rather “The Tree People” is a meditative, deeply introspective work, with a stunningly clear production, that really does make one feel they are amongst natural surroundings. The best tracks feature recorder and flute, such as ‘Opus’ (my personal favorite), ‘Pot of Gold’, ‘Morning Song’ and ‘The Pineapple Song’. Cohen has a slight rural twang in his voice, one that seems confident yet vulnerable. Despite the sparse nature of the recording, The Tree People are quite a distant cousin to the recent free-folk artists on exhibit today. For progressive folk fans, the comparisons go northwards towards some similarly minded Canadians. Perhaps most obvious would be the Vancouver based Ptarmigan, though there’s not a hint of aggression in The Tree People. But the acoustic guitar, fragile vocals and ample use of recorder are instantly recognizable. As well, there are similarities with their French speaking brethren in Quebec, such as L’Engouvelent or the earliest works by Connivence. I’ve seen comparisons as far-fetched as Comus, and I would say that’s about as far as one can get from The Tree People. Evil sounding aggressive pagan music? Not The Tree People! How about a new movement called Introspectica Americana? As is so often the case, due to family and career responsibilities, this was to be the end of the 4 piece band. They marched on as duo, even managing to get out a cassette in 1984 titled “Human Voices”. The CD reissue on Tiliqua Records is stunning. A beautiful Japanese mini-LP, extra thick cardboard, with a full history, photos, etc… It’s very obvious that this is a labor of love, and that the label owner is a huge fan of the album. Bravo.
Aquarius Records review of The Tree People
TREE PEOPLE, THE s/t (Tiliqua)
Not to be confused with Doug Martsch's amazing nineties outfit, the Treepeople, -these- Tree People are equally amazing, but are a whole different proposition.
This disc was originally released as a super limited lp way back in 1979 and managed to quietly disappear. Now, here we are nearly three decades later, and whattaya know? There's a whole movement of modern free folk, 'freak' folk and the like, and if you didn't know better, pretty sure we could pass this off as some strange super limited cd-r by some modern folk revivalists. But keen ears would certainly be able to tell. This is so entirely original (especially for the time) and genuine sounding. Mostly acoustic guitars, flute and vocals, the Tree People had two distinct sounds, the first, a lilting melancholy moonlit folk, like Cat Stevens or Van Morrison, a gorgeous lazy drawl, rich and lustrous, over simple folk and fluttering flutes, dreamy and gorgeous, sounding like some lost folk classic one minute, a strange "Girl From Ipanema" style shuffle the next. But even at it's sweetest and softest, the record seems to always have a hint of melancholy, sometimes even a trace of ominous foreboding. Which definitely gives the songs a subtly dark undercurrent. The majority of the record however is spent in full on hippy jam mode. Very Comus-like at times (especially on track two, "Sliding"), wild steel string excursions, dense tangles of fingerpicked melodies and aggressive strummed riffs, with a definite raga like vibe, all over a smattering of hand drums and tablas, a glorious drifting buzzing steel string dronefolk, that just sounds so incredibly timeless. Elsewhere, the same jams evolve into more tranquil acoustic dreaminess, with the flutes floating over sweet lilting melodies, but even then, the songs will be peppered with sudden bursts of buzzing slide guitar, or brief squalls of atonal fingerpicking. SO cool. And considering the current love of all things freaky and folky, it's sort of amazing that stuff like this was already being made 27 years ago!
Obviously, fans of the current crop of modern folk troubadours will find this absolutely essential, Devandra, Vetiver, Espers, Newsom, whatever your particular poison, the Tree People will fit in frighteningly well. Hard to say whether it speaks to the prescience of the Tree People, or just to how much these modern bands have actually been 'borrowing'. Either way, this is absolutely essential.
