Deleted Scenes

"Deleted Scenes is a great band. Not a great local band, but a great band in general."

"Local band." It's one of those combinations of terms that usually softens up our critical senses. Like "school play" or "free beer." It's a qualification that makes us tend to go a little easier, allow a little benefit with our doubt. You may not stop in your tracks if you heard that band on the radio, but for a band from your stomping grounds, well, they deserve some credit. That distinction makes it all the more special when you discover a band, locally, that you'd appreciate and praise no matter their geographical derivation. See where I'm going with this? Deleted Scenes is a great band. Not a great local band, but a great band in general.

The band took the stage at DC9 on Monday night after an impressive and all-heart performance from Parachute Musical. There's a lot of love between these two bands, so between that and the EP that had been impressing me for a few weeks, my expectations of Deleted Scenes were growing steadily. The opening bars were a bit rough, but things picked up without much delay, and the show did not disappoint.

Front man Dan Scheuerman's posture and motion on stage reveal that he'd watched a lot of MTV circa 1995 -- the essence of Billy Joe Armstrong was undeniable. The band's performance and musical style clearly carries the weight of a whole host of influences, from the vocal demeanor of Isaac Brock and the Violent Femmes to post punk, surf rock, circus rock, garage rock, rockabilly... they've done a lot of listening in their time. But unlike the direct genealogical line you could draw from a Dave Matthews to a John Mayer to a Teddy Geiger, they've done their influences justice. They've drawn some general ideas from styles that preceded them, and come out with a sound that is easily recognizable as their own. From the tight percussion to the occasional employment of keys to the not-quite-harmonious but sharply fitting backup vocals, Deleted Scenes has a solid framework from which to build their songs.

Now, on to their songs. They have a real sense of possibility; the observations and experiences related in these songs actually sound true to the scope of a twenty-something-year-old. They're not pedestrian by any account, but the feelings aren't inflated, the battles aren't epic. They feel tangible and accessible. Even in their more up-beat tracks, there's an underlying sense of anxiety throughout (largely the product of Scheuerman's vocals), but it's belied by a sense of familiarity and dependability. The songs are complex and yet enjoyable, which is the common thread throughout all of my favorite art. The last song they played was the set's low point, with a dollop too much emo for my taste. But on the whole, Deleted Scenes have crafted a collection of solid songs. You'd be remiss if you didn't check them out at your earliest convenience. Let's not let another local band get edged out of their name of choice. Support Deleted Scenes' success and proprietary MySpace presence before we're lining up to buy tickets for Director's Commentary.
Visit Them At: http://www.myspace.com/deletedscenes
See Them Next: You can catch a solo acoustic set at Iota on May 31, or the full band at Velvet on June 30.
Buy Their Album: At Revolution Records.
Questions for Deleted Scenes:
Let’s get some of the biographical information out of the way. Where are you from? I know that Dan, Matt and Dominic went to high school together, but where did you pick up Brian (Hospital, on drums)?
Dan: It’s complicated. Olney, MD in the late nineties was this very promiscuous music scene centered around slap bass. All four of us kind of knew each other from one another’s bands. But just to clarify, Matt and I went to a different high school than Dominic and Brian.
Did Dominic ever finish up at Berklee?
Dominic: I’ll be going through the motions of a graduation ceremony in May, but whether or not I get my degree will be determined when I try to transfer the last of my credits from MC this summer.
How does the song writing happen for you guys? Does one person bring something to table, is it more organic and collaborative, something else?
Dominic: It starts with one person bringing something to the table - it could be a guitar progression or an electronic loop, but rarely a whole song. Then we usually collaborate on developing and arranging. The songs are constantly being questioned and growing.
Dan: It’s very slow and deliberate. We kind of have to destroy the song before we can create it. I like to record a hundred different arrangements on my computer before committing to one.
The comparisons to other bands that you draw in your bio are bold to say the least. ("Mix Thom Yorke’s paranoia, Conner Oberst’s old soul, Isaac Brock’s wit, Morrisey’s sexual confusion, Belle & Sebastian’s sense of humor, Elliott Smith’s resignation, Danielson Familie’s edgy bounce, Radiohead’s tonal curiosity, Pixies thunderin - Amanda Mattos

