MAURICE TANI: 77 EL DEORA with JENN COURTNEY AT ANGELICA'S BELL THEATRE & BISTRO

Wry to Romantic American Songwriter Comes to Redwood City on Thursday, August 30th @ 8:00 p.m.

Americana artist Maurice Tani and his band 77 El Deora featuring vocalist Jenn Courtney comes to Redwood City to perform their unique and sophisticated take on American music this summer. The Bay Area-based 6-piece, alt-country/Americana outfit, formed in 2004, will be making their debut appearance at Angelica's Bell Theatre & Bistro, Thursday, August 30th.

Tani, Courtney & 77 El Deora represent the best in Americana:  smart without making a fuss about it. The lyrics are worldly but universal. The musical ideas hit home. The playing is as good as you’re going to hear this side of Austin. Above all, the band covers a lot of ground, from wistful ballads to hard driving honky-tonk rock, from personal meditations to satirical cultural observations, from electrified twang to down-home acoustic. Once in a while, they even find new shades of meaning in some cover you thought had been long since played out. This band is different. This band is special.

“All in all, possibly the best indie ‘Americana’ band to come from the Bay Area . . . ever . . . period. No doubt they have outgrown the local retro based hickabilly scene . Let’s hope they keep it up and get the attention they so richly deserve.” - Paul Olguin

The group's third record, The Crown & The Crow’s Confession was released this past year. On this new studio recording, the band jangles some familiar nerves and scuffs up some new ground off their beaten path. From their lightest to their darkest forms, the songs are examinations on the conflict of the human condition. Deception, obsession, delusion, denial, damnation, renewal, redemption, mysticism, snake oil saviors, bad debts, cheatin', lyin', drinkin', dyin', broken hearts, shattered dreams, twangy guitars and tattered hearts.

“This music is neither retro nor country; it's twang noir. A fully realized universe, on a dark night, with an AM radio station sending out a strong signal from somewhere down Highway 99. Are you listening?”
- Scott Bloom, Bay Area Twang
 
As on their previous outings, Tani spars with Courtney, a larger than life presence whose luxurious voice can plant a kiss on the lips and a punch in the guts in the same breath. Supported by a cast of over a dozen other musicians, the songs on "Crown" utilize every tool in the 77 El Deora toolbox from the finest scalpel to the largest hammers. From serious tales of broken hearts and tortured souls to the band’s trademarked TPO’s, (Tani's affectionate acronym for his “Trailer Park Operettas”), filled with bad break-up lines and smart mouth rejoinders.

“This is thoughtful, heart-wrenching stuff about human asteroids that wonder where and how they lost their way and if there is a GPS that works. …darkly funny comments on power, desire, adrenalin, ambivalence, and narco squad surveillance.” -Jeep Rosenberg, Freight Train Boogie

Reviewers and programmers have blown away by powerhouse singer Courtney's pleading, soulful vocals on "Push Me Away" and haunted by Tani's sweet plaintive tenor exhorting the loneliness of a heartbroken radio DJ on "Radio City". The scope of "The Crown & The Crow's Confession" encompasses everything from a hard thumpin', old-time mountain romp ("Fire on the Mountain") to an enchanting and poignant version of Springsteen's "County Fair", combining the artful blending of Courtney's lilting, clear vocals and Tani's buoyant, controlled tonalities.

77 El Deora is a gleaming showpiece of a band, what's lies underneath is sleek, smart, powerful and totally bad-ass! "The Crown & The Crow’s Confession,"–luxurious, ironic, haunting.