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese! www.aquariusrecords.org
Other Music review of The Tree People
The Tree People
(Tiliqua)
Thought this might've been unreleased songs by Doug Martsch's old band, but this is a reissue of a legendary late '70s private-press folk album out of Oregon, led by guitarist and songwriter Stephen Cohen. Within lie nine thoroughly stunning examples of outsider folk, informed by the heat of Delta blues and the darker direction of serious, post-Woodstock singer-songwriter a la Joni Mitchell or Van Morrison, all the while serving within and without the traditions of American folk. The arrangements here are cunning yet gentle; the playing assured in stature but evocative and searching in execution. Rests aside the Gary Higgins and Virgin Insanity reissues as a pinnacle of beatific, pristinely executed 20th century folk. Cohen's musicianship is something you could get lost in for hours on end. [DM]
The Tree People a pick in Toronto
A weekly dig through the creates for the stuff you really need to hear By Tim Perlich
2008/01/16 Now Magazine, Toronto
Tree for all. Whether you call it freak folk, real people psych or new weird American music, the gently trippy self-titled debut from Oregon’s Tree People – recorded in 79 though it sounds like 69 – has risen to the top of the heap of the genre’s collectible artifacts. And once you hear the eerie flute, wistful strumming and entrancing hand percussion on the magnificently packaged reissue from Tiliqua Records, you’ll quickly understand why this fragile masterwork is so revered by connoisseurs of backwoods hippie hijinks. Fans of Espers, MV & EE and Voice of the Seven Woods should investigate.
Above are reviews of The Tree People after it was reissued internationally in the 21st century.
Here are 3 local reviews of The Tree People on its initial release in the 20th century:
"Eugene singer-guitarist Stephen Cohen has produced an excellent album. What's more he's done it on his own and with his own finances. The sacrificies were worth the pain. The Tree People, recorded in Greenleaf by Michael Ayling, is simply a beautiful album.There is much here to like; maybe too much. In an effort to display all of Cohen's talents, the album contains five vocals and four instrumentals. The result is disconcerting. Just when the listener settles into one of Cohen's fine guitar grooves, Cohen breaks the mood with a vocal. And visa versa. The next time out Cohen might do well to settle on one style or another. The question is, which one? Cohen's vocals are wispy affairs reminescent of Leonard Cohen's. His voice is full of gentleness and melancholy, his songs long on fragmented melodies. The appeal is immediate. His guitar playing is delightful. His uses a variety of techniques to effectively tell his stories. Although every cut is a winner, the most rewarding are the vocals "Stranger," "Pot of Gold," and "Morning Song" and the instrumentals "Sliding," "Opus," and "Space Heater." Accompanying him is an excellent trio consisting of Rachel Laderman, flute; Jeff Stier, recorder; and James Thornbury, bass. They greatly enchance Cohen's haunting moods."
-Fred Crafts, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, November 15, 1979
LPs- The Tree People
"New musicians, especially local musicians, often receive a great deal of scrutiny before being accepted into the "musical world." But Stephen Cohen is one step ahead of the rest of the new artists who pop up on the scene. Cohen's album, The Tree People, recorded at Rockin' A Ranch near Eugene, is a fresh look at traditional "coffee house music", interweaving the guitar, flute, vocals, percussion and recorder into simple, exciting pieces... Overall, Cohen and The Tree People have established themselves in Eugene as top coffee house musicians. Their music, as demonstrated in The Tree People, is fresh and exciting and worth listening to, whether on the album or live at the Home Fried Truck Stop. -Tamara Swenson, The Daily Emerald (University or Oregon), 1979
Light and Unjaded
"In the age of new wave music, it's nice to be reminded that some musicians are still in touch with a quieter, more meditative sensibility. Because they're so soft spoken, one rarely hears about them. And a hunger for publicity and financial success may not churn their stomachs, but they are out there. One of the best is Eugene's Stephen Cohen, a guitarist and singer whose group (Cohen, Jeff Stier, and Rachel Laderman) recently released it's first album, called The Tree People, which is also the name of the trio.
The album was recorded and produced last August at the Rockin' A Ranch in Greenleaf, Oregon almost as if it were a live performance. Very little was over-dubbed and several custs were played straight through on the first take. Furthermore, the music's intensity is enchanced because the group carefully timed its studio appearance, recording when the were total control of the material and when their energies were at their creative peak, Cohen says. All nine songs were composed by Cohen and arranged by Cohen and Stier.
Because Cohen's music is so distinctive, it creates a problem for those unimaginative reviewers who explain new music only in terms of which major artist it sounds like. I know I've never heard anything like it. But from the child-like cover illustration through the final note, the album is so fresh and unjaded it's like a breath of clean air.