"When it comes to charming indie-pop, Brooklyn kind of has the market cornered right now. But hey, D.C. has its fair share of preppy jangle. Both Greenland and the now defunct Let's French aspired to Brooklyn-ism, but Deleted Scenes have probably made the most promising headway toward the current Kings County aesthetic. Some recent YouTube clips of Deleted Scenes' latest songs reveal enough clean guitars, extraneous percussion, and falsetto sweetness to console those who missed the last Harlem Shakes show. Furthermore, three of Deleted Scenes' four members actually live in Brooklyn." - Washington City Paper

"Deleted Scenes moved us past the first date and right into that stage where you have an unbridled passion for someone and can't keep your hands off them trying to discover every inch and exhausting yourself in the effort. Blowing off the haze of a Sunday night, fronted by the wiry charisma of Dan Scheuerman and his eyes that hang like he never sleeps, they brought a thumping big sound and tension to the proceedings. They show lots of DC influences in their playing, from Dismemberment Plan yelps and angles to Fugazi ragga and Jawbox rumble. However, it was when they hit the big radio-ready choruses (reminding me actually of Old 97s – a reference the band might cringe at) that they were the most interesting. Knocking into shape a little more and finding their own voice (trust those pop instincts and more synth – I know I know) and they could be big news soon." - Brightestyoungthings.com

'Bird' Brains: Deleted Scenes

DELETED SCENES HAVE been working on their debut album, "Birdseed Shirt," for a long time — at least in indie-rock years.
Having recorded the basic tracks at Magpie Cage studio in Baltimore in September 2007, the D.C.-born quartet spent roughly 10 months mixing, tweaking and re-tweaking the album. In that time, three members of Deleted Scenes relocated to Brooklyn and two of them have come a few hairs away from completing graduate degrees.
Luckily, "Birdseed Shirt" was worth the group's relative struggle to finish it.
The songs Deleted Scenes recently posted to their MySpace page are surprisingly ambitious — delicately psychedelic Americana that makes judicious use of musical gizmos and gadgets to instill an autumnal stoner vibe. Songs like "Fake ID" are steeped in blurry digital haze, as if somebody tried to play the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory song "Pure Imagination" through a modem circa 1997.
But when they started up three years ago, Deleted Scenes was a little more straightforward. Their self-titled EP featured a few catchy but straight-laced country-tinged ballads. "I just looked at that as a demo," explains multi-instrumentalist Fatty (aka Matt Dowling). "Those were all songs that Dan [Scheuerman, singer and guitarist] had written by himself right when the band started." But after playing some shows, the writing process became more integrated and the songwriting started to go in a different — more unique — direction.

When it came time to record, the band realized that they wanted somebody to help them get closer to the ideas they were bouncing around, but didn't have a lot of money. "[Producer J. Robbins] seemed down to do it, but we knew we didn't have the budget to do a full record with him and have him mix it," said Dowling.
So the band made an unlikely choice. They contacted Lynn — a surname-less Philadelphia-based musician who had written and recorded a lavishly produced surrealist pop album called "Sukey Jump" under the name The Rude Staircase while living in D.C. during '04. [Full disclosure: I played bass on The Rude Staircase's CD.]
"We just loved the production on that record," said Dowling. "It's definitely an odd fit, we're pretty straight ahead indie-rock. And Lynn hates indie rock."
But while Lynn came equipped with a ton of bizarre ideas to augment and complement the songs — strange pterodactyl scream effects, fizzling dub-delay — he hadn't acquired a ton of technical savvy.
"Lynn isn't an audio engineer; he doesn't have that much experience," said Dowling. "But he knows exactly what he wants. It just takes a long time to get there. For me, it was one of the most patience-testing processes I've ever been through."
But when asked whether it was worth it to spend every weekend sweating over a mixing board in Philadelphia with a guy they barely knew, Dowling doesn't hesitate. "Yeah, definitely."
There's no release date scheduled for "Birdseed Shirt" because no label has picked it up — yet.
"I'm confident somebody will," said Dowling. "We have a few offers on the table that I don't really want to disclose that at this point. I don't see it not being released in 2008."
- Aaron Leitko

http://besttuna.blogspot.com/2008/12/get-your-shit-together-for-holidays.html

Genre: Americana / Dub / Lyrical
From: Washington, DC / Brooklyn, NY, United States

Brooklyn's Deleted Scenes are an ambitious indie quartet with a fine line in delicate psych stained Americana.

