The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger
Encyclopedia
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger is a band formed in 2008 by Sean Lennon
and Charlotte Kemp Muhl.
and his girlfriend, musician/model
Charlotte Kemp Muhl. The name of the band is from a short story once written by Muhl. Kemp and Lennon met in 2004 at the Coachella Music Festival. In an interview with the UK publication The Daily Telegraph
Lennon commented on their relationship: "Charlotte hadn’t even heard "Strawberry Fields Forever
" when I met her," Lennon said. "And she knew nothing about my mum. Her parents thought I was just a delinquent
, by virtue of association with the famous hippie
delinquents. So it was nice because it was like a bridging of gaps and a collision of galaxies."
Both Lennon and Muhl are multi-instrumentalist
s. Among the instruments the band uses, are the guitar, drums, and also the bayan
. Muhl, also a successful model, has been featured in Maybelline
campaigns, as well as Jennifer Lopez
's clothing brand J Lo. She commented in a recent interview that she uses funds from her modeling work to fund her musical endeavours.
, where they were photographed by famed French photographer Patrick Demarchelier
. In the article Lennon described the musical relationship with Kemp as having parallels to the relationship between his father John Lennon
and writing partner Paul McCartney
, and said his writing relationship with Kemp is like "intellectual tennis
".
In Italian Vogue, a reviewer described their sound as "soft and dreamy and evokes 60s French Pop and Folk Pops' Bohemian
Gypsie atmosphere." For the fall 2010 issue of Purple
, Lennon and Kemp recreated the iconic picture of John Lennon
and Yoko Ono
taken by famous photographer Annie Leibowitz for the cover of Rolling Stone
in 1981. The picture of Kemp and Lennon was taken by photographer Terry Richardson
. In Rolling Stone magazine, Lennon told interviewer Austin Scaggs about the musical dynamics of his relationship with Kemp, juxtaposed with that of John Lennon
and Yoko Ono
: "They were unified as a message and a movement, but she didn't want to write songs with my dad. ... [Kemp and I] love to collaborate. We just have a chemistry." They have also performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
and Conan.
winning Record Producer Mark Ronson
collaborated with The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger to produce a CD in the Summer of 2010: "Jardin Du Luxembourg" Ronson said: "It's a 60s psych thing, quite Brazilian, with Sean and his girlfriend singing in unison."
that it's supposed to convey to listeners the idea of hearing them alone in a living room: "It's almost rough sounding, but hopefully in a charming way. It's mostly acoustic guitar, some piano, some vibraphone
."
rated Acoustic Sessions its Disc of the Week: "The album charms like a countryside circus. You wonder if the Hendersons will all be there, late of Pablo Fanque
’s fair – what a scene, you bet." In the November, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone
a reviewer describes their sound as "sunny" and psychedelic
, and gave it a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5. A Reviewer for NPR
had the following to say about Acoustic Sessions: "Listening to Acoustic Sessions is like stepping into a magical world where a smiling sun shines on fields of dancing flowers while winged creatures flit about in the fragrant air."
(2009). Sean Lennon
contributed the soundtrack to the movie.
in New York.
Sean Lennon
is an American singer, songwriter, musician, guitarist and actor. He is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His godfather is Sir Elton John.-Early life and education:...
and Charlotte Kemp Muhl.
History
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger was formed in 2008 by musician Sean LennonSean Lennon
is an American singer, songwriter, musician, guitarist and actor. He is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His godfather is Sir Elton John.-Early life and education:...
and his girlfriend, musician/model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
Charlotte Kemp Muhl. The name of the band is from a short story once written by Muhl. Kemp and Lennon met in 2004 at the Coachella Music Festival. In an interview with the UK publication The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
Lennon commented on their relationship: "Charlotte hadn’t even heard "Strawberry Fields Forever
Strawberry Fields Forever
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and attributed to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. It was inspired by Lennon's memories of playing in the garden of a Salvation Army house named "Strawberry Field" near his childhood home."Strawberry Fields...
" when I met her," Lennon said. "And she knew nothing about my mum. Her parents thought I was just a delinquent
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...
, by virtue of association with the famous hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
delinquents. So it was nice because it was like a bridging of gaps and a collision of galaxies."
Both Lennon and Muhl are multi-instrumentalist
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...
s. Among the instruments the band uses, are the guitar, drums, and also the bayan
Bayan (accordion)
The bayan is a type of chromatic button accordion developed in Russia in the early 20th century and named after 11th-century bard Boyan.-Characteristics:The bayan differs from western chromatic button accordions in some details of construction:...
. Muhl, also a successful model, has been featured in Maybelline
Maybelline
Maybelline is an American makeup brand sold worldwide and owned by L'Oréal. Their motto is Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.-History:...
campaigns, as well as Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
's clothing brand J Lo. She commented in a recent interview that she uses funds from her modeling work to fund her musical endeavours.