Certainly, as Cohen himself says, his music has a foreign feel, particulaly on instrumental numbers such as "Sliding", in which percussionist Stier cooks along on his bongos and Cohen makes his guitar alternately whine like a sitar and pound like a piano while following an almost Mid-Eastern rhythm. Stier, a versatile musician, is equally at ease adding eerie, mystical effects with a cymbal and wimsical, airy touches with bells throughout the album. The strong, classical elements in Cohen's music are highlighted by Laderman's flute and Stier's recorder. There's also James Thornbury's tasteful bass and back-up vocal work. Thornbury took time out from his own band, "The Raccoons" to sit in with the Tree People and his appearance is an impressive departure from his usual hard-driving style. But above all, Cohen's guitar dominates.
For some unexplicable reason, the few critics who reviewed the album nagged Cohen for mixing vocal and instrumental numbers. Acually, it's a much stronger record because of the blend.
Cohen refuses to single out his influences because it's impossible: there are just too many. And he has difficulty describing his music in words. "The main thing I go for is mood... that's why I play it I guess. There's a certain mood I'm just trying
to get and I just play it... When I first started playing at 14, I could hear the way I should be playing guitar and it wasn't any way I heard anybody else playing. I could even hear notes that I would be playing and years later I was playing them. I still work that way a lot."
The 1,000 albums he pressed are gradually selling- some at stores but mainly at the group's performances and straight out of Cohen's and the other Tree People's backpacks. Whatever happens, The Tree People proves that unadulterated acoustic music is alive and well. Although it may be a little hard to find, it's worth the search."
-Peter Leibik, Eugene Magazine, May 1980
Technically speaking, "Outsider Art" is art produced by the unschooled and or insane. Technically speaking, Stephen Cohen is neither. The apparently sane Portland-based performing artist, composer, visual artist and songwriter uses acoustic guitar, voice, original sculptural percussion instruments made from metals, woods, recycled and found materials to create records of quiet beauty. Cohen officially studied trombone and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Art from the University of Oregon. Still, the formal definition of Outsider Art is often stretched to include such as Stephen, and there is no doubt that his music shares many of the intriguing traits of the genre: a child-like aura, a hand-made quality, and unfiltered directness.
"It's My Story" begins with a spoken voice introducing a, well, story, over a haunting acoustic guitar figure. Cohen's own voice comes in over the storyteller's, singing, "It's my story, it's my story, you can take it, please don't leave it." Mandolin, bouzouki, drums, and lap steel are added; different voices enter telling fragments of other stories with Stephen singing the refrain over them. The total effect is one of the most emotionally affecting recordings I have experienced in a long time. Cohen's singing voice recalls Randy Newman and John Martyn without sounding quite like either. His guitar playing channels the simpler elements of Ry Cooder and Cooder-influences Lightnin' Hopkins and Joseph Spence. Taken together in a tune like "It's My Story," it adds up to a definitive depiction of the desperate human need to communicate. It is art devoid of pretension.
More sound sculptures than songs, the tunes on this CD share qualities with Cohen's actual sculptures of percussion instruments and guitars, to wit: warmth, whimsy, and an unexpected depth. A narrator talks about surviving a slide down a mountain in an avalanche and it evolves into--what else--a slide guitar piece. Other pieces revolve around talk, war, politics, love, and children. Stephen has done weekly music groups with severely disturbed children, and the combination of love, patience, and deep caring that must be required for such an undertaking infuses his music.
We live in an age where everyone can make a CD, and nearly everyone does. Just when I despair about the landfill this produces, I discover a CD like Stephen & The Talk Talk Band. This work likely wouldn't have been produced in an era of record company gatekeepers. And in the pre-internet/website days, I probably wouldn't have found it even if it had appeared somewhere on vinyl. I have done my best to describe it but you need to experience it. You will either "get it" or you won't. If you do, you will be the richer for it.
-Michael Ross, Puremusic.com (from http://www.puremusic.com/60cohen.html)
Every now and then an artist comes to Woven Wheat Whispers and their music is totally unique from everything else on the site. This is certainly the case with Stephen Cohen, a songwriter, guitarist, composer and visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. Stephen Cohen and the Talk Talk Band was released in 2004 and from the first play, you realize that there is something different happing here. Blues scales and precise folk finger picking combine in a way that seems to be both organic, but also having an almost physical architectural quality. The opening track, "Talk To Me" is one of many that uses repeated spoken word samples and repeated guitar phrases. While it has a strong folk quality, the work of both Robert Fripp and Steve Reich come to mind.