As moody as a chameleon sitting on a De Kooning painting with confessional lyrics that are more Priory therapy session than depressives diary the band could be the alter ego of the Summer of Love.

On forthcoming album 'Birdseed Shirt' (out January 2009) the band breeze (well as much as moody, confessional indie psychsters can breeze!) through an impressive range of genres and styles from the bouncing harmonies of 'Turn To Sand' to the ear piercing trad rock of 'Mortal Sin' via the anti christmas carol of 'Get Your Shit Together For The Holidays'.

The band are creating quote a buzz amongst the bloggers so get ahead of the crowds and check 'em out now.

- The Devil Has the Best Tuna

Introduce Yourselves: Deleted Scenes
by Christopher Porter

DELETED SCENES ADMIT to being meticulous about their multi-layered music, and the group's debut CD, "Birdseed Shirt," took about a year to record and mix.

"We're a very slow-working band," said singer-guitarist Dan Scheuerman. "The mixing process was long and exhaustive and exhausting; my brain was mush by the end of it. [Recording engineer L Skell] is the most detail-oriented, verging-on-obsessive person I've ever met."

But his obsessiveness gives "Birdseed Shirt" (What Delicate Recordings) a haunting sonic depth, with a sound that is big but not cavernous. The band's patience and attention to detail paid off, too: "Birdseed Shirt" is one of the D.C. area's finest indie-rock CDs ever released, sounding a bit like the reverbed Americana of My Morning Jacket if that band wasn't always lost in the Grand Canyon, or a more vibrant version of Galaxie 500's gentle psychedelia.

The recording process was also interrupted by touring and the group splitting its time between D.C. and New York City, with a few members still in college. But some of Deleted Scenes' songs have been kicking around for years, as all four members have played music with each other since they were kids growing up in Olney and Gaithersburg, Md.

Scheuerman's voice is a wounded ghost, recalling the unpolished desperation of The Verlaines' Graeme Downes, Galaxie 500's Dean Wareham and even Pink Floyd's Roger Waters. And his lyrics seem equally despairing, as on the album-closing "Get Your Shit Together for the Holidays."

"It's not really a holiday song as much as it's a song about family," Scheuerman said, followed by a big sigh. It's actually a song about kicking an addiction, as he sings, "Dust off a box of old forgotten clothes / If you clean up nice, no one will ever know / 'Cause what's the point of one more disguise / When you're not even yourself in your daily life?"

"Fake IDs" is equally frustrated, and a 17-year-old Deleted Scenes fan was inspired to make a video for the song.

"We were floored. I thought it got the mood of the song really well," Scheuerman said. "[The video] depicts a couple, and the wife explodes, and then the song takes off. It's very dark and weird."

Just like "Birdseed Shirt."
- Washington Post Express

In a past Three Stars interview, DCist Music Editor Amanda Mattos called D.C./Brooklyn quartet Deleted Scenes "not a great local band, but a great band in general." Listening to their debut LP, Birdseed Shirt, it's difficult to challenge that assessment. Named after an invention dreamed up by Jonathan Safran Foer's protagonist in the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Birdseed Shirt is brimming with ideas — much like Foer's book — and clearly the work of artists destined to exist outside of the "local" category.

It's an understatement to call the album, which was produced by Rude Staircase's L. Skell and local music icon J. Robbins, an ambitious debut. Not content with retreading worn indie rock conventions, Deleted Scenes mixes up genres and styles on practically every song, from the bluesy swagger of opener "Turn to Sand" to the playful "Ithaca" — which answers the question "If Peter Gabriel jammed with Sunny Day Real Estate, what would it sound like?" (Answer: Awesome.)

