Sound Team was an American band based in Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

 that formed in 2000 around principal songwriters Bill Baird and Matt Oliver. For most of their recording career, Sound Team consisted of Bill Baird (bass, guitar, vocals), Matt Oliver (guitar, piano, vocals), Jordan Johns (drums, percussion), Sam Sanford (guitar), Michael Baird (synthesizer, tapes) and Gabe Pearlman (organ). Sanford and Michael Baird left the group in 2006. The band continued to record and tour briefly with a new lineup, but finally disbanded in late 2007 after receiving one of the worst reviews ever handed out from Pitchfork.

Formation and early shows

Bill Baird and Matt Oliver met in Austin in 2000 and began recording crazy songs on cheap gear that drew inspiration out of everything from traditional American folk

American folk music

American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American...

 and pop song

Pop Song

Pop Song is the first single by the Drugs. It was released in 2000 and earned the Drugs some positive press. It has been described as "addictive". A live version was released on The Only Way Is Up...

 forms to German synthesizer music

Krautrock

Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...

. They released two CD-R albums, Sound Team and Into the Lens.

Line-up solidified, early releases and tours

In 2002 Baird's younger brother Michael, Michael’s friend Jordan Johns (both of whom were still in high school at the time), and old friend Sam Sanford all enlisted, and after they had played a handful of shows in various performance spaces and punk dives, Gabe Pearlman joined in early 2003.

The group released two cassettes

Cassette culture

Cassette culture, or the cassette underground , refers to the practices surrounding amateur production and distribution of recorded music that emerged in the late 1970s via home-made audio cassettes...

, Every Day Is a New Year and the "Yes" Special Cassette, and their audience continued to grow. After touring throughout 2003 and 2004, the group continued to work dead-end jobs, pooled their cash, and converted an abandoned record-pressing plant into a make-shift analog recording

Analog recording

Analog recording is a technique used for the recording of analog signals which among many possibilities include audio frequency, analog audio and analog video information for later playback.Analog recording methods store signals as a continual wave in or on the media...

 studio. The result was the Marathon LP, which appeared on the St. Ives label, a vinyl-only imprint of Indiana's Secretly Canadian

Secretly Canadian

Secretly Canadian is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana. It was started in 1996 by Chris and Ben Swanson, Eric Weddle, and Jonathan Cargill. Their first release was a re-issue of an album by June Panic...

. In the fall of 2005, several songs from previous cassette and vinyl releases appeared on the WORK EP.

Contract with EMI and break-up

In 2005, the band was signed to a contract with the Capitol Records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

 label. Support slots on several tours culminated with an appearance in Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

 opening for Arcade Fire. In June 2006, Capitol released their debut album, "Movie Monster". Although the album was met with generally positive reviews, commercial sales were poor. Another factor negatively affecting sales of the album was that, unbeknownst to the band, Capitol set the album price at an astronomical $18.98. After extensive touring in support of the album, both Sam Sanford and the younger Baird left the band for other pursuits (oil painting and a college degree, respectively). Will Patterson was enlisted as a replacement. In 2007, after a massive shake-up at Capitol in which the band's A&R rep and the president of the company (who'd signed the band) was fired, Sound Team was dropped from the EMI label. Sound Team released a vinyl EP, Empty Rooms/Bedroom Walls/Up from Ashes, and shot a Take-Away Show acoustic video for La Blogotheque that year, but internal friction in the group led to their decision to break up, and on September 15, 2007, Sound Team played their last show at the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival

Austin City Limits Music Festival

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is an annual three-day American music festival that takes place in Austin, Texas at the city's central public park, Zilker Park...

. Subsequently, the band released their entire recorded catalog as high-quality MP3 downloads, completely free of charge, on their website (now inactive).

Post break-up

Bill Baird began performing under the moniker as early as 2006, and performances frequently include former Sound Team members Sam Sanford and Will Patterson. Meanwhile, Matt Oliver and Jordan Johns continued to operate the analog recording studio at Big Orange Recording, and began performing as TV Torso in 2009.