"Sliding" is the first of many tracks to use narration as an integral part of the piece. Here the story is of a real or imagined experience escaping a landfall in a ravine on the slopes of Mount Hood. The following instrumental passage incorporates a multitude of layered string instruments (and "non instruments"), with some jazz snare drumming to create a dense but crystal clear tune that has a most hypnotic quality.
"A Few Passing Moments" is an totally instrumental piece that somehow manages to bring to mind the accurate playing of Leo Kottke, whilst simultaneously incorporating unusual rhythmic percussive instruments and (later) a jazz bass line. If you are perhaps a little worried that the album sounds a little too "arty", please don't be. Take a listen to "Dusty Old Freight Train" which is essentially a straightforward acoustic blues. Don't expect a plodding 12 bar though, this is firey and intense and contains some sensational guitar playing and top notch drumming.
This is an album that deserves to be heard by a wide cross section of genuine music lovers. It takes folk music as it's base but is not restricted by the barriers some wish to impose on music. It incorporates structures and techniques from a broad spectrum of musical sources to become a collection of songs that will appeal to fans of folk, jazz, rock, blues and new acoustic music. It deftly sidesteps all clichés and avoids the pitfalls (i.e. non musicality) of much of the avant-garde folk music that has been released in recent years. This is an intelligent and well thought out album that stands head and shoulders above much contemporary American work
Woven Wheat Whispers
"It's My Story" begins with a spoken voice introducing a, well, story, over a haunting acoustic guitar figure. Cohen's own voice comes in over the storyteller's, singing, "It's my story, it's my story, you can take it, please don't leave it." Mandolin, bouzouki, drums, and lap steel are added; different voices enter telling fragments of other stories with Stephen singing the refrain over them. The total effect is one of the most emotionally affecting recordings I have experienced in a long time. Cohen's singing voice recalls Randy Newman and John Martyn without sounding quite like either. His guitar playing channels the simpler elements of Ry Cooder and Cooder-influences Lightnin' Hopkins and Joseph Spence. Taken together in a tune like "It's My Story," it adds up to a definitive depiction of the desperate human need to communicate. It is art devoid of pretension.
More sound sculptures than songs, the tunes on this CD share qualities with Cohen's actual sculptures of percussion instruments and guitars, to wit: warmth, whimsy, and an unexpected depth. A narrator talks about surviving a slide down a mountain in an avalanche and it evolves into--what else--a slide guitar piece. Other pieces revolve around talk, war, politics, love, and children. Stephen has done weekly music groups with severely disturbed children, and the combination of love, patience, and deep caring that must be required for such an undertaking infuses his music.
We live in an age where everyone can make a CD, and nearly everyone does. Just when I despair about the landfill this produces, I discover a CD like Stephen & The Talk Talk Band. This work likely wouldn't have been produced in an era of record company gatekeepers. And in the pre-internet/website days, I probably wouldn't have found it even if it had appeared somewhere on vinyl. I have done my best to describe it but you need to experience it. You will either "get it" or you won't. If you do, you will be the richer for it.
-Michael Ross, Puremusic.com (from http://www.puremusic.com/60cohen.html)
Every now and then an artist comes to Woven Wheat Whispers and their music is totally unique from everything else on the site. This is certainly the case with Stephen Cohen, a songwriter, guitarist, composer and visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. Stephen Cohen and the Talk Talk Band was released in 2004 and from the first play, you realize that there is something different happing here. Blues scales and precise folk finger picking combine in a way that seems to be both organic, but also having an almost physical architectural quality. The opening track, "Talk To Me" is one of many that uses repeated spoken word samples and repeated guitar phrases. While it has a strong folk quality, the work of both Robert Fripp and Steve Reich come to mind.
"Sliding" is the first of many tracks to use narration as an integral part of the piece. Here the story is of a real or imagined experience escaping a landfall in a ravine on the slopes of Mount Hood. The following instrumental passage incorporates a multitude of layered string instruments (and "non instruments"), with some jazz snare drumming to create a dense but crystal clear tune that has a most hypnotic quality.
