| The California Tapes is Project Feijoa's debut album. Written by Bob McNeill, the album is a collection of ten songs mostly written on the road in 2009, around Santa Barbara and San Francisco. The songs gestated for years before turning into the The California Tapes. Propelled along by Rob Henderson's driving basslines, the album weaves McNeill's Spanish and electric guitar tomfoolery with Emily Roughton's gorgeous viola, piano and fiddle stylings to create a rich and varied sound palette for the stories. The story of the California Tapes The California Tapes started with a trip Bob made to the golden state in 2009. He arrived in Santa Barbara to stay with friends, three months after the Jesusita fire had destroyed many of their neighbours' houses in Mission Canyon. The aftermath of the fire was a stirring sight and stayed with him as he traveled north, giving up three songs on the album, including Jesusita, one of his most-requested songs at shows. A friend he visited in San Francisco turned out to be heading overseas for an extended period, leaving his apartment, which happened to be in the Mission, empty. So he stayed there. This is the best way to visit friends; when they're away. He wandered around SF in the baking sun and freezing fog, writing in the evenings, for weeks, then put the book away and went off exploring. San Francisco is a fascinating place; and like most fascinating places, it's best experienced whilst not in the company of someone who actually lives there. Due to an incident involving a suitcase and a sub-par intellect, he didn't see the book again for over a decade. Having been able to only remember three of the songs he'd written, he played those, and forgot about the rest. They would have come back words-only if it hadn't been for a vintage mp3 recorder thing that he'd sung some of the tunes into back in '09. Raise your hat to iRiver - remember them, back when nobody had a smartphone? 
The California Tapes is about the Jesusita fire, the fires that came before it, the lives they touched, and some of the other stories that spring out at you in California; the Californios, the settlers, the 49ers, Loma Prieta, the border, and ordinary people on the road. The band chose to take their time and let the album grow, turning into a folky, slightly rocky, sun and tequila-soaked love letter to California, in all its incarnations. The songs of the California TapesMcNeill's songs visit people who've seen things, up close. In The California Tapes, we hear their stories firsthand, sometimes not long after the event, sometimes years later. There's the shellshocked divorcee escaping a fire in Jesusita; the washed-up musician playing bars in the Valley in San Fernando; and the street dweller whose world literally collapses around him in Saint Dolores. In Lay me down, San Joachin and La Vaquilla, people arrive in California after gruelling journeys. In Santa Maria, Las Canoas, Jesusita and Refugee, they struggle to make a life; in Where you can't see the border, the disillusioned immgrant crosses back over. Most of the songs were written or started in 2009 in California; McNeill picked the project up again years later while in France, which explains the lone stray on the album, a heartfelt ode to the shopkeepers of Vaucluse, and its ever-present ghosts: Anna's dream. |