Artist description Left-of-center indie labcoat poprock.

Music Style Indie poprock/new wave/punk

Musical Influences Brainiac, Devo, The Cars, The Raincoats, The Pixies, The Beatles

Similar Artists Devo, Brainiac, The Pixies, The Cars, Wire, Blondie

Artist History where did this band come from? well, here's most of the story... a good portion of the songs on the Vanities' debut record were already written by ricky and terrin riemer in late 1999, before they decided to make his & her Vanities into a band that played out live. they didn't know whether the songs would transfer well into a live set or not since the duo had only heard them the way they were recorded, layer upon layer, onto a roland vs1680 in the basement. but of course playing out is much fun that they decided to give it a try. in early 2000, drummer sara winkelman was recruited, a set was constructed, and the Vanities played several gigs around wisconsin. they also participated in ladyfest midwest in chicago. it was a short run before they took a break from live shows to re-record the songs. emerging from the basement 5 months later, ricky, terrin and sara took the new recordings to smart studios in their hometown of madison, wisconsin to be mixed by the wonderful and talented mike zirkel. a short time thereafter, on june 17th, 2002, the debut record was released. currently the band is writing new songs and preparing to play out live again. they have enlisted the help of their friend matt abplanalp, "alpy", who has joined Vanities to showcase his ability to mimic ricky's guitar. and a fine job he does (that's not an easy task you know)... the 4-piece lineup should be ready to go very soon.....the first show is scheduled for August 30th opening for the Mekons at the Annex in Madison.

Group Members Ricky (guitar, keyboard, vocals), Terrin (bass, keyboard, vocals), Sara (drums), Alpy (guitar)

Instruments guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals, samples

Albums His & Her Vanities- release date 6.17.02

Press Reviews the isthmus http://www.isthmus.com by al ritchie Obviously, "new wave" isn't so new anymore. In fact, it's now old enough to watch itself play in a bar. But that doesn't mean its punky spirit of invention isn't still rearing its begoggled head in new and intriguing places. One of those places is the east-side home of Madison indie-couple Ricky and Terrin Riemer, the basement of which is where His & Her Vanities was conceived and its debut CD recorded. The album traipses through everything from Sonic Youth guitars to B-52's vox to the angular rhythms of Wire. Occasionally augmented by playfully loping synthesizers, HHV's left-of-center labcoat rock immediately recalls the quirk 'n' jerk sound of '80s post-punk, yet largely maintains a modern freshness by embracing that vivifying pomo spirit of fun-fun-fun generally reserved for cutesy/spazzy Japanese bands like Cibo Matto and Buffalo Daughter. A few of the tunes get lost in the candy-like swirl of sonic bells and whistles, but the buzzing, bratpunky "Slowage" and improbably joyful robot-rocker "52 Pickup" are among those that nail the perfect balance of melody and weirdness. And, it seems to me, that's what the best new wave music was always all about. gods of music http://www.godsofmusic.com by gary arthur brown ARTIST: HIS & HER VANITIES SONG: LOOKING THRU LAB EYES GENRE: ALTERNATIVE / SMART INDIE SIMILAR: DEVO, ELF POWER, MAGAZINE I guess I should say something memorable. Well, it’s pretty original and it’s good. It first strikes me as a 21st century Indie rendition of the New Wave/Post-Punk sound of ’78. But it is by no means ‘retro’ or stale. It’s farking intense. There’s some amazingly active atmosphere provided by synthesizers and a solid groove established by the low-end bass guitar and thumping drums. The guitar work is jerky and pretty smart. I bet anybody who can play guitar like that must invent like a hundred household gizmos a week. I wish I had that sort of ingenuity… a Bathroom Buddy™ should come in quite handy these days. Sir Isaac Newton was an insurance salesman. The production is a sort of really zany mix of the lo-fi and the just plain weird-fi. Some of the vocals are really haunting. Some of them sound like a geek behind a microscope. Sometimes, I hear voices that aren’t there. Harmonics. Monks in the Middle Ages thought it was a choir of angels joining them in their praises to the Lord Most High. Those weren’t the monks who burned themselves. But I think some of them might have flogged themselves as penance. So, check this out. If you like any kind of smart rock, you gotta hear this. Pretend it's not about animal testing.

Additional Info Label: Science Of Sound (SOS)

Location Madison, WI - USA

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