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Secretary Bird
SECRETARY BIRD is a
hybrid. Exercising all his control issues, Mike Semple created a sound
marrying two cities. His now home of Los Angeles and his boyhood home
of Tucson. It’s called SECRETARY BIRD. A melting of the
countryified-influence of the desert and the rock and roll expanse of
Los Angeles. It’s beer and heroin or desert dust and ocean salt.
It’s a sound that ruminants like Latin on the tongue of your
lover.
Mike’s answer
for the world was always musical. His mother bought him his first
guitar when he was 8. A beater, acoustic hippie guitar, with paint on
it. Since then he circled the globe playing with alternative favorites
Giant Sand, he has recorded six records, and continues to record, with
Friends of Dean Martinez, One record with L.A.’s Campfire Girls
and was a hired gun for bands like Marjorie Fair.
As a member of Friends
Of Dean Martinez, Mike co-wrote and recorded the score to the Richard
Linklater, Fox Searchlight, major motion picture Fast Food Nation. The
film also includes the SECRETARY BIRD song “Tio” from the
debut record. Fast Food Nation screened in
competition at the Cannes Film Festival and played to sold out
audiences. Fast Food Nation is scheduled to be released in November
2006.
With enlisted help
from drummer Kirke Jan and bass player Einar Pedersen, SECRETARY BIRD
is powerful, maxi-slow up-tempo, undeniably sincere songwriting,
smashed with a singing style that’s hypnotic and lackadaisically
melodic like Lou Reed or Paul Westerberg. Add Mike’s trademark
distinctive guitar work, born of a 70s British influence, as it’s
laid beautifully and softly down, at the foot of your soul. Think
Psychocandy meets The Days of Wine and Roses add a bit of Wilco. SECRETARY BIRD
successfully fuses these very different sounds and brings a celebration
and sadness in its songs that breaks your heart just for the pleasure
of
healing it.
Blackie Onassis
formally of Urge Overkill calls Mike Semple “...the best unsung
guitar player in the world. Period.” And SECRETARY BIRD the only
L.A. based indie-record he bought all year.
SECRETARY BIRD PRESS QUOTES
“(Mike
Semple’s) drowsy singing and distinctly Californian taste in sad,
sweeping sounds (equally informed by Neil Young’s Tonight’s
the Night and Glenn Campbell’s “Galveston”) perfectly
mirror his slow-dissolve images of late-night cab rides and aimless
drives, “some-where girls” and an “imaginary
you…” – BLENDER (4 ½ Stars)
"Further listens
reveal a particular character arising out of Semple's bruised, laconic
vocals, which maintain a captivating presence amid his soaring
guitarchitecture." - UNCUT (4 Stars)
“Download This:
SECRETARY BIRD, ''Somewhere Girls'' Last fall, Southwestern rockers
Friends of Dean Martinez performed most of the soundtrack for the film
Fast Food Nation. They did a decent job of complementing the movie's
uneasy atmosphere, but the real standout from that set came from band
member Mike Semple, who recorded one song on his own under the name
Secretary Bird. Semple has a full album of world-weary, lo-fi guitar
pop out now, and as this Pavement-esque selection confirms, he's a
noteworthy talent in his own right.” – ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"Occasional buzzes and
distortion underscore an immediacy which can be heard in the works of
his former bandmate Howe Gelb, as well as Paul Westerberg and from
there, back to the grandaddy noisemeister of them all, Neil Young." -
HARP
“Semple has
expertly created an interesting dichotomy of urban and rural music,
combining the rolling rhythm of the countryside and the guitar squall
of the city streets.” - AMPLIFIER
"With a kind of
shoegazing Neil Young or Tom Petty vibe, the reverberating rhythm
guitar-driven songs are serene, simple works which gradually evolve
from pleasing pop tunes about girls and love to misanthropic, longing
cries as the album plays out. B+" – AQUARIAN
“slow descent
into pillowy reverb, Semple casts a wink at everyone from Ride to Low
to Yo La Tengo, eventually hitching himself to a
challenged-radio-signal storm, then easing up on all the effects, and
gently fading.” – ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER
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