In the Media
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger has received coverage in a variety of publications and online media, exploring the nature of their music, relationship and how the band connects to Lennon's musical heritage. The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger appeared in a two-page spread in Vanity FairVanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, where they were photographed by famed French photographer Patrick Demarchelier
Patrick Demarchelier
Patrick Demarchelier is a French fashion photographer.-Life:Born near Paris in 1943 to a modest family, he spent his childhood in Le Havre with his mother and four brothers. For his seventeenth birthday, his stepfather bought him his first Eastman Kodak camera...
. In the article Lennon described the musical relationship with Kemp as having parallels to the relationship between his father John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and writing partner Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, and said his writing relationship with Kemp is like "intellectual tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
".
In Italian Vogue, a reviewer described their sound as "soft and dreamy and evokes 60s French Pop and Folk Pops' Bohemian
Bohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
Gypsie atmosphere." For the fall 2010 issue of Purple
Purple (magazine)
-History:In 1992, Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm started the magazine Purple Prose as a reaction against the superficial glamour of the 1980’s; much as a part of the global counterculture at the time, inspired by magazines like Interview, Ray Gun, Nova, and Helmut Newton’s Illustrated, but with the...
, Lennon and Kemp recreated the iconic picture of John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
taken by famous photographer Annie Leibowitz for the cover of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
in 1981. The picture of Kemp and Lennon was taken by photographer Terry Richardson
Terry Richardson
Terrence "Terry" Richardson is an American fashion photographer.-Early life:Richardson was born in New York City, the son of Bob Richardson, a fashion photographer who struggled with schizophrenia and drug abuse...
. In Rolling Stone magazine, Lennon told interviewer Austin Scaggs about the musical dynamics of his relationship with Kemp, juxtaposed with that of John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
: "They were unified as a message and a movement, but she didn't want to write songs with my dad. ... [Kemp and I] love to collaborate. We just have a chemistry." They have also performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman....
and Conan.
Jardin Du Luxembourg
Grammy AwardGrammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
winning Record Producer Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson
Mark Daniel Ronson is an English DJ, guitarist, music producer, artist and co-founder of Allido Records. He currently works with his band under the music alias of Mark Ronson & The Business Intl....
collaborated with The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger to produce a CD in the Summer of 2010: "Jardin Du Luxembourg" Ronson said: "It's a 60s psych thing, quite Brazilian, with Sean and his girlfriend singing in unison."
Acoustic Sessions
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger's latest CD, Acoustic Sessions, was released in late October 2010 through their own label, Chimera Music, and was recorded in their own home studio.' Lennon told SpinnerSpinner (website)
Spinner is an AOL Music property, which bills itself as "the ultimate music blog for free MP3s, free CD listening, [and] discovering new artists."...
that it's supposed to convey to listeners the idea of hearing them alone in a living room: "It's almost rough sounding, but hopefully in a charming way. It's mostly acoustic guitar, some piano, some vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
."
Reception
Acoustic Sessions has been released to fairly positive reviews: In October 2010, the Canadian publication The Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
rated Acoustic Sessions its Disc of the Week: "The album charms like a countryside circus. You wonder if the Hendersons will all be there, late of Pablo Fanque
Pablo Fanque
Pablo Fanque was the first black circus proprietor in Britain. His circus, in which he himself was a performer, was the most popular circus in Victorian Britain for 30 years, a period that is regarded as the golden age of the circus...
’s fair – what a scene, you bet." In the November, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
a reviewer describes their sound as "sunny" and psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
, and gave it a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5. A Reviewer for NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
had the following to say about Acoustic Sessions: "Listening to Acoustic Sessions is like stepping into a magical world where a smiling sun shines on fields of dancing flowers while winged creatures flit about in the fragrant air."
Film
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger played for an after-party celebrating the opening of the independent film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are UndeadRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a 2009 American independent film written and directed by Jordan Galland. The film's title refers to a fictitious play-within-the-movie, which is a comic reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its aftermath and whose title is a reference to the play...
(2009). Sean Lennon
Sean Lennon
is an American singer, songwriter, musician, guitarist and actor. He is the only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. His godfather is Sir Elton John.-Early life and education:...
contributed the soundtrack to the movie.
Charity
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger played a benefit concert in August 2010, with all the proceeds going to support the Woodstock Animal SanctuaryAnimal sanctuary
An animal sanctuary is a facility where animals are brought to live and be protected for the rest of their lives. Unlike animal shelters, sanctuaries do not seek to place animals with individuals or groups, instead maintaining each animal until his or her natural death...
in New York.