Boris Smile
Encyclopedia
Boris Smile was an indie-pop collective from Long Beach
, California
. Started in 2004 by leader A. Wesley Chung, the band's hallmark characteristic was its blend of singer-songwriter pop with orchestral arrangements. Their style is often compared to David Bazan
, Page France
, The Long Winters
, and Sufjan Stevens
. The band was signed to Count Your Lucky Stars Records
. They disbanded in the summer of 2011.
During the final stages of “Chapter I,” the band began working on the next full-length record, a collection of lo-fi home recordings entitled “Young and it Feels So Good.” Chung produced, engineered, and mixed the 18 track record, recording almost all of it in his dining and living room. After six months of work, the album was released in the spring of 2008. “Young and it Feels so Good” is an exploration of youth culture that touches on four main themes of celebration, social separation, the “culture of cool”, and growth. The album was considered in the top ten best albums of 2008 by music blog The Album Project.
In the Fall of 2008, Boris Smile released the “Beartooth EP.” Produced by Chung and newest recruit Seth Shafer (tuba, keys, arrangements), “Beartooth” stands out as the darkest release in the Boris Smile catalog. The “Beartooth EP” was Boris Smile’s first release with Michigan indie label Count Your Lucky Stars Records. The EP stays true to the pop sensibilities of older Boris Smile while entering a moodier world of Chung’s writing, which is only enhanced by Shafer’s brooding arrangements.
Boris Smile released their “Rockets EP” in March 2010, to mostly positive reviews. The six-track album focuses on a central theme involving the exploration of space and the fears and wonders involved. The growth of the band is made quite clear in this album, from their most recent rendition of the Boris Smile classic “Adventures With Rockets” to the closing track “8.24.06 [The Humbling of a Planet].”
In the Spring of 2011, the band released their final album, "My Love Powered by 10,000 Practice Amps," a 23 track magnum opus celebrating Chung's 2009 experience of living at the L'Abri
community in England. The album is characterized by an eclectic mix of songs and styles and revolves around the themes of community, faith/doubt, and strength in weakness.
With the prospects of marriage, moving, and graduations, the band decided to dismantle in the summer of 2011. Boris Smile played their final show on September 5, 2011 at Fingerprints record store in Long Beach, CA. Band members since have continued to work on their own or in other musical projects: The Great Albatross, Avi Buffalo, Day Nurse, Paulie Pesh, Chase Long Beach, Korey Dane, The Red River, Rainman, Crowd Theory.
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Started in 2004 by leader A. Wesley Chung, the band's hallmark characteristic was its blend of singer-songwriter pop with orchestral arrangements. Their style is often compared to David Bazan
David Bazan
David Bazan is an indie rock singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Bazan was the lead singer and creative force behind the now-defunct band Pedro the Lion and was the lead singer of Headphones, a band he formed out of his interest in synthesizers...
, Page France
Page France
Page France was an American indie folk-pop music band that played melodic and emotional music. Their last record deal was with Suicide Squeeze Records, before the disbandment in 2008, because of band leader Michael Nau wanting to focus his full attention on Cotton Jones.The band was started as a...
, The Long Winters
The Long Winters
The Long Winters is an American indie rock band based in Seattle, Washington.-Early history:Singer-songwriter John Roderick was born in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. He later returned to Seattle, formed the Bun Family Players and the The Western State Hurricanes...
, and Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens is an American singer-songwriter and musician born in Detroit, Michigan. Stevens first began releasing his music on Asthmatic Kitty, a label co-founded with his stepfather, beginning with the 1999 release, A Sun Came...
. The band was signed to Count Your Lucky Stars Records
Count Your Lucky Stars Records
Count Your Lucky Stars Records is an independent record label based out of Fenton, Michigan. The label has released albums from bands such as Empire! Empire! , Annabel, Moving Mountains, Benton Falls, Into It. Over It. and Castevet...
. They disbanded in the summer of 2011.
Music
Boris Smile was formed in 2004 by A. Wesley Chung. While originally created as a solo project named after his young Russian neighbor, it quickly became a band with a rotating door of musicians. Boris Smile released their first full-length record entitled “Chapter I” in the summer of 2007. The album follows Chung’s personal experiences in high school, documenting the angst, self-doubt, and absurdity of youth.During the final stages of “Chapter I,” the band began working on the next full-length record, a collection of lo-fi home recordings entitled “Young and it Feels So Good.” Chung produced, engineered, and mixed the 18 track record, recording almost all of it in his dining and living room. After six months of work, the album was released in the spring of 2008. “Young and it Feels so Good” is an exploration of youth culture that touches on four main themes of celebration, social separation, the “culture of cool”, and growth. The album was considered in the top ten best albums of 2008 by music blog The Album Project.