"A Few Passing Moments" is an totally instrumental piece that somehow manages to bring to mind the accurate playing of Leo Kottke, whilst simultaneously incorporating unusual rhythmic percussive instruments and (later) a jazz bass line. If you are perhaps a little worried that the album sounds a little too "arty", please don't be. Take a listen to "Dusty Old Freight Train" which is essentially a straightforward acoustic blues. Don't expect a plodding 12 bar though, this is firey and intense and contains some sensational guitar playing and top notch drumming.
This is an album that deserves to be heard by a wide cross section of genuine music lovers. It takes folk music as it's base but is not restricted by the barriers some wish to impose on music. It incorporates structures and techniques from a broad spectrum of musical sources to become a collection of songs that will appeal to fans of folk, jazz, rock, blues and new acoustic music. It deftly sidesteps all clichés and avoids the pitfalls (i.e. non musicality) of much of the avant-garde folk music that has been released in recent years. This is an intelligent and well thought out album that stands head and shoulders above much contemporary American work
Woven Wheat Whispers
Children's Music That Rocks
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
***Stephen Cohen***
A red-jacketed band of half-human, half-animal musicians comes marching down the street, accompanied by a couple of oversized birds ... what an awesome introduction to Stephen Cohen'sHere Comes the Band! With a smoky-voiced delivery, vocal phrasing a little like Rickie Lee Jones, and an intimate coffee house presentation, Portland resident Stephen Cohen whams, tickles, and strums the strings of his guitar, which acts as much a percussion instrument as a keeper of melody, intertwined with the tinkles, knocks, and wobbles of his handmade musical gear. Rhythms are suspended and sometimes done away with entirely in several songs, tying together everything in a cohesive dream-like collection of thoughts put to music. Sound too heavy for a kids' album? Au contraire, my little ones, for that's the amazing thing about this CD: yer tiny kids can sing right along with every single song on the album, while grownups can bask in the glow of Cohen's musical inventiveness. Even though Cohen has been recording since 1979, Here Comes the Band is his first album specifically for kids. Soon-to-be Toddler Time classics include the mantra-like "Give Me That Toy!", the boppity "Mr. Knickerbocker" and "Baseball, Baseball". The controlled chaos of "The Elephant Walk" mirrors, coincidentally, sounds produced by bands of the Elephant 6 collective (Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc.), while the ethereal "Rain, Rain, Rain" fully utilizes Cohen's self-created percussion inventions. The three-part thread "Here Comes the Band / There Goes the Band / Sleepy Dreams (of the Band)" that runs through the CD gives Cohen a chance to name check his old group, the Talk Talk Band. By using a few tunes culled from some of his grownup albums, real life and fiction and Many Hats, Cohen shows his trust in kids' taste and intelligence. He's not making music for children, but just making music.
Not only do you get Cohen's wonderful songs, the CD is also packaged with a lyrics booklet full of artwork by Christopher Shotola-Hardt, instructions on making your own instruments, and explanations of everyone's duties in the making of a CD ("The producer chooses the songs..."). Check out more of Cohen's work, it's pretty inspiring and amazing.
Warren Truitt-(from http://kidsmusicthatrocks.blogspot.com/2006/12/stephen-cohen.html)
Based in Portland, Oregon Stephen Cohen has been making art of one sort or another for nearly 30 years. Creating music, musical instruments, and visual art, Cohen integrates these three into his performing career.
This is exactly the kind of person that should be making kids' music.
On his recently-released Here Comes The Band, Cohen gives reason to be optimistic for the future of music for families. A heady collection of multi-instrumental folk music, Cohen weaves together an album that flows seamlessly from start to finish. The opening title track serves as the prelude to the whole album, with a melody that pops up at least a couple more times later on in the album. It segues almost imperceptibly into "Give Me That Toy!," which, thankfully, doesn't tell the young listener to ask politely -- it's written from the child's perspective. And from there into the traditional children's rhyme "Mr. Knickerbocker," in which Cohen's distinctive voice (ever-so-slightly nasally and slightly-less-slightly raspy) repeats the phrase "bobbity, bobbity, bobbity-boo" until it gets lodged in your brain. Another favorite song of mine is "The Planetarium," which although is written from the point of the parent taking his son to the planetarium is written with the words of a child ("Then a baby cried and had to go outside / While we watched the lights / Stretch across the black dome sky.")
