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HISTORY I was born in Lawrence, Kansas, where in high-school I garnered local acclaim for my dark-pop trio, Clockwork (with Hugh Naughtin and Jim Piller). In 2000, Clockwork recorded the self-released single "I am Your King," which enjoyed heavy rotation at KJHK college-radio. The band also enjoyed rare opening slots with touring acts such as The Shins. After parting ways with Clockwork, I recorded an EP titled "Three Love Songs." The EP was self-released under the last name "Clendenin," taken from my given middle name. It featured the track "Now, When Twilight Dims The Sky," which also enjoyed local air-play and top rankings from Lawrence.com. Aside from the tracking of two unreleased singles ("So You Said") in 2003, I spent my last days in Lawrence opening for The Decemberists, Mates of State, and The Anniversary. I graduated from Lawrence High School and prepared to move to New York City, where I had been accepted into The Cooper Union School of Art. During my first two years at Cooper Union, I studied a wide range of fine art, and wrote new material outside of classes. These songs would become the track-list of my debut full-length release. During the last nine months of 2005 I took a leave of absence from Cooper Union to return to Kansas, where I booked 100 hours at Black Lodge Recording Studio. I recruited local friends and musicians, assembling an orchestra to execute the arrangements I had developed in New York and in Lawrence, that summer. In January of 2006 I returned to New York with the album, "Baby Comes Home." I continued studying fine art and arranged the release of the album on the record labels Ba Da Bing (North America), Broken Horse (UK), and Rallye (Japan). While awaiting the album's release, I wrote and directed my first short narrative film, "La Costa De La Muerte," shot on 16mm. "Baby Comes Home" was released and I began performing with the New York quartet Living Image (Oto Gillen, Eugene Wasserman, Stuart Perry). Together, we developed new material as a jazz-influenced dance-rock group. Living Image performed in New York, opening for Jens Lekman on a leg of his East Coast US tour. During this time period, I also completed several experimental films as well as my 'thesis' narrative film, "The Scurimobile." I screened "The Scurimobile" publicly on December 20, 2007, at The Canal Chapter and on March 11, 2008, at The Cooper Union. I graduated in May of 2008 and by the end of the summer I had recorded preliminary versions of ten songs with Living Image. In August I initiated a collaboration with producer/arranger Jay Israelson. Originally, Israelson had signed-on to create back-tracks for my planned live solo floorshow. Yet the sessions were so successful that we completed the production of an entire LP and I came to the decision to release this collaboration as "Orange Moonbeam Floorshow." Currently I live in Berlin, Germany, where I am performing material from "Orange Moonbeam Floorshow" and establishing the Berlin chapter of Sphinx Groop International, at the Castle of Snakes (Grunberger Strasse 54, Friedrichshain, 10245). "Orange Moonbeam Floorshow" is slated to be released in early 2009. * Sphinx Films have featured Loren Kramar, Phillip Gabriel, Julia Burlingham, Erin Duffey, Craniv Boyd, Rhys Gaetano, Perry England, Allie Grace, Devin Cuthbertson, Ingrid Schram, Georgia Gray, Stuart Perry, J. Hunt, and Ebecho Muslimova. |