Chris Gunst, Brent Rademaker and Aaron Sperske will together with guitarist Ben Knight, keyboardist Jen Cohen and steel guitarist Dan Horne form the line-up for this summer’s Beachwood Sparks reunion shows.

Guitar virtuoso Ben Knight is a long time friend of The Sparks and has played on both Once We Were Trees and Make the Robot Cowboys Cry as well as toured with the band. Jen Cohen is the wife of Chris Gunst and together they form Mystic Chords of Memory. Dan Horne has earlier played with Lilys, Ben Kweller and On the Speakers (to name a few).

Yes, it’s true! Beachwood Sparks have been confirmed to perform at the Sub Pop 20th Anniversary Festival that’s gonna take place at Marymoor Park in Redmond, WA on July 12 and 13.

We got in touch with drummer Aaron Sperske to ask him a few questions about this historic event:

How come you guys decided to get back together and play this gig?

- Sub Pop asked us to play a “20 Years o’Sub Pop Festival” and we had been talking about playing off and on for a while so that was the catalyst to make it all go down. We have much respect for them as a label and personally they’re just a bunch of great folks, so it all made sense that this is the time to do it…

What do you think it’s gonna be like to play those old tunes with those guys again?

- We’ve already played together in rehearsal and it went swimmingly! If anything, it’s better now that we’ve all gained a lil’ perspective and experience.

Who will be in the line-up?

- So far the line up is Chris Gunst, Brent Rademaker, myself and if all works logistically Neal Casal with Jen Cohen (of Mystic Chords of Memory) on organ and piano. Unfortunately Farmer Dave’s busy schedule with new new wave sensations Interpol doesn’t permit him to commit to any dates at this time. Hopefully that will change…

Is this a one time deal or are there any further plans for the band?

- We’ve currently said yes to a Folkyeah Fest in Big Sur on July 18th at the Henry Miller Library and the Sunset Junction in L.A. on August 23rd or 24th. That’s about it for now, although god willin’ we can get together later this year and make another record…

Let’s keep our fingers crossed…

We’re very excited to bring to you two new and exclusive Beachwood Sparks live video clips. Click here to watch them!

This wonderful footage of the band circa ‘98 was brought to us from The Pete Kinne Page by Cloyce on Myspace. We would like to send our big thanks to Jackie Hager for letting us distribute these videos and by that making them available to the Beachwood Sparks fan community. That’s you guys.

The first clip is a performance of Midsummer Daydream and Watery Moonlight (a song that was recorded for the band’s unreleased debut album) from Old Town Pub in Pasadena in March 1998. The second clip shows Beachwood Sparks live at Spaceland in August 1998 performing (the 7″ version of) Desert Skies.

We are also very happy to be able to present a clip with Beachwood Sparks percussionist Pete “Sleigher” Kinne and his friends (playing as Gold Winter People) performing one of Pete’s songs at The Chorus Club in September 1998. Watch it here!

If anyone has any other information about the videos or something visible in them, don’t hesitate to speak up in the forums and we’ll post the info so everyone interested will be able to get to it.

As a theme for Magnet Magazine no. 75 the magazine lists 75 lost classics chronologically from 1993-2003. Included in this selection is Beachwood Sparks second album Once We Were Trees from 2001. They discuss Gram Parsons as a source of inspiration for the group but feels that the “sophomore effort Once We Were Trees pushed the signature sound into psychedelic places where Parsons had never been. Many of the album’s tracks begin nice and steady with honky-tonk fingerpicking an woozy pedal steel but ended in a miasma of organ drone and haunting harmony vocals. A little too weird for the expecting more cookie-cutter cowboy songs. Trees was met with as much puzzlement as praise.”

Today we received the sad news that Pete “Sleigher” Kinne passed away last Friday. Kinne was a founding member of Beachwood Sparks and played on the Desert Skies/Make It Together and Midsummer Daydream/Windows ‘65 singles. Kinne was also the singer and songwriter in the band Gold Winter People.

Please follow this link to read Brent Rademaker’s words about the life and remembrance of Pete Kinne. We wish his family and friends all the best.

Brent has recently posted up two new Beachwood Sparks songs on myspace.com/beachwoodsparks

From the latest Tyde myspace bulletin:

After three years, our new album, Three’s Co. will finally be out in N. America next Tuesday August 29th. We are celebrating its release with a party at Part Time Punks @ The Echo, in Echo Park (our ‘hood) this Sunday, August 27th, 10 pm. Juan Maclean is guest djing. It’s free, 18 & over. There will be some special guests playing with us and if you’re lucky, you might just get a Tyde beer cozy. They’re sick.

Before the record release party this Sunday, we’ll be ON-AIR, LIVE with Dave Adelson and Roy Trakin’s “Media Whores” on 97.1 FREE FM.

We’ll be going on the road up the West Coast the first week of September with The Brian Jonestown Massacre (see dates below).

Full US/Canada tour with the Black Angels in Oct/Nov. Dates to be announced soon.

Ann Tyde guest dj’ed at dublab.com last week. The session is now in rotation and can be downloaded as a podcast.

+ Pray for waves, share the spirit, enjoy the moment.+
The Tyde xxx

for e-card, go to:
www.roughtradeamerica.com/media/thetyde/threesco.html

Beachwood Sparks has made two unreleased songs available for download on their myspace profile. The songs, Time and (a different version of) Canyon Ride, hails “from the 1st and as of yet unreleased beachwood sparks lp” that were recorded at The Space Shed in Sierra Madre, CA in 1998-1999.

New gigs:

Mystic Chords of Memory
April 7 - The Echo, Los Angeles, CA
April 21 - Tokyo Shibuya O-NEST, Tokyo, Japan
April 23 - Osaka SUNSUI, Osaka, Japan

Frausdots
Mar 27 - The Silverlake Lounge, Silverlake, CA

Yesterday Brent Rademaker posted the following message on the Frausdots myspace bulletin board:

due to the overwhelming ?’s that come into the frausdots page regarding BWS we have set up our own page…go sign up and i’ll post some unreleased songs on the site…thanks chris hillman

The address: http://myspace.com/beachwoodsparks