To avoid nudity in clip’s bathtub footage, director Adrienne
Calo acted as “nipple police,” says vocalist Tracy Shapiro; Band’s 40-date tour
continues.
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Steel Cranes (L-R): Amanda Schukle, Tracy Shapiro. Photo
credit: Lisa Gilligan.
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& SHARE
Check out “Ebb” by Steel Cranes courtesy
of Impose
or via the links below!
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Steel Cranes
– In The Press
“Rollicking drums and bass collide with salacious
guitar licks.” – SF Weekly
“Absolutely stunning.” – Impose
“One of the year’s most compelling albums.” – Popmatters
“Tango
is a struggle between two forces. And it is worth every step.” – Innocent Words
“Raw, relentless power.” – Bitch
“Fiery, and impassioned” – MAGNET
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“This is our second album but I like to think of it as
our debut comedy album,” says Tracy
Shapiro of Steel Cranes. While
the Oakland-based band doesn’t expect Tango to be filed next to Steve Martin, Shapiro says that “humor was largely my barometer” when she and
band mate Amanda Schukle started
working on the record.
But the album’s latest single “Ebb” carries very little, if any,
humor, in fact.
“It’s an expression of being flatlined,” Shapiro says. “I wrote it at a time
when I had lost my capacity to feel anything other than disconnected. But for
many of the other songs on Tango, it felt compelling to bring
to life the vulgarity of heavier emotions, which often landed us in comedic
territory.”
The video for “Ebb”, as sad and solemn as it is, was “an
incredibly fun experience to make,” Shapiro
remembers. And once again returning to the land of funny, Shapiro explains that director Adrienne
Calo also had to act as what Shapiro
describes as the “nipple police” during the shoot.
“The milk bath we created mostly hid my skin beneath
the water, but Adrienne, who had a
video monitor in my living room, kept shouting ‘Nipples!’ every few minutes, at
which point I would concave my body to sink my breasts while maintaining a
forlorn wistful look on my face.”
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Steel Cranes
Tango
(Mister White Tights Records)
Out Now
Track Listing:
4. Her
5. Sandglass
6. Happy
7. Take Me Down
8. What Am I Doing Here
9. The Poet
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More about Steel Cranes and Tango
Described by MTV
as possessing “the slo-mo heaviness of a 2,000-pound pendulum” upon the release
of the debut Steel Cranes album in
2013, Schukle and Shapiro offer an evolution of that
sound on the new album Tango, available now, and being
supported by a 40-date tour that launched on August 4th, and
continues into September. See below for full itinerary.
With a vision for the sound of Tango that was more
expansive than the band’s debut, Schukle
and Shapiro were initially stalled
when considering the logistics of accomplishing these time-consuming sonic
refinements in a studio environment. It soon became clear that the best option
was to record and mix the record themselves.
“Amanda has
been recording her own music for years, and she began obsessively learning more
about recording and mixing,” Shapiro
remembers. “As soon as we decided to do
everything ourselves, the control freaks in us were unleashed!”
This education ultimately yielded the more passionate
and layered version of the Steel Cranes
sound that is heard on Tango. Once freed from the confines of creative
deadlines and traditional studio environments, Shapiro and Schukle took
full advantage of their new work paradigm.
“We wanted time and space to let ourselves stretch in
new ways,” Shapiro says. “In ways
that don’t come easy when you’re aware of how much it costs to spend three
hours experimenting with the fucked-up tones on your old Casio keyboard.”
Most of all, a year spent recording, versus the five
days allocated for the previous album, meant more of everything that made the
first Steel Cranes album special.
“More texture. More nuance. More melody. More guitar
tones,” Schukle explains. “It is
also more beautiful.”
Tango by Steel
Cranes is out now. Amanda Schukle
and Tracy Shapiro are available for
interviews. Contact
Josh Bloom at
Fanatic for more information.
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Steel Cranes – Tango Tour
Upcoming:
09/06 Milwaukee, WI @
Linneman’s
09/07 Chicago, IL @
Township
09/08 Bloomington, IN @
The Back Door
09/09 Evansville, IN @ PG
09/10 St. Louis, MO @
Schlafly’s Tap Room
09/11 Columbia, MO @ Cafe
Berlin
09/12 Lawrence, KS @
Jackpot Saloon
09/14 Wichita, KS @ Kirby’s
Beer Store
09/15 Norman, OK @ Red
Brick Bar
09/16 Albuquerque, NM @
Burt’s Tiki Lounge
09/17 Santa Fe, NM @
Boxcar
Past:
08/04 Tucson, AZ @
Flycatcher
08/05 Phoenix, AZ @ Rips Bar
08/06 Los Angeles, CA @ Redwood Bar & Grill
08/07 San Diego, CA @ Tower Bar
08/09 San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Donut Co.
08/05 Phoenix, AZ @ Rips Bar
08/06 Los Angeles, CA @ Redwood Bar & Grill
08/07 San Diego, CA @ Tower Bar
08/09 San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Donut Co.
08/10 Fresno, CA @
Dynamite Vinyl
08/12 Santa Cruz, CA @
The Crepe Place
08/13 Oakland, CA @ The
Golden Bull
08/14 Pacifica, CA @
Winters Tavern
08/16 Medford, OR @
Bamboo Room at King Wah’s
08/17 Eugene, OR @ The
Boreal
08/18 Portland, OR @
World Famous Kenton Club
08/19 Seattle, WA @ Blue
Moon Tavern
08/20 Olympia, WA @ McCoy’s
Tavern
08/21 Tacoma, WA @ Real
Art Tacoma
08/24 Salt Lake City, UT
@ Kilby Court
08/26 Denver, CO @ Lion’s
Lair
08/27 Omaha, NE @ Barley
Street Tavern
08/28 Lincoln, NE @ Vega
08/29 Des Moines, IA @
Vaudeville Mews
08/30 Iowa City, IA @
Gabe’s
08/31 Minneapolis, MN @
Amsterdam Bar
09/02 La Crosse, WI @
Root Note
09/03 Madison, WI @ BOS
Meadery
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Steel Cranes Links
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Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion
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