After performing at All Tomorrow’s Parties, Woodsist Festival, and touring with the likes of Clinic and Deerhunter, the Bay’s own Fresh & Onlys is ready for their Outside Lands debut and it’s about time. This band is by far one of Kata Rokkar’s favorite Bay Area bands and for good reason. Their latest record, 2010’s Play It Strange is a string of punchy, soulful heartland-rock anthems that call out a time of loose pop hooks and melodies as romantic as the lyrics that fill them. The Fresh & Onlys draw obvious influence from 80’s desert pop and Ennio Morricone-like atmospherics that paint a thick and layered soundscape. The Bay Area’s best kept indie rock secret is ready to be released and you can catch them at this year’s Outside Lands Music Festival.
You can witness The Fresh & Onlys at the Sutro Stage at 12PM (noon) on Sunday, August 14th at Outside Lands Music Festival.
The final edition of the Outside Lands Kuestionnaire Series (just before we take a long and much needed break) features Fresh & Only guitarist Wymond Miles as he provides a hilarious embarrassing stage moment. Don’t worry Wymond, we feel for you.
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1. Could you state your name and what you do in the band?
Wymond Miles–people see me play the guitar, but I twist all sorts of knobs and wrestle tape and pound on keys when the doors are locked.
2. How would you describe your sound?
The question nobody likes, it’s like trying to answer what do you look/act like? For the moment I’ll go with a Lee Hazelwood fever dream.
3. What is your favorite local band?
A different answer will come about every month or so but I’m pretty impressed by the Terry Malts/Magic Bullets dudes right now.
4. Any concerts that blew your mind recently?
(Thee)Ohsees at Woodsist fest. I’ve seen them play 47 times and they somehow ripped it all apart and played one of their most triumphant shows yet that night, go figure.
5. Any non-musical influences you would like to mention?
Robert Altman’s “Popeye”.
6. If your music was to be the theme of a film/TV show, what would it be?
Maybe if David Lynch directed an episode of Dukes of Hazard.
7. What musician/artist would you like to collaborate with for a day?
Hmmm contemporary I’ll go with John Maus, he’s got fire, we could get shit done, talk philosophy and string synths, it’d be a nice day.
8. What is the album you listen to on a cold rainy day?
Cocteau Twins Treasure or P.M Dawn, maybe Ricky Nelson.
9. List four songs you would listen to on a roadtrip?
My whole life appears to have turned into a never ending roadtrip, these days I prefer an open window and the wind. My ears can only take so much sound.
10. Where do you see yourselves in 7 years?
Walking my son into his 1st day of 4th grade.
11. What is the last book you read?
Read Emerson’s essay Nature, and Alan Moore’s graphic Novel From Hell this past US tour, and was shell shocked by Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking on the Europe tour.
12. Is image a factor in music or is it a waste of time?
It’s absolutely a factor, aesthetic is key to being human.
13. Any embarrassing moments on stage you would like to share?
White pants, bright lights, no underwear, it happens to the best of us.
14. Any favorite tour locations?
Respectively…Barcelona, Berlin, Big Sur, Birmingham, Bologna, Brooklyn are all amazing places to tour that have had key moments for us as a band that begin with the letter B.
15. Lastly, what is your present state of mind?
Exhausted.
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The Fresh & Onlys – Waterfall from Play It Strange (2010)
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Magic Bullets – Lying Around from Magic Bullets (2010)
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