Lucid Nation

Lucid Nation is an American Los Angeles-based experimental rock band formed in 1994. The band has morphed and transformed itself over the years, reinventing itself and the sound Lucid Nation produces. Lucid Nation is on the independent record label Brain Floss Records.

History

The band was formed in Los Angeles in 1994, when founding drummer, Debbie Haliday, met Tamra Spivey and Ronnie Pontiac. Spivey and Pontiac were already playing in a band called Cat Cult, which was short lived. The three soon formed Lucid Nation and had their first live gig, a fundraiser for a riot grrrl art collective known as Revolution Rising. The show was at a club called Cell 63, where they opened for two local riot grrrl bands.

Their next show was in a downtown LA art gallery opening for Team Dresch, followed by a show opening for Bikini Kill in Montebello. Lucid Nation toured the West Coast next, playing seven riot grrrl conventions in one summer.

After her apartment was ransacked and a gang member was shot dead in the doorway to her apartment building, Haliday decided to move back to Florida for college. Spivey compiled the band's work thus far and put out an album entitled The Stillness of Over (1997). The album reached #11 most added on the CMJ charts.

Tamra Spivey on The Stillness of Over: "'The Stillness of Over' has a triple meaning. Obviously it refers to the exit of Debbie, and also to the end of the golden age of riot grrrl. But 'The Stillness of Over' is also the instant when a hurdle is cleared."

The last track of the CD featured a guest drummer, Nick Romero (of The Limeys), who joined the band after Haliday left.^[1]

After Haliday left the band, Romero became a temporary drummer for the band. They were most often playing at Impala in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. They focused on improvisation, including lyrics. When Romero left, Erin McCarley took over on drums. Spivey had met McCarley in an online riot grrrl newsgroup. McCarley was also in charge of the first riot grrrl chapter in the O.C. At this point, McCarley introduced the band to the peace punk scene. In 1998, they released their second album, American Stonehenge.^[2]

While on their national tour, McCarley had to fly home, and the band had to replace her. They turned to Tia Sproket, formerly of Sexpod, who was on a break from touring with Luscious Jackson. After the tour, the band (Spivey and Pontiac) invited Sproket to write and record with them back in L.A. Spivey's former bassist teacher, Margaret "Grit" Maldonado (bassist from Girl Jesus), began playing with them. Guitarist Danette Lee (formerly of Butt Trumpet) was also added and once Sproket arrived Christmas 1998, the group of musicians known as Lucid Nation began to record. They shortly began to record and were close to signing with Danny Goldberg's Artemis Records, but faced with a decision between mixes made by Neil Perry (who had worked with Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins) or Nitebob (who has worked with Iggy and the Stooges, New York Dolls, Aerosmith and Alice Cooper) and Mike Barile (who works with Candiria), they decided to go with the latter two and began mixing in Unique Studios on Time Square, where Tupac was shot. The studios are gone now.

Before this group of musicians could perform their first gig together in Olympia, Washington at the Capital Theatre as Lucid Nation, the band imploded and did not sign with Artemis Records. However, the band put out a CD in 1999 of those recordings titled DNA.^[3] The band name after that was often displayed with a capitalized DNA in the middle: luciDNAtion. Alternative Press singled out the song "Las Vegas the Instrumental" when Lucid nation was included in their "100 Bands You Need to Know: 2002".

In 2000 they put out another collection of recordings from the same sessions called Suburban Legends, a totally improvisational album. The album was the least popular Lucid Nation album on college radio stations.^{[citation needed]} However, the album got the attention of Randy Roark (assistant to Allen Ginsberg for sixteen years) who was interested in Spivey's writing.^[4]

In February 2001 the band recorded a live show at the college radio station KXLU, in L.A. during one of the worst storms Southern California had ever seen. The gig would become their fourth album. The only members of Lucid Nation left over from the previous group of musicians were Spivey and Pontiac (two of the three original members). The rest of the band at this time consisted of the following:

• John Sellers on bass.
• Troy Taroy on guitar.
• Liam Philpot on saxophone.
• Craig Waters on drums.

The album was named Nonpoetic Rain:Live on KXLU and distributed in a limited edition of just one hundred home made signed CDs.^[5]

In 2002 the band came out with a double CD named Tacoma Ballet. Patty Schemel (of Hole) played drums and Greta Brinkman (of Moby's backing band) was on bass. Larry Schemel of The Flesh-eaters and Midnight Movies played guitar. Diane Naegel was recruited on keyboards and Lucid Nation recorded the whole album up in Tacoma, Washington at Uptone Studio. There were no rehearsals, and Diane had never played with a band before. The band recorded forty-eight tracks, thirty-two of which ended up on the album. Recording ended on September 10, 2001. After some rearrangement, the songs were revealed to depict a story about a girl who realized she was living a lie.^[6][7] source 7 Tacoma Ballet was broken into two discs of sixteen songs each. The first was labeled What is the Answer? and the second one was named What is the Question? (inspired by the final words of Gertrude Stein). The album gained critical praise from Rolling Stone, Magnet and Randy Roark. Tacoma Ballet hit #8 most added on the College Music Journal charts in July 2002.