Albums

• Sound Team (2002)
  • CD-R release

• Into the Lens (2002)
  • CD-R release
  1. "Don't Imbibe the TV"
  2. "Glad Tidings"
  3. "Out of Control"
  4. "Faraway"
  5. "Beef Captain"
  6. "Angler Fish's Bulb"
  7. "Talk to the Ocean (I Can't Find the Words)"
  8. "Free"
  9. "Everything Is Possible"
  10. "Life Is RAD (Just Say Yes)"
  11. "The Lens Stares Back"
  12. "Beef Captain" (Reprise)
  13. "Floating Around"
  14. "Cold Blooded Woman of Sin"
  15. "LaMonte Young"
  16. "SK5"
  17. "Everything Is Possible" (Reprise)
  18. "Darkness Falls"
  19. "Faraway" (Reprise)
  20. "Life Is SAD (Moog Fugue)"
  21. "But Don't Cry" ("Angler Fish's Bulb" Reprise)
  22. "The TV Imbibed ME"

• "Yes" Special Cassette (2003)
  • Cassette release
  1. "Color of the Love You Have"
  2. "Vermont"
  3. "Journey of 1,000 Steps"
  4. "Electric Stallion"
  5. "Your Eyes Are Liars"

• Every Day Is a New Year (2003)
  • Cassette release
  1. "Feeling of Wonder"
  2. "Tina Timex"
  3. "Don't Turn Away"
  4. "It's Obvious What's Happening Here"
  5. "Big Orange"

• Marathon (2005)
  • St. Ives Records SAINT11 (vinyl LP only)
  1. "The Fastest Man Alive"
  2. "Your Eyes Are Liars"
  3. "Orange Bird"
  4. "In the Dark No One Can Hear You Sweat"
  5. "Back in Town"
  6. "Shattered Glass"
  7. "Afterglow Years
  8. "Don't Turn Away"

• "Movie Monster" (June 6, 2006 - USA; September 25, 2006 - UK)
  • Capitol Records CDP 72438-60594-2-0 (USA); Parlophone Records 09463-63155-2-2 (UK)
  1. "Get Out"
  2. "Born to Please"
  3. "No More Birthdays"
  4. ""Movie Monster""
  5. "TV Torso"
  6. "Back in Town"
  7. "Your Eyes Are Liars"
  8. "Afterglow Years"
  9. "Shattered Glass"
  10. "You've Never Lived a Day"
  11. "Handful of Billions"

EPs

• WORK EP (December 27, 2005 - USA; June 12, 2006 - UK)
  • Capitol Records CDP 09463-31417-2-8 (USA); Parlophone TEAM 002 (UK)
  • "Don't Turn Away" is not featured on the UK pressing
  1. "The Fastest Man Alive"
  2. "It's Obvious What's Happening Here"
  3. "Orange Bird"
  4. "In the Dark No One Can Hear You Sweat"
  5. "Don't Turn Away"

• Empty Rooms/Bedroom Walls/Up from Ashes (August 7, 2007)
  • Big Orange Records (vinyl only)
  1. "Empty Rooms"
  2. "Bedroom Walls"
  3. "Up from Ashes"

Singles

• "Born to Please" (September 18, 2006 - UK)
  • CD (Parlophone CDCL 877):
  1. "Born to Please"
  2. "No More Birthdays" (Phil Spector Folk)/"San Francisco Bay, Early Morning, 1849"
  3. ""Movie Monster"" (Wide Open Space of Big Orange Version)
  • Red-colored 7" vinyl (Parlophone CL 877):
  1. "Born to Please"
  2. "Feeling of Wonder"

External links

• Sound Team's official website (now inactive)
• Sound Team's official MySpace page
• Music video for "Your Eyes Are Liars" on YouTube
• Music video for "Born to Please" on YouTube
• Sound Team live audio archive
• Big Orange Recording Studio site
• website
• TV Torso website
• Sleep Good/Will Patterson's music page

Reviews

• Review of Into the Lens in Austin Chronicle
• [ Review of Into the Lens on Allmusic]
• [ Review of Sound Team on Allmusic]
• Review of "Movie Monster" in Subculture Magazine
• Review of "Movie Monster" on Pitchfork