Artist description San Francisco’s eclectic ensemble known as Rosin Coven is the pioneer of a new style of musical theatre. Wherever they travel, this unusual troupe brings with them a bewitchingly complete musical environment they call The Pagan Lounge. Nine performers blend voices, cellos, violin, contrabass, accordion, guitar, trombone, vibraphone, drums, and performance art to create their own moody style of classical-jazz-cabaret. Edith Piaf does the cha-cha with Charles Mingus, Eric Satie tangos with Sun-Ra, Kurt Weil broods over Doris Day, and Dybbuks dance in the fleeting space between waking moments and dreams. They strive to present an irreverent yet elegant balance between musicianship, poise, theatricality, and humor. This dedicated ensemble can be found each month where you least expect them - in nightclubs, theatres, parks, festivals, museums, streets, and foreign lands.

Music Style Pagan Lounge Music

Musical Influences Kurt Weill, Erik Satie, Charles Mingues, Iva Bittova, Rachels, Sun Ra, Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, Danny Elfman, Paris Combo, Bjork, Edward Gorey, Tim Burton, Dead Can Dance, Doris Day

Similar Artists We don't really sound like anybody else. A friend told us we sound like the soundtrack to his dreams.

Artist History Rosin Coven formed in the fall of 1996 in Berkeley, California. Midnight Rose had the vision of a unique, theatric, dynamic collective that would create together what could not be created alone. Alchemy Through Music! We have performed around the SF Bay Area for almost as long as we have existed, and last summer took our first tour to Europe where we spent a month performing in the Netherlands, Germany, and the Czech Republic. We treat each performance as an entire experience, and almost always incorporate alternative elements into our musical performances. These include puppets, films, fire dancers, contortionists, acrobats, robots, spells and ritual, and Broadway Cabaret.

