There’s something called small smiles. It’s a quirky approach to smiling, in which the smiler attempts to suppress the smile to a restricted breadth. It sounds silly, and it is, maybe even eerie, like something from The Twilight Zone; but it’s also quite difficult to achieve, the primary obstacle being laughter. To simply not smile largely seems to affect the opposite, and the act of smiling small usually ends with a giggle. While the small sensation may not be sweeping the nation, it does enjoy a local following: mainly, the band Brook and River and their friends.
“I can’t not small smile anymore, it’s just built in,” says Grady Bell of Brook and River. “It’s just an expression… just a smaller than normal smile… It’s like a triangle face, you could call it, it looks ridiculous… It just looks stupid, and all our friends decided to do it because they’re idiots.” He says this with a rather large smile.
Brook and River is a burgeoning and constantly evolving rock and roll pop group with deeply anchored South Bay roots. They originally formed in Santa Cruz about three years ago when two Mira Costa grads began playing music under a moniker taken from the pages of Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. Grady Bell (bass, guitar, vocals, songwriter, class of ‘08) and Michael Hiller (guitar, bass, vocals, songwriter, class of ‘07) essentially started out as a psychedelically derived acoustic folk rock duo, basing simple songs around harmonized vocals and drippy instrumental wanderings.
“Grady and I moved up to Santa Cruz with the intentions of getting out of LA and writing a shitload of songs, and playing shows five times a week,” says Hiller. “We started playing acoustic stuff, based around simple chord changes and catchy melodies… it was just Grady and myself and two acoustic guitars, and a shaker. Grady and I wanted to try more, add more… We both had drums in mind, and since we didn’t know anyone there yet we put out a Craigslist ad and our first response was Sean.”
Brook and River expanded their approach with Sean Erickson on drums, and the band quickly turned out the full-length LP “Inside Voices” in 2010, with a catchy rock and roll sound that still carried the folk-psych element from their beginnings. But the youthful band’s artistic hunger yearned for further growth. For a time, their lineup included fellow Costa grad James Watson on organs, and current member David Joseph on trombone and trumpet.
“It soon just turned into rock and roll and there was nothing we could do to stop it,” says Hiller.
As represented on their followup EP “Walk and Roll” (2011), their blossoming sound soon became an extremely catchy psych-pop sound — with a refined focus on Beatle-esque backup vocals and more of an emphasis on concise, albeit powerful electric guitar solos. The track “NS #2” was actually featured in the clip for Best Video during the 2011 Surfer’s Poll awards. The band has also attracted airplay from LMU and USC’s campus radio stations.
To date, Bell says they’re currently applying an even more pop-oriented approach that is more melody-influenced with the addition of the trombone, the absence of organ, and slightly less focus on rocking guitar solos.
“Nowadays, we are incorporating more of an indie rock feel,” he says. “Our main influences consist of bands like The Shins, Wilco, and friends we’ve been playing with from around the area, such as Pratley and Fiore. The classic psychedelic rock sound that you can hear on our previous EP is still present, but there is a more poppy feel.”
Their perpetually shifting sound is projected to produce yet another LP by summer 2012.
So by now, you’re probably still wondering what on earth unnaturally repressed smirks have to do with anything…
1. The act itself was created by the band’s friend and former MCHS classmate Ian Webb; who operates in the same musical circle as Brook and River while playing in the band Whippoorwill.
2. The fact that the act caught on and asserted itself as a fixture throughout their peer-base is reflective of the band’s infectious quality, both on and off stage.
3. Ultimately, the nature of the small and seemingly useless phenomena evolved into something more focused: Small Smile Records.
Bell explains, “Small Smile Records is a relatively new artist collective created by our friend James Watson. It’s comprised of musicians, artists, photographers, sculptures… all of whom are close friends. We haven’t done much with it yet, but hope to book events and post various projects for the worldwide web to see.”
Some of the bands in the collective include Fiore, Whippoorwill, Criminal Hygiene, and Pratley (to which former Brook & River member James Watson belongs).
Lastly, Brook and River will be bringing their small smiles to Saint Rocke on Friday, Apr. 13, where they’ll be joined by 100 Monkeys, and The Hellohounds (and hopefully not Jason Voorhees).
B&R will also be playing at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz on Apr. 25, and has plans to do a mini-west coast tour during the summer to promote their new LP. B&R’s debut LP, EP, and early acoustic demos can be heard on www.DirtyHippieRadio.com, along with an LP by Fiore. ER
