The Sads

Not to be confused with Japanese rock ensemble "SADS", there are two bands named The Sads:

1.. based in prague (formed 2001)
3 ....from los angeles (formed 2007)

1. The Sads are a Prague-based indie band. They are the 6th best band in the world, and are analogous to sitting in a cold vinyl chair, shirtless.

The guitar player, Steven Rusling, is responsible for the lyrical and most of the musical composition. Matt Ford plays improvisedysphoric melodies on a bellowing cello. Mark Tierney produces orchestral sounds from a snare and a busted cymbal. Nick Jennings' rhythmic bass gives the music something like a spine, and Marc Cram plays counter melodies and harmonies on his guitar and sax.

This band has been compared to The Silver Jews and Magnetic Fields. Their melancholy haunting melodies combined with their lofi-indie, lackluster energy is bound to subdue.


3. The Sads from LA are Aaron Rose – Vocals+Guitars, Aska Matsumiya – Vocals+Keyboards, Joe Plummer – Drums, David Scott Stone – Moog+Modular Synth. They are based in Los Angeles and founded by Aaron Rose in 2001. After a string of self-released tracks, their debut album, ‘Rough Stabs’ was released in early 2007 through Los Angeles' label “Teardrops”.
Cali Dewitt of Teardrops Records describes the band as, ‘the audio equivalent of a failing relationship in a Godard movie. A video for the song Miniature Moons was directed by Jay Buim who is currently the music editor for Tokion Magazine.

Since 2007, in addition to selected performances in Los Angeles, Milan, Rome and Berlin, The Sads have performed what they call a “silent show", in which the band plays all electronic instruments and the audience listens only through headphones. The first silent show was held in late 2007 to an intimate crowd at New York’s Journal Gallery, followed in June 2008 by a larger performance to 350 people at the Westwood Art Forum in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles show was accompanied by a six-channel video installation by designer/filmmaker Mike Mills. The performance inspired features on the group in The Fader magazine as well as reviews in both the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. In addition, the band was presented in a feature news story for Weekend America, a nationally syndicated news program on NPR (National Public Radio).

The band toured Europe in late 2008 performing sold-out silent performances at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) in London and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Margaret Wappler of the Los Angeles Times writes on the Silent Performance:

"Tucked into a warren of flowers and cables, the four members faced each other and played their digital instruments -- two keyboards, drums and a soundboard -- but the byproduct of their efforts came out through headphones that the audience listened to while sitting on brown pillows in a ring around the band. If you pulled off your headphones, you could hear the pinging sound of a hit on the digital drums or Aska Matsumiya singing a cappella into her microphone or David Scott Stone, longtime Eno-like multi-instrumentalist for the Melvins and former one for Unwound, shuffling around, twisting knobs and unraveling what looked like a noisy spool of wire, likely one of his homemade creations. But with headphones on, the music was intimate, enveloping and lush. The payoff wasn't in staring at the band, the usual protocol; it was in abandoning the visual and turning as inward as the music itself."

The Sads second release is a 7” single titled “Pas Deux” with cover art by Mike Mills. A recorded live "silent show" LP was released in Autumn, 2008 also on Teardrops. The band is currently writing music for their first full-length album, with an expected release of Summer 2009.

In 2008, Joe Plummer of the popular indie bands Modest Mouse and The Shins replaced Dan Monick on drums.



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