Group Members Carrie Davis as Midnight Rose: vocals, guitar - "Welcome to The Pagan Lounge" beckons Midnight Rose, gracious host of the Pagan Lounge. The year is 1996: she has the vision of a jazzy, loungey, dark, and strangely beautiful ensemble where everybody comes together to create that which they could not do alone. Alchemy through music. And fortunately for all involved, her dream has become a reality. Midnight's life has been filled with art and music since her earliest days; she was raised on a steady diet of Broadway and cabaret, had a brief fling with New Wave, and studied art and film at the Art Institute of Chicago.Justin Katz as Abraham Birmingham: contrabass, vocals, percussion - Abe lays down the soulful, earthy foundation for the Coven. His love for jazz and all things swingin have led the Coven to such tunes as "Obliquely Yours" and the Coltrane influenced "Skydivin." Abe also performs as Zohar Mitzvak in the SF based freak-circus known as The Church Of You, as Prince Yaakov in the psychedelic jewgrass band Mozaik, and occasionally as himself in the Shelley Doty X-Tet. Patrick Kaliski as Louis Capricorn: drums, vocals, xylophone, fire - Look out y'all...here comes Louis! He's the tall, handsome one who sits in the back and propels the ensemble without overpowering the delicate acoustic sounds. He's a versatile and sensitive kit drummer without peer. Louis is also quite a ubiquitous performer and producer, also found freaking in the eclectic space ensemble known as The Church of You. He has several productions to his credit, including his own debut release "Ubiquitous" and the more recent "SF 2000: A Time Capsule,” a 17 band compilation of Bay Area artists reflecting on our times.Andrea Walls as Mandrea: violin, vocals - Mandrea brings her classical stylings, gypsy fiddling, and eclectic dynamism to the Coven. Although previously known for her work in Tooth and Nail, Andrea currently plays in a myriad of groups, including Marimba Pacifica and occasionally as part of Mozaik. This beautifully savvy world traveler also performs regularly with Middle-Eastern ensembles and annually as part of the Renaissance Faire. Beth Vandervennet as Gingerbread Candy Monahan: cello, vocals - Gingerbread Candy, the woman responsible for the Coven's fiery Jalousie, moody Empty Jar, and sinister Dybbuk's Dirge, is no stranger to string ensembles. She is a professional, classically trained player who performs with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and as Principal Cello in Stockton and Vallejo Symphonies. Rosin Coven allows her to step out of the classical world and trade her formalwear for whips and leathers. Let us just say, look out for the lady behind the ladies, because this Gingerbread is hot!Brian Bulkowski as James St. James: cello,vocals, air trumpet - Mr. St. James has played in a number of classical ensembles and a medieval surf band known as Kaladin. He has been know to grace the stage with both his beautiful new acoustic cello as well as with Barney, the purple electric five-string cello that makes his fellow computer comrades violet with envy. His eclectic, whimsical playing is unique; listen closely and hear his train whistles, children's songs, cat calls, and syncopated bass lines. It’s not too hard to imagine him as a zany alchemist in a former life.Carri Abrahms as Elya Zeker: vocals and accordion - With an eclectic background in professional music, dance and theater, Elya brings a unique blend of quirky avant-classical-Slavic-can-can-caberet to the Pagan Lounge. Her home is blessed with three cats; two beautiful women; one piano; abundant gardens and her beloved accordion, Bert.Tim Carless as Toby Bain/Skulldana - Bass Trombone, vocals – Don’t let his subtlety fool you. As Rosin Coven’s one-man brass section, this subtle yet charmingly ferocious man of many names brings the band a professional background, both instrumental and vocal, in classical, jazz, and rock 'n roll. This amateur mixologist extraordinaire has played with the San Francisco, Stockton, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, Vallejo, Santa Rosa and Modesto Symphonies, the Fresno Philharmonic, The Contemporary Jazz Orchestra and Soundwave Big Band.Tim O’Keefe as Patrick de la Esperanza – vibraphone, marimba, percussion, vocals – Please welcome the newest addition to The Pagan Lounge, Esperanza. With a strong background and degree in music performance and composition he brings new textures, dynamics, and elegance to our ever growing ensemble. Whether he is floating soft warbly vibraphone chords over a sultry lounge tune, or scaling the upper registers of his marimba like a cartoon car chase gone awry, Esperanza’s sound is continually opening new doors for the sound of Rosin Coven.______________________________________________________________________________Ken Reeser as Hoorst Fjords - Visual Alchemy - Some have noticed that each and every time Rosin Coven performs they are surrounded by flowers, bones, lights, bats, trees, glowing heads, candles, and an ever revolving collage of strange, beautiful objects. Thirteen cheers for our Ken, Rosin Coven’s tireless Visual Alchemist! His eerily creative cauldron, known as Kendelabra Productions, churns for countless behind-the-scenes hours to create the props, backdrops, lighting, and atmosphere widely recognized as The Pagan Lounge.

Instruments vocals, cellos, violin, contrabass, accordion, guitar, vibraphone, bass trombone, marimba, drums & percussion

