Curtains for You

Curtains for You
Origin	Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Genres	Pop Indie
Years active	2004–present

Members	Matthew Gervais Michael Gervais Nick Holman Peter Fedofsky Dave Lawrence

Curtains for You is a five-piece indie-pop band from Seattle, Washington. The band consists of Matthew Gervais (lead vocal/guitar), Mike Gervais (lead guitar/saxophone/vocals), Nick Holman (bass/euphonium/vocal), Peter Fedofsky (piano/vocals), and Dave Lawrence (drums). They are heavily influenced by '60s pop, in particular, parallels can be drawn to the music of The Beatles and The Kinks. Comparisons to Harry Nilsson have been made, and the band has made no secret their love of his music and vocal style. They are mainstays of the nascent Seattle retro-pop scene, and play regularly on bills with other similar artists of the Seattle retro-pop scene, such as Andy Werth.

Critically, the band is described by the Seattle Power Pop Blog as "...a really solid outfit that use interesting sounds and rely on a constant shuffle beat to churn out mid-tempo tunes that sound a little bit like Jellyfish if they had listened to a lot of Stephen Foster and New Orleans dirges."^[1] Megan Seling of Seattle's The Stranger has this to say of the band, "Given that the whole '70s-pop/vaudevillian/Harry Nilsson thing is big right now (right?), it's a good time to get turned on to Curtains for You, a local pop band claiming to find inspiration in Harry Nilsson, Rufus Wainwright, and The Beach Boys. It's a pretty grown-up version of some of the stuff that's big with the kids right now (e.g., Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground), but it's got a catchy, wistful attitude with piano-bar playfulness and croons about being fucked up. They play the part of vintage poppers, that's for sure. I bet they even wear suits and ties to practice." (The Stranger, January 10, 2008)

Stephanie Guerrero of mel.opho.be reviewed a performance of the band, saying "Curtains for You’s music has a nostalgia to it that I do not often find when attending music events... Standing there listening to them in the middle of the honky-tonk Tractor Tavern, I couldn't help but feel I had been transported to a Wild West saloon."^[2]

Songwriting

The songwriting duties fall to Matt Gervais and Peter Fedofsky, both celebrated songwriters for their solo work. A winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Gervais has scored international songwriting fame with a collaboration of his, Dui Bu Qi, Xie Xie, made famous by Eason Chan.^[3]^[4] The song peaked on the Hong Kong charts at No. 6. Of Gervais' writing, Barbara Mitchell of The Stranger says that Matt is "A master of glorious, sophisticated, swoon-inducing pop," comparing him to Rufus Wainwright.^[5] Gervais came to the attention of the Seattle scene via a songwriting workshop with Goodness singer, Carrie Akre. Akre duetted with Matt on the first Curtains for You EP, Speaking In Circles. Both Gervais and Fedofsky also had a brief stint in Akre's live band.^[6] During their tenure in the band, they played a live set on internationally acclaimed radio station, KEXP, in Seattle, as well as playing the mainstage at The Triple Door in Seattle.

Fedofsky has been profiled twice on NPR's Second Stage and All Songs Considered for his solo records recorded for the RPM Challenge. Robin Hilton of NPR said, "Fedofsky's songs draw heavily on the melodies and harmonies of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, ELO and Buddy Holly." Bob Boilen of NPR echoed that statement saying, that Fedofsky "has a sound reminiscent of The Beach Boys^[7]^[8] Indie Pop website, Three Imaginary Girls reviewed a solo EP by Fedofsky saying, "Part Pet Sounds, part Beatles For Sale, part Burt Bacharach, the six songs here take a profound love of 60's vocal pop and wrap it up with a frilly 4-part vocal harmony bow. Fellow retro-pop dreamer Ben Folds would have given his bitter little heart to have written a chord progression as earnest and lovely as "The Unwritten Letter." Still, Fedofsky isn't above using the very un-60's lyric "bullshit" in the George Harrison-styled "Silly Boy Dreams".^[9]

Releases

The band released an EP called Speaking In Circles in 2006, featuring a duet with Carrie Akre called "We Slept Too Late". The track had airplay on KEXP and was the start of a brief working relationship between Akre and the band.

The band released their first full length LP, Heaven's Waiting, on April 20, 2007. The band celebrated the release with a live set at Easy St. Records in Seattle, Washington. The album was immediately picked up for rotation on KEXP.^[10] Subsequently, Curtains for You performed live on-the-air on the August 25th broadcast of KEXP's local program, Audioasis.^[11] The album was voted one of the best Northwest releases of 2007 by indie-pop website, Three Imaginary Girls, landing at No. 31 out of 100.^[12]

In May 2008, the band convened at London Bridge Studio along with engineer and producer, Geoff Ott to record their second LP. In August 2009, the band was signed to Spark and Shine records. The album, What A Lovely Surprise to Wake Up Here was released on October 20, 2009.

References

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