But while the music and songwriting are consistently solid, you can't help but notice two distinct Deleted Scenes emerging over the course of the album. There's the fun-loving Deleted Scenes, heard on tracks like "Got God", which ambles along like a countrified Graham Coxon B-side circa 1998. And then there's the moody Deleted Scenes, found mostly in the back-to-back tracks "City That Never Wakes Up", "One Long Country Song" and "Deacons". The odd pacing is a little reminiscent of Modest Mouse's The Moon & Antarctica, in which three songs — "The Cold Part", "Alone Down There" and "The Stars Are Projectors" — bring the mood down a little too much before the band launches back into a song like "Wild Packs Of Family Dogs" (or in Deleted Scenes' case, the noisy "Another, Worse Cliche"). There's nothing wrong with the moody Deleted Scenes. The songs are just a bit of a momentum killer when lined up like that.

Placing that bit of criticism aside, Birdseed Shirt is a fantastic debut and it reinforces what we've been saying about these DCist Unbuckled vets all along. It's shocking that this band isn't huge. - Matt Sedlar

BYT Listening Party: Deleted Scenes
December 17, 2008
by John Foster
all (beautiful) photos by: Alyssa Lesser

There is nothing better than going to a show to see the headliner and finding an amazing act just a line down on the bill. It doesn’t happen as often as I would like it to, but when it does - it sticks with me. Such was the case when I ventured out to the Black Cat for a Bowerbirds show (terrific as well) only to find myself transfixed by the boys in Deleted Scenes. (You can check the review out right here pardna.) A jittery bundle live, I was dying to hear how these songs would translate in their upcoming recording. Well that day is hear as we are treated to a little early listen to some choice cuts from their “Birdseed Shirt” disc out through What Delicate Recordings Jan. 6th. Copies might just be available at their release party tomorrow night at the Cat (with Exit Clov and La Strada.)
We had a chance to snap a few pics of the fellers in New York (where half the band now resides) as well as pester frontman Dan Scheuerman and multi-instrumentalist Matt “Fatty” Dowling for a few thoughts.

“The album was recorded in two phases. Phase one took two weekends. Phase two took about 9 months,” laughs Dan. “Phase 1 was done at The Magpie Cage with J Robbins (Burning Airlines, Channels, Jawbox). There we did the basic drums, bass, and some guitars. We chose to go with J for the basic tracks to provide a clean, professional canvas to then chop and screw and paint however we wanted. J is a total professional and a masterful engineer and we wanted his sound to undergird what we planned to be a pretty fucked sounding final product. Phase 2 took place in four houses in DC/Philly/VA/MD.” Matt adds that with two members heading to New York, “the geographical split occurred right as the recording process began, and the vast majority of the recording process ended up taking place in Philly, which conveniently enough is directly between DC and NYC. So that actually worked out great.”

The distance did mean that the band couldn’t focus as much on writing new material as it could focus on the existing songs in the canon. That meant more experimentation and that a straight replication of the live experience was not an option. Matt explains that the band “went into the process of making the record with what we knew how to do live, plus little splashes of production ideas here and there that can’t happen in that setting. In addition, our producer, L Skell ended up coming up with a number of great production ideas as the process went along. We just wanted to make the songs sound as best and as interesting on record as they possibly could be, under the condition of not completely severing the tie between the recording and the live show. We wanted the record to consist of good songs that catch the listener and then continue to draw them in on repeated listens. The live show is all about energy and engaging the crowd in the moment. You can’t go back in time see a particular show again, but obviously you can go back and listen to a record a million times. We wanted the record to essentially hold up through a ton of listens. Those kinds of records are our favorite records. Obviously, it remains to be seen whether the record achieves that for a lot of listeners, but that’s what we’d like to have happen.”

Having experienced both, I can firmly say that the band is going to be pleasing crowds on both ends. Here are some selections to help you make up your own mind (you know what to do):

Ithaca

Dan: The beat here was our attempt at copying the Mount Pleasant Beat, which we didn’t know at the time was called reggaeton. It’s really in the air on Mt. Pleasant Street, and it was the soundtrack of the couple years Matt and I lived together in a house there while writing the album. The lyrics are sort of desperate long-distance romantic overture, with the speaker taking a cab from DC to Ithaca, NY, to see a girl.
Fatty: Dan and I started the band in 2005 essentially as I moved into the townhouse he was living at in Mt. Pleasant (where I still live actually). At that time, the reggaeton beat just had begun it’s strangle-hold of popular Latin music. You’d be walking anywhere in Mt. Pleasant and be hearing that beat. We had an idea for this song and it just so happened the reggaeton-like beat fit really well…..we were like “Let’s use the Mt. Pleasant beat!” It’s crazy to think how long we’ve been playing that song, and we’re just now releasing it on record.

