Makeing Tents is an experimental pastel survivalist band from San Francisco. This sonic art project formed in the Fall of 2009, when 3 friends embarked on a road trip through the desert wilderness of America's Southwest. After discovering a shared love of camping, DIY, building things and musical exploration, they aligned themselves and dubbed the affair after the simple act of creating shelter.
Makeing Tents "Heavy Metal Gazebo" EP by Makeing Tents
We played our first show in November 2009 at Studio 3579, as part of the art opening "Toys Don't Cry" a solo show by 2 of the band's members, who create visual art under the moniker SCUBA. This performance featured a tent, a panda suit, and an all acoustic set.
Later they went on to add to their sound, becoming more in tune with eachother and their creative output, writing and recording a 6 song EP titled "Heavy Metal Gazebo" on Human Ear Records. With this cache of songs recorded onto a limited number of hand-made CDs, they embarked on their first east coast tour. Shortly after returning home, the trio disbanded over creative differences.
Makeing Tents is: Jean Yaste (vox, bass), Crockett Bodelson (guitar, beats, trumpet) and Sandra Wang (synths, keys, melodica). Jean Yaste went on to create Clouds and currently plays in the band Future Twin. She also makes installation destroyer art in the form of tents, forts and treehouses (www.sarajeanyaste.com). Sandra and Crockett continue to make art under the moniker SCUBA (www.drawingwhiledriving.com) and travel the world. A short film featuring the song "Lights On", directed by Aaron Buttig and Heidi Petty, and art directed by SCUBA, is slated for release in 2011.
Exploratorium sojourn
March 2010
Featuring new song "We are Experiments"
filmed by: David Brewer
We started a blog
http://makeingtents.tumblr.com/
check it out, we got a mention in olympia's alt weekly, the volcano:
MAKEING TENTS
Saturday, May 22
To intentionally misspell a word makes me very uncomfortable. For a band to utilize a misspelled word is, to me, almost as bad as creating an unpronounceable name (!!!, for example). So, it's with a slight cringe that I write to you regarding Makeing Tents. And just now, Microsoft Word tried to correct me. Despite the band turning up their nose at the English language, Makeing Tents is deserving of attention. Creating music that they refer to as "electro-wilderness" - a term that denotes the mashing together of folk and electronics - the band frequently finds and presents arresting moments that result from the collision of musical viewpoints. Now, if only I could convince them to borrow my copy of A Writer's Reference. Meet me half-way, Makeing Tents. - Rev. AM
[Le Voyeur, with Soft Paws, Thought Bandit, 10 p.m., no cover, 404 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia, 360.943.5710]
NORTHWEST MINI TOUR
OLYMPIA!
art: ashley miller
Back from the Great NorthWest - In Hiding
So…the tour was super fun. We slept in tents, discovered a Portland mansion that has been opened up to artists and musicians to work, live, and create in. A documentary about it is coming out, dubbed “28 Days in May.”
In Olmypia we camped out at Calliope Farm, slept in a field after a punk rock show next to some horses. The whole show was a benefit for Mikey, who was out camping himself and hopped over a fence to go pee, then as he was coming back, was SHOT!! in the leg by the person who owned the fence property…wtf?!?!?
We donated some beer, bought some beneficial hamburgers (thanks Adam) and drank some hot toddies on the house (they saw us counting change and took pity on us).
Tim from Together Gallery was one of the raddest hosts ever. He basically let us and Turn Key Project (a local dance troupe who held a silent art auction the same evening), run amok in his space. He has his art studio behind the gallery, with an old piano in it too!!! Nucular Aminals, Soft Paws and Orca Team were all mind blowing. We even got a 7” from Soft Paws and a sweet tape from Orca Team (thanks guys!!). After the Portland show, a bunch of us went to the KNOW, sang karaoke, and expounded on digging a tunnel from Tim’s house (2 houses away from the bar) to where we were standing. Gotta have easy access….
PORTLAND!
art: jen sandwich
'IN ANOTHER DECADE ROCK AND ROLL WILL BE ART'
Musician's-Curated Art Show May 23 @ Together Gallery, Portland
fly by night
art show
starts at 4pm
we hang all
damn day
feed your head
music sounds
at 7pm
BBQ??
secret
garden
directionless
featuring the wiley sounds of animal-enthralled:
Orca Team surf pop summertime dance parties
Nucular Aminals mutants scooting through the arizona sand
Soft Paws bushwakked soft boyz stud heavy rhythms
& Makeing Tents electro wilderness burnnn
visual works by:
Ashley Miller Neighors
Ethan Hollman Soft Paws
Robert Komets Nucular Aminals
Matthew Strange Hawkeye
Jean Yaste Makeing Tents
Jen Sandwich
Together Gallery
www.togethergallery.com
2916 NE Alberta St Portland, Oregon 97211 (503) 288-8879
without missing a beat, we’re playing a house show in oakland this friday. our friend jen sandwich made this raaaad flyer for us. thanks jen!!
some love from cincy...
gettin ready to hit the east coast for a mini tour april 6-20, 2010 w. our good friends CAVES and Baby Alpaca
4.08.10 @ glasslands, brooklyn
4.10.10 @ northside tavern, cincinnati
4.15.10 @ the fire, philadelphia
4.17.10 @ the alley gallery, bushwick, nyc
420 Roundup of our first tour: too much fun
After much ado, we are on our way back home. The east coast, especially brooklyn, proved to be a treasure trove of oddities and loves.
