Celebrated tribute band plays Brian Eno tunes at the Make-Out Room
Popular Brian Eno tribute band Enorchestra plays a show marking the 20th anniversary of the group's remake/remodel of his groundbreaking album Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy at the Make-Out Room Saturday.
The project is the brainchild of longtime Bay Area musician Doug Hilsinger. A member of '90s SF alt-psych powerhouse Bomb and experimental indie band Gifthorse, the guitarist/keyboardist continues to play in multiple local outfits including playing with local songwriter Kelley Stoltz's band, Camper Van Beethoven's Victor Krummenacher, the D--ks and Sister Double Happiness singer Gary Floyd, Earth Girl Helen Brown, Sarah Bethe Nelson and Brigid Dawson & the Mothers Network. The Enorchestra grew out of his affection for Brian Eno's solo albums after leaving Roxy Music, particularly the 1974 effort Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy.
Having already recorded a couple of songs from the record -- playing all the instruments himself -- in the fall of 2003, Hilsinger approached his bandmate in then current group Waycross Caroleen Beatty to provide vocals. Their growing enthusiasm for the rocking, guitar-focused recordings and a pending visit to San Francisco by Eno for a lecture led the pair to quickly finish recording their own version of Taking Tiger Mountain so they could give the visiting artist a CD of rough mixes.
Eno was so taken by the recording that he called Hilsinger a few days later and thanked him for making "beautiful music" out of his "old experiments" and signed on to write the liner notes for the completed CD's eventual release in 2004, which coincided with the 30th anniversary of the original album and its remastered reissue.
Hilsinger and Beatty have since expanded their repertoire to include songs from all four of Eno's fractured pop albums and continue to play regular shows with Enorchestra in the nearly two decades since the celebrated reinterpretation of the classic album came out, taking the stage with longtime collaborators Steve Perrone (formerly of surf band Planet Seven, the Starlight Sound and sadly defunct hard-rock greats Dirty Power) on guitar, Sunny Haire on guitar and vocals, Dusty Jermier (Wooden Shjips) on bass and Bruce Ducheneaux (ex-Assassins of God, Waycross, Gary Floyd) on drums.
This show at the Make-Out Room will celebrate not only the 20th anniversary of the band's recording of Taking Tiger Mountain, but also the 50th anniversary of the original album's release in 1974. In addition to playing the album in its entirety, Enorchestra will play a number of other Eno classics and two songs they have never performed live before. Instead of having an opening band, Hilsinger will plug in a pair of iPads running the new generative ambient music app Trope that was developed by Eno in partnership with musician/software engineer Peter Chilvers, providing the audience with an aural soundbath before the main event.
Enorchestra
Saturday, April 13, 7 p.m. $15
The Make-Out Room