Albums Penumbra

Press Reviews From East Bay Express - Week of Sept. 8-14, 2000 Rock In A Hard Place - by Sam HurwittGrowing up around this town, I’ve known my share of covens–which I guess is a handy thing in case someone tries to hex me. (My witchy friends do, however, get annoyed at my habit of saying "wicca wicca wicca" over and over in a voice I imagine to be funny.) Berkeley’s Rosin Coven, though, is a whole ’nother kettle of potion. The seven or so musicians playing strings, accordion, etc. call what they do "pagan lounge," a term that makes me picture a long-haired guy named Wotan or Raven, dressed in a badly fitting black leisure suit fondling the pewter ram’s-head pommel of a sheathed dagger with a pinkie-ringed hand as he sips mead from a martini glass in the other. And now that I’ve brought that image to mind, I just know I’m gonna have bad dreams tonight.What Rosin Coven means by pagan lounge, though, is a spellbinding blend of macabre cabaret with offbeat elements of jazz, chamber music, and dark ages gloom. Sure, all the strings and delicious siren-song vocals bring Rasputina to mind–I mean, how many ululating cello bands are there? And certainly a playful waltz like "August on the Vine," with its Kurt-Weill-meets-Doris-Day overtones and sinister bass-sawing undertow, does nothing to dispel the comparison. The chamber torch song "Empty Jar" is all mournful bowing and lilting warbles–and hell, I like any song that prominently features the line "exploding incubus." (Um, but don’t hold me to that–anything can become tiresome, right?) Said songs are on Rosin Coven’s recently self-released CD Penumbra, available at shows (like this Wednesday’s appearance at Jupiter) or via www.rosincoven.com. Though it’s no substitute for the live mass, it’s worth laying hands on. "Tabernacle" sets syllables of birdsong from the several singers fluttering amid ominously sawing strings and a hypnotically steady rhythm ŕ la Led Zep’s "Kashmir"; you can almost see doves fluttering in slow-mo like in a John Woo movie (any John Woo movie).But there’s a fair amount of solid earth under all this swirling air, fire, and water. Carrie Davis’ mouth-watering "Bittersweet" is a spooky lounge-jazz affair with the kind of vocals that snake around your neck and pull you in way too deep. "Obliquely Yours" combines jazzy vocal harmonies with Gypsy fiddling, suave bass, and creepy-crawly guitar, and unexpected rhyme-pairings like "parsimonious extraction" with "delusional attraction." "Alchemy" sounds like a whimsical number from a particularly twisted Broadway musical, and "Jalousie" serves as a comic cabaret tango with operatic trills and barbershop bursts of harmony. Okay, there’s a drum-circle chant in there, too ("Bodyless Devotion"). But hey, pagans will be pagans. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------From SF Weekly - Week of August 9-15, 2000Night & Day - By Julie Feinstein Pagan Lounge - Rosin CovenIt's not easy being the band that starts a new genre. How can people understand what they're getting into when they've never heard of pagan lounge music? Comparisons to known quantities in unknown combinations are helpful: cross tango with jazz, toss in some classical orchestral strings, Gypsy accordion, melancholy harmonies, and a plastic rainbow-colored flute named Coco Vermona, and voilŕ -- Rosin Coven. "It's like having a martini at your solstice ritual," explains contrabassist Justin Katz. "It's a balance. You don't want to be just shrouded in robes and crystals; you want to be able to bust out the cha-cha." Lead vocalist Carrie Davis is primarily responsible for the intricately haunting lyrics, and boasts Broadway, cabaret, and new wave credentials, plus self-taught guitar skills. Katz is also self-taught and otherwise can be found backing Lilith Fair fave Shelly Doty as well as the groups YOU and Queen Esther & Her Royal Subjects. Rounding out the roster: Patrick Kaliski on drums, vocals, and xylophone; Andrea Walls on violin and vocals; Beth Vandervennet of the Fresno and Oakland philharmonics on cello and vocals; Brian Bulkowski on cello and vocals; and Carri Abrahms on vocals and accordion. Being ready to bust out is a good idea at Rosin Coven's shows. Lately the group has been opening with its by-now-infamous parade. "Every good ensemble from Duke Ellington to Sun Ra to American marching bands has had a theme song. So we've come up with the "March of the Modern Pagans,'" says Katz. Group members pass out megaphones and streamers and noisemakers. "People get up and join in. We like to get everyone on the same page before we start kicking in."The "March" was particularly popular on the German