After playing beneath a chandelier of clouds at Glasslands with our good friends and San Francisco natives, CAVES, we wandered to a rooftop party along the river. Alas, the rain began, so we decided to ditch carrying gear up 7 flights of stairs only to risk electrocution, and simply stayed up all night with boy genuis Virgil Polite. Polite blew us away when we saw photos of an airplane he built when he was 14. We wiled away the wee hours thanking him for the omnichord he gifted us and playing with the myriad of electro-engineered toys he constructs for music videos and other creative endeavors, integrating art and technology in a beautiful and seamless fashion. We’re looking forward to seeing him in San Francisco soon! A few days later we caught up with Al and Ronnie of Neon Indian in Bedford for some karaoke, and delivered a harrowingly drunk rendition of Talking Heads “Take Me to the River.” Later Al tore it up with “Jessie’s Girl,” man that dude can dance!
Next up we traveled all the way to Cincinnati to play a single show at the Northside Tavern (driving 10 hours from Brooklyn…Crockett’s a ROCK!). Sandra and Crockett tasted their first bite of Skyline Chili (strange concoction of chili on spaghetti noodles with oyster crackers) and perused the selection of overalls at Casablanca Vintage…. Our good friends Lucia and Gabe of the Mobo Bike Coop put us up and made us a most tasty breakfast of heuvos and hash. We also got to nestle in the hills above the trainyards with Jay Bolotin and check out his closing show at Carl Solway Gallery. Pretty amazing stuff, we look forward to seeing his next feature length film comprised entirely of woodcut prints in the fall. After thanking Megan Hutch for setting up the show and drinking a few beers with old friends (Jean’s from Cincy sorta), we headed back to Brooklyn.
Later we traveled to Philly, to play at a cool spot called the Fire, also home to IOU Records. The booker/label dude, Derek, is super cool and is coming to SF in a month to race a 400 mile-long bicycle race. Good luck man and come drink a beer with us after you’re done gettin sweaty. Our friends CAVES were playing down the street so we went to catch their show too and they tore it up!! Their new 7” came out just a few days ago, and a couple dudes who bought em were on their knees playing air guitar after their set. Taking that as a pretty good sign for what’s to come. I helped them mix and master the 7”, and sing on the title track “Face the Wall,” which was guerilla recorded at Grace Cathedral in SF with the help of Andrew Duncan and Sound Arts.
Post Philly, we met up with soft and cuddly Baby Alpaca aka Chris Kittrell, back in Brooklyn. Chris and I went to a few crazy partys with Brahms and stayed up more all nighters…met some interesting folks from a ‘consensus-based’ art space called Surreal Estate. These kids are the same folks who repainted over the bike lanes in Brooklyn after Bloomberg was baited with campaign funds to paint over them in the first place. Public Safety = 0, late young entertainment and sticking up for our rights = 100!
These kids hosted a tri-level anarcho film & music festival, which was conveniently located across the street from Baby Alpaca’s place, sometimes Anarchy is easier than you think** Definitely want to check this spot out next time. Thanks again Matthew for showing us your ultra cool digs.
Lastly, we hunkered down in an old drug dealer’s house from the 70s, complete with black lights on dimmer switches, a baby grand piano, glitter on all the ceilings and a wall made of mirrors….strange times and fast tales await us…till Sandra’s childhood piano teacher picked us up to take us to Newark airport. Thanks Fran!!
art: kate mosey
3.21.2010
photo by jen sandwich
exploratorium, san francisco, 3.12.2010
photo by jen sandwich
THIS SATURDAY! WE PLAY THE BUS FOR THE FIRST TIME!! 8PM AT ASHBY BART STATION SF CA
we're in today's paper!
SF Chron says "Makeing Tents: SF Trio makes own rules"
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Only 3 months old, this trio says they formed after "road trippin' through the desert." The name came to them during this journey, while they were piecing their tent together "one scrap at a time " - which is both meant literally and is a pun, referring to where its materials derived from. Makeing Tents explains that the name refers to building one's home.
