Califone is a critically-acclaimed experimental folk band from Chicago. The band is named after Califone International, a long-standing manufacturer of audio equipment commonly found in schools, libraries and businesses. Califone is the musical project of former Red Red Meat frontman Tim Rutili. Its regular and rotating contributors include many former members of Red Red Meat and some members of other Chicago bands, such as Tortoise.
Melbourne-born multi-instrumentalist, producer, performer and songwriter Hugo Race is an eclectic and prolific artist who has lived and worked in the USA, UK, France, Germany and Italy since 1988. He was a founding member and powerful transient element of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds (1983), with whom he started working in the terminal stages of the legendary Birthday Party (he appears on five cds of the Seed's catalogue). In Melbourne he founded the Wreckery (1985) who went on to become on of Australia's seminal cult bands of the 80s, releasing with the White, Rampant, and Citadel labels.
Woven Hand (also spelled as Wovenhand) is a band from Denver, Colorado led by former 16 Horsepower lead singer David Eugene Edwards. Most of the studio recordings are performed by Edwards with minimal, if any, additional musicians. However, while on tour he plays with additional musicians such as Ordy Garisson, his former bassist Pascal Humbert, and European musician Peter Van Laerhoven. During a limited 2005 North American tour, Woven Hand consisted only of Edwards and a drummer. Since 2006, the group has become a regular band instead of a solo project.
"Lilium" (meant to mean "fortress") started as a solo-project of Pascal Humbert, 16 Horsepower's bass player. Under this moniker he made the album "Transmission of All the Good-Byes", a mainly instrumental creation, which was released in 2000. Lilium now is a duo-project after 16 Horsepower drummer Jean-Yves Tola joined Humbert. As a double act they have so far released one album, "Short Stories", which came out in 2003. Humbert worked on "Transmission Of All The Good-Byes" from 1984 until 2000. The album was released at the end of October 2000 on Glitterhouse Records.
Born on June 7, 1951, in East Germany, Rainer Jaromir Ptacek grew up in Chicago after his family fled the Communist country in 1953. Musically inclined from childhood, in the mid '60s Rainer swapped violin for guitar. (He once quipped, "None of the Beatles, it seemed, were interested in violin.") A decade later he'd become a fixture on the Tucson music scene, ultimately garnering an international reputation as a song stylist and slide virtuoso that had critics speaking of him, Ry Cooder and John Fahey in the same breath...
From Lubbock, Texas, Butch is one third of the super-group The Flatlanders with fellow Lubbock natives Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
Hancock has spent most of his career as a solo artist, and made many recordings. His song 'If You Were a Bluebird' has been covered by many artists, the most well-known version being by Emmylou Harris.