To talk about the lyrics is to miss the album's chief allure, which is its music. As noted above, some of the musical transitions are seamless. Which isn't to say this is an entirely low-key album. "There Goes the Band" lists 13 people playing or singing on the track. "The Elephant Walk" sounds not a little bit like Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk." The lullabies at the end of the album are sweet as well.
I can't review this album without noting the album packaging, which is one of the best I've seen this year. Lyrics, gorgeous illustrations by Christopher Shotola-Hardt, activities are in the liner notes, along with an explanation of what various people on the album (producer, engineer, visual artist) actually do.
The album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 9, though it may create fans of parents who are 39. You can hear samples of 5 songs at the album's CD Baby page and hear "Baseball, Baseball" here.
Stephen Cohen's album is a little bit like what might happen if Mr. David and Randy Newman decided to record a kids' album live on Prairie Home Companion. Here Comes the Bandestablishes a mood and a world that will draw in you and your kids. It may not be the album your family listens to every day for a month, but it will be one you listen to occasionally for many years. Recommended.
-SAShepherd, Zooglobblecom
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
***Stephen Cohen***
A red-jacketed band of half-human, half-animal musicians comes marching down the street, accompanied by a couple of oversized birds ... what an awesome introduction to Stephen Cohen'sHere Comes the Band! With a smoky-voiced delivery, vocal phrasing a little like Rickie Lee Jones, and an intimate coffee house presentation, Portland resident Stephen Cohen whams, tickles, and strums the strings of his guitar, which acts as much a percussion instrument as a keeper of melody, intertwined with the tinkles, knocks, and wobbles of his handmade musical gear. Rhythms are suspended and sometimes done away with entirely in several songs, tying together everything in a cohesive dream-like collection of thoughts put to music. Sound too heavy for a kids' album? Au contraire, my little ones, for that's the amazing thing about this CD: yer tiny kids can sing right along with every single song on the album, while grownups can bask in the glow of Cohen's musical inventiveness. Even though Cohen has been recording since 1979, Here Comes the Band is his first album specifically for kids. Soon-to-be Toddler Time classics include the mantra-like "Give Me That Toy!", the boppity "Mr. Knickerbocker" and "Baseball, Baseball". The controlled chaos of "The Elephant Walk" mirrors, coincidentally, sounds produced by bands of the Elephant 6 collective (Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc.), while the ethereal "Rain, Rain, Rain" fully utilizes Cohen's self-created percussion inventions. The three-part thread "Here Comes the Band / There Goes the Band / Sleepy Dreams (of the Band)" that runs through the CD gives Cohen a chance to name check his old group, the Talk Talk Band. By using a few tunes culled from some of his grownup albums, real life and fiction and Many Hats, Cohen shows his trust in kids' taste and intelligence. He's not making music for children, but just making music.
Not only do you get Cohen's wonderful songs, the CD is also packaged with a lyrics booklet full of artwork by Christopher Shotola-Hardt, instructions on making your own instruments, and explanations of everyone's duties in the making of a CD ("The producer chooses the songs..."). Check out more of Cohen's work, it's pretty inspiring and amazing.
Warren Truitt-(from http://kidsmusicthatrocks.blogspot.com/2006/12/stephen-cohen.html)
Based in Portland, Oregon Stephen Cohen has been making art of one sort or another for nearly 30 years. Creating music, musical instruments, and visual art, Cohen integrates these three into his performing career.
This is exactly the kind of person that should be making kids' music.
On his recently-released Here Comes The Band, Cohen gives reason to be optimistic for the future of music for families. A heady collection of multi-instrumental folk music, Cohen weaves together an album that flows seamlessly from start to finish. The opening title track serves as the prelude to the whole album, with a melody that pops up at least a couple more times later on in the album. It segues almost imperceptibly into "Give Me That Toy!," which, thankfully, doesn't tell the young listener to ask politely -- it's written from the child's perspective. And from there into the traditional children's rhyme "Mr. Knickerbocker," in which Cohen's distinctive voice (ever-so-slightly nasally and slightly-less-slightly raspy) repeats the phrase "bobbity, bobbity, bobbity-boo" until it gets lodged in your brain. Another favorite song of mine is "The Planetarium," which although is written from the point of the parent taking his son to the planetarium is written with the words of a child ("Then a baby cried and had to go outside / While we watched the lights / Stretch across the black dome sky.")