Guitarist Crockett Bodelson experiments with vocal rhythms and growls, which the band refers to as "mouth drums," that complement vocalist-bassist Jean Yaste's androgynous poem-chants that tell tales of complacent cubicle lifestyles ("Rows and Boxes"), making tents ("Makeing Tents") and the choice to stay or go ("Lights On"). Basic beats, synth spirals, precise percussion and night howls are fixed into a sound that the band calls "electro wildernessss."
The band has performed only a handful of times, but each show has been memorable. The musicians played an acoustic set in a tent, and have performed while one member wore a panda suit and while all members were adorned with tribal-esque face paint. Makeing Tents is filming its first music video for "Lights On," and is recording its first release.
Lineup: Crockett Bodelson, guitar; Jean Yaste, vocals, bass; Sandra Wang, keyboard.
Who are your musical influences?
Outer space, piano teachers and instrument orphanage.
Who are your nonmusical influences?
Yoko Ono.
What is the ideal setting for someone to hear your music?
Inside of a tent, spaceship or trunk of a car.
Do you have any pre- or post-show food, indulgence or ritual?
Pre - sometimes Crockett communes with his panda suit, Sandra makes wash paintings in the tent, Jean drinks some whiskey. ... After shows we usually try to find some sweet and savory treats.
If you were a character from a movie, what character would you be? Why?
SW: Zombie extra to learn sweet dance moves.
CB: Dan Marino in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" 'cause I want to go to Miami.
JY: Odile from "Band of Outsiders," at the moment Odile sings a song on the subway about people who are "tender stones worn down too soon."
Check it out: www.myspace.com/makeingtents, www.drawingwhiledriving.com.
Next gig: 10 tonight. $7. With Grass Widow, Broken Water. The Knockout, 3223 Mission St., S.F. (415) 550-6994. www.theknockoutsf.com.
- Michelle Broder Van Dyke, bandwidth@sfchronicle.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/11/NS3L1CATL5.DTL
This article appeared on page G - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
© 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.
March 2010
Makeing Tents in March (spaceships, girls, gays)
flyer art by SCUBA
on march 11, san francisco trio makeing tents welcome Broken Water all the way from olympia, and are super stoked to share the knockout stage with local darlings Grass Widow (they're also playing Noise Pop!!). This naturale event will be a girl studded affair, we just may bring xtra flowerssss to show our love. 9pm. $5
the very next night, March 12, we're playing the EXPLORATORIUM's evening hours music night. we're very honored to play this event, especially since we're so new. thanks science! we're bringing a spaceship we recently built (for our first music video, "Lights On") for the kiddies to fly, and will do our damndest to clean up the swearing in our songs. in the meantime, we're thinking of strange and curious ways to hook up xylophones to delay pedals then play them through tent FX..... IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN AS MUCH AS THE ADULTS. 6 - 9pm. Admission? email me if ya want on the guest/press list....life is easy when it's FREEEEE
by SCUBA
at theeee end of the month, March 25, we'll be storming Kimo's penthouse lounge with the queer friendly folk of Awesomes, Myles Cooper USA Band, 9021-ho! and Orca Team (portland). All of the musicians tonight (most of whom are gay) will be makeing a wild combination. Risque tent fornication encouraged. 9pm. $5
in the future??? well...we're takin that same damn spaceship to the beach this weekend to finish shooting our first music video...and just got signed to Human Ear Music!! we're also heading to the east coast in april, and the grand northwest in may. great times good tunezzz.
hugs,
makeing tents
1.29.2010 {{HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG BRO!!!}}
whoa still recooperating after playing DADFAG's record release last night, damn those cats are pretty much mind blowing, so stoked that they asked us to play. yeah!!! and thanks erik for fillin in on bird whistle and sound efx. the sound guy said we should build a wall of sound and that the loudmouth guy was 'special.' we know he's very special indeed :)
aside from playing shows, we are recording songssss for a debut EP, conceptualizing alien desires for video dreaminess, and breaking into hottubs at the ritz carlton.
hugs from the future,
mt
flyer art by Eva, paint smudges by SCUBA
1.14.2010 OUTDOORABLE
'nature at night' from jan. 16th show at rooz in oakland w. racoons and soft paws
outdoorable show with soft paws and raccoons was sooooo fun! i've known justin and ethan from soft paws since we were 15!!!!!! cra cra. it's good to see they're still keepin it real. we're a looong way from cincy. hopefully soon makeing tents can go visit them in portland and build a cardboard jungle. oh and thanks to Ziasutra for filming the show. xo
"Here's an odd new Pop that someones are calling Electro Wilderness and it was a great way to start the rainy season at Rooz in Oakland." -Ziasutra
November 2009
featuring waseim mansour on harp
filmed by peter larsen
san francisco, CA
first show ever!!!! at studio 3579 in mission. we brought a tent, they gave all of our friends tons of wine, makeing tents cohorts Sandra and Crockett aka SCUBA showed paintings as part of their "Toys Don't Cry" art show. so much fun and thank you waseim for playing harp you're amazing.
limited supply
