“We create ‘Chamber Folk Tangle Pop.’ What else do you call a band that includes viola, oboe, guitars, bass, synthesizers, electronic noise machines, and assorted guest players playing everything from sax to theremin to hammered dulcimer?”
The Ash Lovelies, DC’s experimental pop collective, were founded in 2008 by Peruvian born singer songwriter Lou Black. Lou wanted to bring musicians together to jam, create pop fusions, and stream of consciousness lyrics. Yes, yes, this is a very 60’s hippie sensibility, but some of our early members were (and still are) hippies, and in the end aren’t we all hippies with haircuts wearing 21st century clothes and looking for our jet packs and intergalactic spaceports?
The Ash Lovelies on the “Ode to Arlington” album consisted of Lou Black (vocals, synth guitar, harmonica, kaosillator, egg shaker, ipod), Hannah Burris (vocals, viola, acoustic guitar), Matt Rutherford (bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar), Dominic Hook (keyboard), Stefania Patania (vocals) Tanisha Paige (vocals), Jeff Raudebaugh (electric guitar, banjo), Terry Rose (acoustic guitar), Bryan Bowman (percussion, drums, kaosillator, electronics), with guest performances by Megan Nortrup (sax) and Glenn Fink (hammond organ).
The Ash Lovelies are not your typical band striving for one sound or one look or one line-up, it is more of an evolving open tent songwriting project. The Ash Lovelies are endlessly recruiting new folks to diversify our musical gene pool, and by constantly mixing it up we keep evolving as an eclectic group songwriting collective (although some might argue that is evolution by “design”). Do you play, write, sing? Come jam with us. We love to write new songs. Seriously, do jam with us, we live off the buzz of writing new songs.
