Press Kit

To request a full copy of Lose Me in the Sand (February 2011) or Saint Judas (2010), please e-mail peter@portofrancorecords.com.

Lose Me in the Sand – Press Release (Download full copy)

“I grew up in an old logging town, less than a hundred people, on the Sierra Nevada/Cascade Divide,” says musician Mark Growden. Lose Me in the Sand is a tribute to Growden’s rural mountain roots. His latest album is also a hats-off to the roughshod beginnings of American music and the spirit that music represents. Growden chose the banjo as the primary instrument for Lose Me in the Sand for both its timbre and history. An African-American instrument that made its way into minstrel shows and Appalachian folk music, the banjo resonates in our collective consciousness with the memory of poverty, oppression, resilience, and fortitude. “I’m aware of the choice of these songs and the era we’re living in,” says Growden. “Lose Me in the Sand is a banjo album. It’s about humility.”

Rehearsed and recorded in live studio sessions in Tucson, Arizona, Lose Me in the Sand is intentionally infused with the desert’s eternal expanse. Its sparse arrangements are steeped in the enduring qualities of patience, surrender and acceptance. Lose Me in the Sand is Growden’s second place-based album with Porto Franco Records engineered by Oz Fritz (whose resume includes Tom Waits and Caetano Veloso). It follows on the heels of his Oakland recording of Saint Judas, a bold and highly praised exploration of universal love and redemption…

PRESS IMAGES (Righ-click to download high resolution)

• “Gritty, soothing, mesmerizing, and exuberent, Growden’s musical style is otherworldly.” – Taos News
• “his soundtrack moody richochets from hell to the stars above.” – SF Weekly
• “Fiery, Earthy and sublimely sensual.” – Comet Magazine
• “…as though Harry Smith, Kurt Weill, and John Cage had been reincarnated into a single body” – Stash Dauber
• Mark Growden’s delivery is direct – powerful and precise as a street fighter. He simply knocks you out.” – Taos News
• A sight and sound you don’t want to miss.” – S.F. Bay Guardian
• “An unusual and voracious talent.” – Williamette Week
• “Theatrical, dark and sexy.” – West Coast Performer
• “Mark Growden has to be one California’s most colorful and intriguing musicians … Growden is a genius.” – Albuquerque Alibi
• “Though Growden captures the sorrow and sincerity of a high lonesome crooner, his unique instrumental blend of Dixieland, Frontierland, and gypsy caravan band inhabits a genre all its own.” – SF Bay Guardian
• “He writes songs that pulse with drama, songs that slide with grace.” – Tucson Weekly
• “Part singer-songwriter, part bluesman, part avant-gardist, he’s an avatar of bohemian weirdness on a par with Tom Waits or Joe Henry.” – Fort Worth Weekly
• “Torrid lyricism and fierce accordion rascality. His live shows are becoming the stuff of legend.” – East Bay Express
• “Growden’s voice is bigger than a 10-story building, and when he clacks on his cowboy boots on a hollow patch of floor along to some of his tunes, the sound seems to reverberate across the globe.” – Laura Casey, Contra Costa Times
• “He gave us a heartfelt cover of Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man that made every woman in the audience squirm. By the time the handsome Irishman was done, as the old saying goes—there wasn’t a dry seat in the house.” – Music Union
• “Mark Growden possesses the same raw passion and fury seen in Van Morrison, Tom Waits, and Old Red but also the compositional finesse of Chris Rea, Robert Wyatt, and The Woes” – Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
• “Though Growden captures the sorrow and sincerity of a high lonesome crooner, his unique instrumental blend of Dixieland, Frontierland, and gypsy caravan band inhabits a genre all its own.” – SF Bay Guardian
• “a strong, sensitive, and passionate stage presence that the audience could not help but connect with.” – Tucson Examiner
• “Growden’s untrammeled voice, a stage player in itself, dives and rises animatedly around his songs, teasing the tremor and tempo of his crackerjack band.” – North Bay Bohemian
• “tightly-controlled, richly inflected, and subtly expressive vocals.” – Flavorpill LA
• “Big, deep, passionate…” – The Register Guard
• “Growden is an accomplished a multi-instrumentalist and a skilled showman, but it’s his voice that sets him apart. It is big and, if not operatic, commanding.” – The Register Guard
• “Mark’s musical approach is novel—not novelty. He’s innovative.” – Music Union
• “If you’re ready for some depth — and something different — catch Mark Growden.” – Humboldt County Journal
• “His music combines elements from classical jazz ensembles, New Orleans-style brass bands, cabaret fanfare, and circus troupes with the stark honesty of Appalachian folk ballads and African-American prison songs.” – Taos News
• “think Bertolt Brecht meets Blind Willie Johnson.” – I-94 Bar