Mortal Sin

Dan: The term mortal sin was a heavy one for Matt and I, attending an all-boy’s Catholic high school in Montgomery County. It’s the designation for a sin that, if you die without confessing it, sends you directly to hell. The alternative is venial sin, which you can kind of just shrug off, dogmatically speaking. Basically anything up to third base is venial. Anyway, the song was sort of a gag reflex to William T. Vollmann’s Butterfly Stories, wh - John Foster

Deleted Scenes - Fake IDs

By thatch • Dec 10th, 2008 • Category: Indie, Music, Rock

Deleted Scenes is one of those bands that I kept hearing about rather than actually hearing. So I was wonderfully surprised when they turned out to be way better than I was expecting. You know the kind of thing, everyone sings a bands praises and when you get to finally hear them, you end up going “So??? Is that it?” and rush out to buy a copy of the NME and see what terrible things they wrote. But I digress.

Deleted Scenes (DC/Brooklyn) plays propulsive, rhythmic indie rock with wonderful psychedelic arrangements, a great sense of humour and best of all they don’t disappoint. I kept hitting the repeat button on the MP3 player every time “Mortal Sin” came on.

The best song to start with would be “Fake Id’s“, it starts out with an insistent electric piano , then the vocals (dripping in reverb) kick in and then the band start up and you are away. I love this one, it just builds and builds, the intensity then gives way to a kick drum and a sudden stop.

“So??? Is that it?” I hear you say. Of course not. You press repeat and do it all again. It’s that kind of song.

Highly recommended - DuggUp

To some secular types, the most interesting thing about faith is watching someone lose it. When you waver from an ironic disbelief in religion to a stricken doubt in yourself, you've got yourself a great arc. Or as Deleted Scenes put it, more off-handedly, "Got god, got boring/ Lost god, stayed boring, got drunk."

Birdseed Shirt isn't a record specifically about faith, but they work the theme hard. It carries through as they swing from grizzled jokes to unabashed emo bellows. The disgusted drunken Catholic schoolboy waltz of "Deacons" sits easily with the upbeat vibes of "City That Never Wakes Up". And the country humility of "One Long Country Song" still can't quite take a heartbreak lying down.

The band's boast that they're influenced by both the Danielson Famile and Talking Heads holds water, not least because frontman Dan Scheuerman has the range and power to give direction to their genre wanderings. He can carry two vocal modes-- modest, country and a little bit strange, and brave and ferocious; he saves the latter approach for special occasions, always making it pay off.

The songwriting is strong throughout the set, and even the short songs aren't slight. With Matt Dowling primarily on bass, Chris Scheffey on guitar, and Brian Hospital on drums, the band is a well-worn quartet that takes risks in the arrangements but never gets clever for the sake of it. They do big indie rock, like the build-up to the horns and harmony vocals that punctuate the opener, "Turn to Sand". The singalong and warm guitars of "Take My Life" make the deeply emo evocation of suicide surprisingly palatable. But they also picked up the best scraps from post-rock, including the vibes on "Deacons" and "City That Never Wakes Up", or the organ on "Fake IDs", a descendent of Radiohead's "Let Down" and the album's must-hear cut.

Credit to producer L. Skell, Birdseed Shirt isn't a knock-down-the-walls powerhouse, so much as a well-balanced demonstration of all the band's best sides-- from thoughtful existentialism to friendly irony to strange, drowsy downers. The finale, "Get Your Shit Together for the Holidays", encapsulates its spirit: warm and familiar at the outset, sliding into a massive, deliciously echoey climax, with dark lyrics that end on redemption-- except redemption basically means telling the protagonist to get off his or her ass and do the right thing for a couple of days. This is a young band, but they already know that good cheer will only last you so long.
- Chris Dahlen