To talk about the lyrics is to miss the album's chief allure, which is its music. As noted above, some of the musical transitions are seamless. Which isn't to say this is an entirely low-key album. "There Goes the Band" lists 13 people playing or singing on the track. "The Elephant Walk" sounds not a little bit like Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk." The lullabies at the end of the album are sweet as well.
I can't review this album without noting the album packaging, which is one of the best I've seen this year. Lyrics, gorgeous illustrations by Christopher Shotola-Hardt, activities are in the liner notes, along with an explanation of what various people on the album (producer, engineer, visual artist) actually do.
The album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 9, though it may create fans of parents who are 39. You can hear samples of 5 songs at the album's CD Baby page and hear "Baseball, Baseball" here.
Stephen Cohen's album is a little bit like what might happen if Mr. David and Randy Newman decided to record a kids' album live on Prairie Home Companion. Here Comes the Bandestablishes a mood and a world that will draw in you and your kids. It may not be the album your family listens to every day for a month, but it will be one you listen to occasionally for many years. Recommended.
-SAShepherd, Zooglobblecom
Art in all its parts
Stephen Cohen's music sounds simple, but to play "Rain, Rain, Rain" at a recent concert required the help of no fewer than five standing audience members, plus another two or three in the front row playing accompaniment on sets of tiny chimes.
"Now I need those back at the end of the song," Cohen reminded the crowd at Performance Works NorthWest, an innovative community rehearsal and performance space in Southeast Portland. The folks standing held either rain machines -- nail-studded wood blocks that tinkled quietly when played with a stick -- or big sheets of copper and brass, and a smaller sheet of silver. Big Rain, Big Wind and Little Wind.
"OK, go ahead and practice," he told the sheet metallistes, who already had begun to rumble and whang their instruments with unsettling alacrity. "Now, the guitars will start out and you guys keep still. Then the little chimes and the rain blocks come in, then the wind, but not too loud, otherwise you'll drown out everything."
Somehow, it all worked -- the song progressed from the fingerpicked guitar melody and Cohen's vocal (little more than "I've been out in the rain" repeated) and weathered some exuberant rumbles from the wind department, only to subside gently, not with a bang but a tinkle.
"Just toss 'em anywhere," he says, dismissing his impromptu accompanists after the song. "They're all metal and you can't break 'em -- I used to have some glass chimes, until they went the way of all glass."
Cohen is a great one for all manner of musical impedimenta, which he hauls around in a big duffel custom-built by a guy who makes hot rod upholstery and body bags. Cohen calls himself a "sculptural percussionist," which explains the profusion of stuff around his folding chair.
By the time he sings a charming little ditty called "Baseball," he's won over the crowd for the night.
"OK, in the chorus of this song, I'm gonna need you guys to make noise like you would at a baseball game -- just yell and shout."
He moves a green canvas nearer his chair. It's a painting of "the Green Monster," the imposing wall at Boston's Fenway Park -- and a percussion instrument in this setting. "You've got a glove, you wear a hat," Cohen sings, "you hit the ball with the . . ."
Whack! He smacks the painting's frame with a drumstick as he moves into the singsong chorus, "Baseball, baseball, we like baseball. . . ." The crowd enters into its yelling assignment with a fine ferocity, and once again the song becomes more than the sum of its shouts.
"I've been doing a lot of kids' concerts through the Arts Council," Cohen said after the show, "and they're very interactive shows. I'm incorporating that in my regular performances."
Which would explain the seated guy who kept time by dribbling a basketball during the last of "Let's All Root for the Home Team," and Linda Austin's dance to an instrumental during which she used two bicycle kickstands as maracas. Or young Adam Frazell's imitation of a train whistle on the Hmong pipes during "The Dusty Old Freight Train," and Christopher Shotola-Hardt's bouzouki parts on several songs, including one sung in Hebrew and English.
