Happy music from the edge of the world

Call and Response in 2001, around the time of their eponymous album

Call and Response in the early 2000s. Their last show was in 2005

Little-known band Call and Response are now long gone as a musical unit, but the freshness and joy of their West Coast sound resonates today as it did at the turn of the millennium when it was recorded.

Their sparkling clean sound, driven by some of the sweetest melodies and harmonies to be found outside the 1960s has a timeless quality.

The band hailed from Santa Barbara, California, before making San Francisco their home. They were never signed by a major record label, but put out a number of recordings through independent labels. Their debut single, the delightful Rollarskate, was released in 2000. It was followed a year later by their first album, which was named after the band.

At the heart of their music was a collaborative approach to dreaming up catchy melodies, together with the use of some instruments that would have been considered retro even in 2000, and the projection of an unswerving sunny disposition that by all accounts reflected exactly who they were.

Organist and singer Carrie Clough and main keyboardist Simone Rubi were both classically trained. Also in the band was innovative guitarist Dan Judd, bassist Terri Loewenthal, and Jordan Dalrymple on drums. Most of the group could competently play a variety of instruments.

The guitar, bass and drums are often heard layering across one another and striking unexpected time signatures that give an otherwordly feel to the music. Add in vocal harmonies, together with a variety of Moog and analogue synthisisers and organs - including a wurlitzer - and you have the ingredients to make a West Coast sunshine sound with elements of pop, electronic and "bubblegum funk".

As for the happy vibe, that was explained by Rubi during an interview with the Tucson Weekly in November 2001. "You can hear a kind of longing in the songs, but then the lyrics are really happy. Especially at a time with all this hip-hop/metal stuff, it's so over the top it's almost obscene. So we were trying to bring back the idea of beautiful music again," she said.

It was while sitting in an independent, arthouse-type cinema in Santa Monica, California, that I first took notice of Call and Response. It was 2001, and I was waiting to see a movie in the Laemmle Monica Film Center on 2nd Street. At that time the theatre would play music during the pre-show wait, giving exposure to new, independently-released music.



The aforementioned Rollerskate and California Floating in Space were the two Call and Response tracks included in the pre-show loop. Both songs jumped out with their dreamy lightness and that puzzling mixture of new and retro sounds. Perhaps tellingly, I can no longer recall what film I had gone to watch that day, but those two songs left an impression, and in time I tried to track down information about the band.

Call and Response in concert

While the music of Call and Response was once difficult to find, happily it is now widely available for purchase and digital download. I highly recommend their first album, which drifts along with a freshness and joy, and a timeless mystique - music that belongs in the here and now, but references a soft focus mixture of fondly recalled yesteryears.

In a world that feels increasingly smaller due to faster and easier global travel and the instant connectedness of the internet, it is worth remembering a time only a few centuries ago when "old world" settlers first arrived in North America. The final frontier was the western horizon and the great unknown that lay beyond. Gradually the final frontier was pushed further westward until the Pacific Ocean was reached and the "new world" had been explored.

However it can be argued that California, at the western edge of continental USA, remains psychologically the edge of the world, a place where frontiers of innovation and thought continue to be pushed back - from the digital dynamism of Silicon Valley to the movie wonderland of Los Angeles.

Therefore, it is fitting that the music of Call and Response, which so transcends time and place, came from California's coastal fringe. It is indeed happy music from the edge of the world.

Click below to hear Call and Response's catchy The Fool



For further reading:
Call and Response at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, in 2001.
Pre-album release article (SF Weekly, January 2001)

Update (June 18, 2016): Below is what may be the only live performance of Call and Response on YouTube. It features a few short interviews with band members backstage, and wraps up with the band on stage playing Stars Have Eyes, a song from their debut album.