In the Fall of 2008, Boris Smile released the “Beartooth EP.” Produced by Chung and newest recruit Seth Shafer (tuba, keys, arrangements), “Beartooth” stands out as the darkest release in the Boris Smile catalog. The “Beartooth EP” was Boris Smile’s first release with Michigan indie label Count Your Lucky Stars Records. The EP stays true to the pop sensibilities of older Boris Smile while entering a moodier world of Chung’s writing, which is only enhanced by Shafer’s brooding arrangements.
Boris Smile released their “Rockets EP” in March 2010, to mostly positive reviews. The six-track album focuses on a central theme involving the exploration of space and the fears and wonders involved. The growth of the band is made quite clear in this album, from their most recent rendition of the Boris Smile classic “Adventures With Rockets” to the closing track “8.24.06 [The Humbling of a Planet].”
In the Spring of 2011, the band released their final album, "My Love Powered by 10,000 Practice Amps," a 23 track magnum opus celebrating Chung's 2009 experience of living at the L'Abri
L'Abri
L'Abri is an evangelical Christian organization founded by Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith in Huémoz-sur-Ollon, Switzerland on June 5, 1955. They opened their alpine home as a ministry to curious travellers and as a forum to discuss philosophical and religious beliefs.- The development of...
community in England. The album is characterized by an eclectic mix of songs and styles and revolves around the themes of community, faith/doubt, and strength in weakness.
With the prospects of marriage, moving, and graduations, the band decided to dismantle in the summer of 2011. Boris Smile played their final show on September 5, 2011 at Fingerprints record store in Long Beach, CA. Band members since have continued to work on their own or in other musical projects: The Great Albatross, Avi Buffalo, Day Nurse, Paulie Pesh, Chase Long Beach, Korey Dane, The Red River, Rainman, Crowd Theory.
Current members
- A. Wesley Chung: vocals, acoustic guitarAcoustic guitarAn acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, arrangements - Abigail Davidson: vocals, clarinetClarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, percussion - Avi Zahner: electric guitarElectric guitarAn electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, lap steel - Doug Brown: bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Jon Carman: drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, percussion - Jonathan Morin: violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
- Matt Proffitt: tromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
- Meagan Christy: trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
- Seth Shafer: tubaTubaThe tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, keysKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, arrangement
Past member
- Alan Archambault: electric guitar, lap steel
- Andrew Chen: violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
- Chuck Maizland: electric guitar
- Hannah Ellis: vocals
- Heather Trine: vocals
- Jason Chung: bass
- Jon Palsgrove: drums
- Rory Felton: bass
- Stevie Kugelberg: bass
Contributors
- Brad Lindsay: mandolinMandolinA mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, bass - Ben Vanderbeek: trombone
- Beth Balmer: keys, violaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, accordionAccordionThe accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist.... - Bill Roberts: vocals
- Christie Melby-Gibbons: vocals
- David Melby-Gibbons: vocals
- Ed Keller: French horn, trumpet, glockenspielGlockenspielA glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
- Jessica Garcia: cello
- Jessica "Dobson" Manson: guitar, vocals, bass
- Johanna Vanderbeek: fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, oboeOboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca... - Korey Dane: harmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
- Randy Baranosky: drums
- Rebecca Coleman: vocals
- Rebecca Rivera: bassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
- Steven Carlson: guitar
- Tess Shapiro: vocals
Albums
- Chapter I (2007, self-released)
- Young and It Feels So GoodYoung and It Feels So GoodYoung and it Feels So Good is the full length studio album released by the Long Beach, California band, Boris Smile. The album was self-released in 2008.-Track listing:All songs written by A. Wesley Chung and Boris Smile, except "Seasons" Young and it Feels So Good is the full length studio album...
(2008, self-released) - My Love Powered by 10,000 Practice Amps (expected 2011, Count Your Lucky Stars)
EPs
- Beartooth EPBeartooth EPBeartooth EP is an album released by the Long Beach, California band, Boris Smile. The album was released by Count Your Lucky Stars Records in 2008.-Track listing:All songs written by A. Wesley Chung and Boris Smile.#"Beartooth " - 3:35...
(2008, Count Your Lucky Stars) - Rockets EPRockets EPRockets EP is an album released by the Long Beach, California band, Boris Smile. The album was released by Count Your Lucky Stars Records in 2010.-Track listing:All songs written by A...
(2010, Count Your Lucky Stars)