About Mark’s 2010 release Saint Judas

• “It sounds like America’s Great Depression took a trip to New Orleans, Broadway and Vegas and then tumbled into the post-industrial underground — swallowed in city sewers, scuffed under construction worker’s boots, pierced by punk rock attitude — to come out in an exquisite, visionary place.” - Taos News
• “Growden has crafted a tour de force full-length that sonically burrows under your skin and finds its way up the spine to lodge permanently in the cortex.” – BLURT
• “St. Judas was recorded live, like a 50’s jazz album, giving his music the quality of a lovingly, painstakingly handmade gift.”  - Music Union
• “Saint Judas” is a strong, deep, and mature album for fans of blues that bleed realism, loss, sorrow, and redemption. Superb.” – Thee Goatsden
• “This isn’t a CD as such but rather a cabaret of the rings of a very humanized hell located somewhere in the boggy depths of the deep South, not Birmingham, not New Orleans, not Atlanta but the shadowy bastard offspring of them all.” – Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
• “Listen to merely a minute of this masterpiece, and you’re as helpless as bird before snake, fascinated, terrified, seduced.” – Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
• “for an album so intimately acquainted with woe, the real connective thread throughout is not one of pain, but one of love. Hurt love hopeful love, dashed love, and eternal love, each facet of the ever-abiding emotion has its own moment to shine in the flickering glow of the Mark Growden ensemble’s warm strings, hot licks, and sizzling horns.” – SF Bay Guardian
• “Part chamber music, part High Noon…” SF Bay Guardian
• “a homegrown affair all the way through.” – SF Bay Guardian
• “a dark journey that finds Kurt Weil’s twisted drama, Alan Lomax’s primitive field recordings, and the dry deliberation of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits all held in a common bond.” – Amplifier
• “a strangely fascinating and compelling glimpse into a netherworld of shadowy late night cabaret and smoky barroom intimacy.” – Amplifier
• “A must listen for fans of the genre. Hell, it’s a must listen for anyone who loves music.” – Synthesis (about Saint Judas)
• “A gritty treasure of urban romanticism.” – Flavorpill LA
• “a lusty, somewhat loosely presented collection of poems set to disjointed waltzes and dark ballads of biblical proportion.” – Chico News and Review
• “a genre all its own” – SF Bay Guardian
• “Homespun and honest.” – KFJC
• “gestural and hypnotic.” – The Rumpus
• “stirring ballads, rousing narratives of love and loss, and raucous marches” – Taos News

LIST BIO

DISCOGRAPHY
Mark Growden – Lose Me in the Sand (2011)

Mark Growden – Saint Judas (2010)

Mark Growden – Island of the Gondoliers (soon to be released)

Mark Growden – Blood Tea and Red String (2005)

Mark Growden – Live at the Casbah – San Diego (2004)

Mark Growden – Live at the Odeon (2003)

Mark Growden’s Electric Pinata – Inside Beneath Behind (2001)

Mark Growden – Downstairs Karaoke (1999)

Mark Growden – This Piggy (1997)

Mark Growden – Don’t Wanna Go Back (1996)

COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS

Tock – Tock (1996)

Big Butter – From the Udder (1990)

Big Butter – Step In and Do a Certain Something (1988)

E is for Elephant – Uncle Grapefruit (1988)

AS A GUEST

The Crux – Now Ferment (2009)

Splatter Trio – Splatter Trio + n (2007)

Six Eye Columbia – Frowny Frown (2001)

Six Eye Columbia – A Million Six (2001)

Ray’s Vast Basement – On the Banks of Time (2000)

Steve August – Happiness the Hero (1999)

Lori B – Hurricane Child (1998)

Alonzo King’s Lines Contemporary Ballet – Sacred Text (1996)

Bob Weir (Grateful Dead) – Baru Bay (1995)

COMPILATIONS

Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits – His Words – Our Music (2007)

SF Weekly Music Awards Compilation (2003)

SF Weekly Music Awards Compilation (2002)

Beastfest Compilation (2001)

Wavelength Infinity, A Sun Ra Tribute (1995)

AWARDS

• Stash Dauber’s 2010 “Rekkid of the Year” for Growden’s album Saint Judas
• 2009 Arts DEVO Award for Best Live Music Performance
• 2003 SF Weekly Music Awards nominee for Best Americana/Roots performer
• 2002 SF Weekly Music Awards nominee for Best Americana/Roots performer
• 1997 “Isadora Duncan Award” for Best Original Music for a New Dance Piece for work in performing the score for Alonzo King’s Sacred Text
• Two “Best Song” awards from the Northern California Songwriter’s Association

DIRECTION, MUSIC DIRECTION, COMPOSING

LIVE MUSIC AND THEATER COLLABORATION

• Growden has collaborated with a wide range of artists in making live art.  He was a primary collaborator in these ensembles: The Deke and Mark Show (twisted storytelling with live accompaniment), Tock (improv ensemble), Xephyr (Orff Schulwerck meets family theater), Ruckus (theater/clown/music ensemble), Zoh(improv/world fusion), and E is for Elephant (art rock).
• Mark has also performed and collaborated with Hamza el Din, John Law, The San Francisco Opers, Remy Charlip, Stan Ridgeway, John Santos, Omar Sosa, Ralph Carney, Baby Gramps, Kid Congo Powers, Eric McFadden, The Fighting Instruments of Karma Chamber Band/Orchestra, Rube Waddell, Extra Action Marching Band, Faun Fables, Carla Kihlsted, Peter Whitehead, Stephen Kent, Amore-Belhom Duo, Glen Spearman, Myles Boisen, Hiroko and Koichi Tamano, Trance Mission, and Tabla Rasa.

VIDEO/FILM

• Coyote - Christiane Cegavske (2010)
• Martyr – Thad Povey (2009)
• Island of the Gondoliers – Guido Muzzarelli (2009)
• Welldigger – Phillip Fagan (2007)
• Blood Tea and Red String – Christiane Cegavske (2007)
• Elegy for Seven Falling Objects – Thad Povey (2003)
• Under a Shipwrecked Moon - AnteroAlli (2001)
• Hysteria – AnteroAlli (2001)
• Mother – Thad Povey (2000)
• F**k Boy – Thad Povey (2000)
• Uncle Fred – Phil Fagan (2000)
• The Jasper Ridge Preservation Project – Tamzen Orion (1998)
• Mother – Chad Adair (1995)
• Fishboy – Chad Adair (1994)
• Strips of Cloth and Paper – Tamzen Orion (1994)