By the time he got to "The Closing List," Cohen's music was making complete sense. That dark little tune was minimalism at its best: The images of shutting down after that last night were sung in a world-weary drone that would've done Tom Waits proud. The sparse, compelling accompaniment was what the song needed to make it a jewel-like still life, as if Van Eyck had painted the death of a dream.
And perhaps what I was feeling that night was gratitude for the human scale of Cohen's music and the sense of community engendered in the audience. In a culture that spawned Britney in all her marketing-driven, intra-modally synergistic glory, it's nice to know that guys still sit down with guitars and get people to sing along, and that there are still small, quirky spaces such as Performance Works NorthWest where art can happen unexpectedly.
-John Foyston, The Oregonian, January 18, 2002.
Stephen Cohen's music sounds simple, but to play "Rain, Rain, Rain" at a recent concert required the help of no fewer than five standing audience members, plus another two or three in the front row playing accompaniment on sets of tiny chimes.
"Now I need those back at the end of the song," Cohen reminded the crowd at Performance Works NorthWest, an innovative community rehearsal and performance space in Southeast Portland. The folks standing held either rain machines -- nail-studded wood blocks that tinkled quietly when played with a stick -- or big sheets of copper and brass, and a smaller sheet of silver. Big Rain, Big Wind and Little Wind.
"OK, go ahead and practice," he told the sheet metallistes, who already had begun to rumble and whang their instruments with unsettling alacrity. "Now, the guitars will start out and you guys keep still. Then the little chimes and the rain blocks come in, then the wind, but not too loud, otherwise you'll drown out everything."
Somehow, it all worked -- the song progressed from the fingerpicked guitar melody and Cohen's vocal (little more than "I've been out in the rain" repeated) and weathered some exuberant rumbles from the wind department, only to subside gently, not with a bang but a tinkle.
"Just toss 'em anywhere," he says, dismissing his impromptu accompanists after the song. "They're all metal and you can't break 'em -- I used to have some glass chimes, until they went the way of all glass."
Cohen is a great one for all manner of musical impedimenta, which he hauls around in a big duffel custom-built by a guy who makes hot rod upholstery and body bags. Cohen calls himself a "sculptural percussionist," which explains the profusion of stuff around his folding chair.
By the time he sings a charming little ditty called "Baseball," he's won over the crowd for the night.
"OK, in the chorus of this song, I'm gonna need you guys to make noise like you would at a baseball game -- just yell and shout."
He moves a green canvas nearer his chair. It's a painting of "the Green Monster," the imposing wall at Boston's Fenway Park -- and a percussion instrument in this setting. "You've got a glove, you wear a hat," Cohen sings, "you hit the ball with the . . ."
Whack! He smacks the painting's frame with a drumstick as he moves into the singsong chorus, "Baseball, baseball, we like baseball. . . ." The crowd enters into its yelling assignment with a fine ferocity, and once again the song becomes more than the sum of its shouts.
"I've been doing a lot of kids' concerts through the Arts Council," Cohen said after the show, "and they're very interactive shows. I'm incorporating that in my regular performances."
Which would explain the seated guy who kept time by dribbling a basketball during the last of "Let's All Root for the Home Team," and Linda Austin's dance to an instrumental during which she used two bicycle kickstands as maracas. Or young Adam Frazell's imitation of a train whistle on the Hmong pipes during "The Dusty Old Freight Train," and Christopher Shotola-Hardt's bouzouki parts on several songs, including one sung in Hebrew and English.
By the time he got to "The Closing List," Cohen's music was making complete sense. That dark little tune was minimalism at its best: The images of shutting down after that last night were sung in a world-weary drone that would've done Tom Waits proud. The sparse, compelling accompaniment was what the song needed to make it a jewel-like still life, as if Van Eyck had painted the death of a dream.
And perhaps what I was feeling that night was gratitude for the human scale of Cohen's music and the sense of community engendered in the audience. In a culture that spawned Britney in all her marketing-driven, intra-modally synergistic glory, it's nice to know that guys still sit down with guitars and get people to sing along, and that there are still small, quirky spaces such as Performance Works NorthWest where art can happen unexpectedly.
-John Foyston, The Oregonian, January 18, 2002.