Lucid Nation has expressed a desire to stay out of the mainstream,^{[citation needed]} but Tacoma Ballet did bring them somewhat into the spotlight of small college and commercial stations, known as the secondary market in the music business. There was a chart to measure those stations, called the New Music Weekly Combined College Radio and Secondary Chart (aka NMW Chart). By November, Lucid Nation had broken through to the top five on the NMW Chart and reached #1 by December 2002, after six months of slowly climbing.Template:Facte

2004 saw the recording of Mung Jung Bushi with Jean Smith on guitar and David Lester of Mecca Normal on guitar. Also on MJB was LaFrae Olivia Sci on drums and keyboard. There was no vocals on this album. The album name 'mung jung bushi' was thought up by Jean, and is a rough combination of Chinese and Japanese meaning "grumpy dance".

In 2005 Lucid Nation put out a 'best of' album named Public Domain: The Best of Lucid Nation. This compilation featured songs spanning the entire career of Lucid Nation. Also on the CD Was a song titled FUBAR, which Lucid Nation collaborated with Jody Bleyle of Team Dresch and Hazel on. This song was originally created for the P.E.T.A. compilation called Fat Wreck, but rejected because it was too "raw". Denise Saffren signed on to play drums on FUBAR as well.

Throughout the band's career, the only two members of Lucid Nation who have stayed with the band since 1994 are Tamra Spivey and Ronnie Pontiac. Tamra Spivey continues to be the band leader, operating the band's official MySpace and Lucid Nation's official web page (see Related Sites and Sources below).

In January of 2006, Tamra Spivey also began a process she named The Hundred Song March. With the help of Jonathan Krop for programming, Tamra began to post one song every day for about one hundred and fifty days, starting in January. The songs are being posted chronologically, from least recent to most recent. They are all available for free download by MP3, RSS and podcast. The HSM was created for kids who could not gain access to Lucid Nation music. Since Lucid Nation's music is mainly sold online, a vast amount of potential listeners were missing out, and Tamra wanted to open her band up to them. Along with posting the songs to download, Tamra also writes a paragraph or two for each song about the song's meaning, the process of creating the track and the musicians featured. The songs are broken up into 'Episodes' which consist of the albums and a brief history of that particular time in Lucid Nation's life.^[8]

Reviews

Rolling Stone wrote "If Spivey sounds spacey, she's not. Her songs range from aggressive, screaming punk to beautifully melodic rhythm and blues, the very definition of garage rock. Like Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill -- Lucid Nation has opened for both -- her band's music is raw, poetic, sloppy and infectious...simply bare-bones, kick-ass rock and roll."^[9]

Magnet wrote "a punk rock Exile on Main Street with shades of The Stooges, riot grrrl, Pere Ubu, and even The Doors."^{[citation needed]}

Mario Mesquita Borges of Allmusic wrote "Lucid Nation's creations expose fierce streams of experimentalism within the rock genre by captioning a singular set of conceptual alternative pop/rock style, somehow following a similar trail as the one unclosed by Sonic Youth... "^[10]

Band members

• Tamra Spivey, vocals, guitar, bass, Korg MS-20
• Ronnie Pontiac, guitar, bass, vocals, keyboard
• Justin Citron, guitar

Past members

• Jody Bleyle, bass
• Greta Brinkman, bass
• Debbie Haliday, drums, guitar, vocals
• Danette Lee, guitar
• Grit Maldonado, bass
• Erin McCarley, drums, guitar, bass, vocals
• Diane Naegal, keyboard
• Liam Philpot, saxophone
• Nick Romero, drums
• Denise Saffren, drums
• Larry Schemel, guitar
• Patty Schemel, drums
• John Sellers, bass
• Tia Sprocket, drums
• Troy Taroy, guitar
• Craig Waters, drums

Discography

Albums

• The Stillness of Over, 1997.
• American Stonehenge, 1998.
• DNA, 1999.
• Suburban Legends, 2000.
• Nonpoetic Rain: Live on KXLU, 2001.
• Tacoma Ballet, 2002.

Compilations

• Public Domain: The Best of Lucid Nation, 2005.
  • FUBAR, single, 2005, included in this compilation.

References

1. ^ "Archive: The Stillness of Over (1997)". Official band site. http://www.lucidnation.com/100songmarch/archive_01.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
2. ^ "Archive: American Stonehenge (1998)". Official band site. http://www.lucidnation.com/100songmarch/archive_02.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
3. ^ "Archive: DNA (1999)". Official band site. http://www.lucidnation.com/100songmarch/archive_03.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
4. ^ "Archive: Suburban Legends (1999)". Official band site. http://www.lucidnation.com/100songmarch/archive_04.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
5. ^ "Cat Cult: The Origins of Lucid Nation". Official band site. http://www.lucidnation.com/100songmarch/archive_05.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
6. ^ Nichols, Kimberly (2002). "Interview: Lucid Nation's Tamra Spivey". 3:AM Magazine. http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/2002_mar/interview_tamra_spivey.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
7. ^ "Featured Artist: Lucid Nation". gURLmusic. http://web.archive.org/web/20030218234735/http://gurl.com/stop/music/artists/lucid_nation.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
8. ^ "What is This?". Official band site. http://www.lucidnation.com/100songmarch/whatisit.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 
9. ^ Friedland, Benjamin (2002-08-19), "Lucid Nation Make Improvised Misery", Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5933601/lucid_nation_make_improvised_misery?rnd=1145734361750&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1483, retrieved on 2008-12-26 
10. ^ Mesquita Borges, Mario. "Lucid Nation > Biography". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:gxfixqlkldfe. Retrieved on 2008-12-26. 

External links

• Official site
• Lucid Nation at MySpace
• Lucid Nation at Allmusic