leg of the Coven's just-completed European tour. (Katz promises it will be the opening track on the group's next album, though the confetti hasn't even settled yet following the recent release of Rosin Coven's first CD, Penumbra.) In fact, all of Europe, the great pagan incubator, received the band warmly, and also provided it with places to stretch beyond its already far-out edges. "We had no idea how many different kinds of shows we could do," says Katz. "We played classical at a Dutch wedding, we played at an anarchist squat, an underground punk club, a rock 'n' roll show for 1,000 drunk Czech teenagers." As befitting Cafe Du Nord's and Rosin Coven's cabaret themes, Wednesday's show will include fire antics and dancing by Justice Spitfire of Pyrogeist, and magic courtesy of Majinga. With the Coven's slogan, "Alchemy Through Music," the group is aiming for transformation through both the spectacle and the music it creates. Says Katz, "Sure, you're transformed if all of the sudden there's fire and glitter and violins swooping around your table, but people also connect to the slower, deeper parts of our music." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------From Juked.com - June, 2000 RE: Musicians and composers we admire Posted by rae Wednesday, June 21, 2000 at 21:12:25 Message: I agree with Ghostrider, Beethoven rocks! The SF Symphony closed the season with the 9th and it was fuckin incredible, Michael Tilson Thomas is a genius, this guy knows his shit. I have to say, though, after seeing The Filth and the Fury I'm not too sure about GR's #10 choice. Stuff I like (not really in any order, second half are local bands, anyone in the Bay Area check 'em out!) The Police, Ani DiFranco, The Who, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Charming Hostess, Rosin Coven, Ledisi, Shelley Doty, Mo'fession From the Brutus Show in Kramolin, Czech Republic 1.6.2000 Z emailu jedné fanynky: Cau Sáso!!, díky za adresu na Rosin Coven, podívala jsem se na tu stránku a uz se tesim na zítrek. Doufam, ze i vy zahrajete moje oblíbený písnicky, hlavne Cerstvou krev anebo Anarchii atd. Snad vyjde pocasí a prijde dost lidí, ale toho se nebojim. Meli byste u nás v Kramolíne hrát casteji, teda pokud se vám tam to hraní líbí. No snad jo, my se snazíme bejt dobrý posluchaci a parici...Tak mi napadlo, kdyby lidi meli v mozku videokameru a vsechno, co vidí by si natocili a pak si to kdykoli pustili. To by bylo skvelý uchování vzpomínek!!! Nemyslís? ... ... a zejtra to porádne rozjedte a nesetrete nás!!! From PauseRecord.com - Week of May 29 - June 4, 2000 VARIOUS ARTISTS, "SF2000 TIME CAPSULE" (Insidious) - This CD, a benefit for EPIC ARTS, features some of the best bands in the Bay Area's always vital music underground. In true San Francisco fashion a melt-down occurs early in the session. Shelley Doty's admonition, "Don't Miss This Ride" (written especially for this collection), leads the way to Rosin Coven's song from "the Pagan Lounge" about how "we probe our past to perhaps reinvent our destiny," with accordions, violins and cellos leading the sultry attack. The dissonance gets totalized but remains very interesting in the Armageddon Cello Trio's "Unrest," which is actually two people on cellos with added electronic "environmental contortions." After dissolving the known so quickly, the CD turns towards psychedelia (You's take on the Rolling Stones' "2000 Light Years From Home"), the nexus of art, politics and spirituality of Matt Butler & The Redwood Project, the dancing and smiling of The Animal Liberation Orchestra, the Joe Strummer influenced rock of Baby Snufkin, the modern fusions based in Venezuelan folk of the Snake Trio, the electronic ravers Drop, the "underground ghetto-techno" of Curtis Bay, and more. I don't love every track on the collection, but most of this snapshot of the SF scene at the turn of Y2K makes for a great listen.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------From East Bay Express - Week of Dec 17 - 23, 1999...Insiduous Records’ SF2000 Time Capsule is perhaps more a relic of my neighbor’s Bay Area than mine. But if nothing else, this particular time capsule will give future anthropologists the impression that in the late 20th century the Bay Area was chock-full of cellos. Beth Vandervennet bows through both ever-impressive East Bay guitarist Shelley Doty‘s jubilant opening track "Don’t Miss This Ride," and the two-cellist Rosin Coven’s theatrical web of pagan cabaret excess, all strings and accordion and creepy distaff harmonies, with operatic asides and susurrous insinuations. Cut to a bubbling cauldron of haunted house noises by the Armageddon Cello Trio (sporting only two players total)...The Time Capsule’s Bay Area is perhaps smaller than most (the Doty, YOU, Metric, Rikki Uomini, and Float tracks all include members of Rosin Coven)...but it sounds like a nice place to visit.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Two Live column, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 6/23/99 Rosin Coven - Pagan LoungeEight or nine alabaster-skinned classical-musician types, all dressed smartly in semiformal red and black clothing, mill around their instruments on a stage aesthetically decorated with dead flowers and distressed violin cases. One of the two stunning lead singers wears a red velvet dress, rhinestones, and a feather boa; the other elegantly fills a black velvet floor-length gown. As the first song starts, they both throw small handfuls of glitter into the attentive crowd. Welcome to the "pagan lounge" of San Francisco theater-rockers Rosin Coven. A cadre of Bay Area classical musicians and musical-theater buffs, Rosin Coven treat all manner of genres with a lighthearted yet steady hand. "Bittersweet" pairs a doo-wop vocal arrangement with classical instrumentation; "A Song" veers into Gallic territory, as Carri Abrams (black velvet) picks up an accordion and the rest of the band throw out calculatedly haphazard chords. All the while, comfortably packed together on Hotel Utah's tiny stage, the members of Rosin Coven affect French cabaret ennui with wry, knowing smiles. "Obliquely Yours" shows Abrams and Carrie Davis (red velvet) trading solos in high, accomplished sopranos and coming together to swing coolly on some "ba-dap-bum" harmonies, the string section solos sounding like the Devil went down to Vienna. "Childhood," another jazzy number, has the women scatting with violinist Andrea Walls; Abrams (obviously classically trained) holds a note high and long. During "Rain Song", a number less Gothic than Rasputina and less twisted than Charming Hostess, Abrams makes wind noises and, well, plays her head by slapping her cheeks as she makes different shapes with her mouth. Things get more solemn with "Empty Jar," a moody, atonal piece about Sylvia Plath, and "Now You Know," a sweeping soaring, spooky, dramatic (and possibly Rosin Coven's best) song. But non, instead of dragging the crowd down into Tortured Artist Melancholialand, they instead finish the night with "Tango," a whimsical reinterpretation of Bizet's "Habanera" in which Davis does an operatic improv and Abrams sashays with a rose between her teeth for comic effect. They may look and play like classical musicians, but the gifted members of Rosin Coven collectively strike an irreverent yet elegant balance between musicianship, poise, theatricality, and humor. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Extra Extra! We're In The Mix!After a wonderously stunning performance at The Hotel Utah (the first SF venue ever to welcome us to it's stage) on January 15th, 1999, we were listed "In The Mix" of the Bay Guardian. The Mix was: 1. The kick of a .45 Ruger semiautomatic 2. Rosin Coven at the Hotel Utah 3. Ben Heppner at Hertz Hall 4. Standard Stations, BofA, 9465 Wilshire 5. Killing My Lobster's Mike Zurer with a full beard. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------This little nugget appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian on September 30th, 1998. Thanks, Summer Burkes! Demo Tape o' the Week Rosin CovenBerkeley-based Rosin Coven are a self-proclaimed "pagan lounge ensemble" -- with three vocalists, a drummer, a string quartet, and sometimes a Turkish banjo, the seven-member band can't easily be classified. Most memebers are musically educated -- some perform with the Oakland Symphony or in local jazz and classical ensembles. On "Tabernacle" the strings and understated drums go through a number of movemements as the harmonized voices of Carrie Davis, Carri Abrahms, and Andrea Walls flit around some coloratura and emote Rasputina style. "January 1st," a moody, contemplative piece, evokes winter and loneliness with lofty strings and malleted cymbals. Slightly overemoted vocals and Middle Eastern tinges translate "Now You Know" into what could be an off-Broadway showpiece. And "Coco Vermona," a jokey, '60s-influenced sing-along, starts with plucked bass and snapping fingers, goes through Donovan-type trombone and pipe phases, and ends with a chorus of whistling. Rosin Coven is the sound of classically trained musicians on their day off. (510) 843-3950. (Summer Burkes)

Additional Info SF2000: A Time Capsule, Hippopotamus Polka E.P. (out of print)

Location San Francisco, CA - USA

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