CALICO HORSE

PRESS

ROLLING STONE.COM Calico Horse, “Idioteque” [Radiohead Cover] "It took a California alt-country band to make a song about fear, anxiety and paranoia sound sweet and lilting. For their next challenge, they’ll be writing a series of lullabies based on the works of Einsturzende Neubauten."

WIRED BLOG NETWORK "The Clock Work Army's Emily Nevue had a problem: Her band was folding, and she was left holding the bag on a series of sessions with producer Pall Jenkins, of Black Heart Procession and Three Mile Pilot. So she did what any indie rock star who wants to survive would do: She rebranded the band as Calico Horse, hired some new bandmates, finished the sessions with Jenkins, and started work on a covers album (Cat Power? Scarlett Johannson?) featuring an iteration of Radiohead's "Idioteque." Mission accomplished. Calico Horse's full-length debut Mirror is out June 24 from Banter Records, and Pall's impact is immediately recognizable. Although his first heinously underrated band Three Mile Pilot, with Pinback bassist Zach Smith, trafficked in stripped-down art-punk, his recent band has specialized in the type of dark waltzes found in Calico Horse's "Father Feed Me," which is streamed below with Nevue's Radiohead cover."

SPIN MAGAZINE May 2008 Issue "When Emily Neveu's previous band imploded before they could finish recording their debut studio session (with Black Heart Procession's Pall Jenkins), she called on some friends for help. The result was the brooding, piano-based Calico Horse. Neveu is best appreciated live, where she comes off as an overcaffeinated, cheerleaderish spectacle, a Siouxsie with no need for banshees."

SEZIO.ORG AN EVENING WITH CALICO HORSE "Calico Horse is primed and ready to be the next band to break out of San Diego. On the eve of their CD Release show and West Coast tour, we sat down with them to discuss their musical backgrounds, influences, day jobs and karate lessons..." Read/See/Hear more. . .

BETTER PROPAGANDA.COM "Mirror" Review "Bands are volatile and nothing can be left unexpected. Band life is certainly not all glitz and glamor and, oftentimes, can be a burden. Keeping a band together can be a chore and even your entire heart and soul may not be able to keep it standing. And, what's worse is that your heart and soul may get buried in the rubble. So goes the story of San Diego's Clock Work Army, who stepped into a friend's studio in 2006 to record the follow-up to their debut EP, A Catalyst for Change. Over the course of 18 months, the band dissolved, not once, not twice, but three times. Following the third collapse, lead singer and songwriter, Emily Neveu (pronounced "neh-voo"), couldn't bear to be torn apart any longer and decided to scrap the album. However, she soon realized that the album possessed her heart and soul and, although making it left her in shambles, finishing it was the only way to piece herself back together. The band began as Emily Neveu, guitarist Scott Wheeler, bassist Dave Pettijohn, and drummer Ted Humphrey. Ted was the first to leave, getting a call from LA breakout act, The Willowz, to go on tour, which eventually led to a permanent spot in the band. Although Ted was a phenomenal drummer, the biggest loss was his home studio and production capabilities. The band was left without a drummer, producer, and studio. The band went on an indefinite hiatus. Fortunately, local San Diego icon, Pall Jenkins, founding member of Three Mile Pilot and Black Heart Procession, enthralled by Emily's voice, agreed to record the album at his home studio. Soon after entering Jenkins' studio, Dave Pettijohn, known as "Petti," was offered to go on tour with Augustana as a guitar tech and documentarian. Being that Petti was a film major at UC San Diego, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to get behind the lens. With only two members, Neveu and Wheeler, The Clock Work Army forged on. But, eventually, the thin thread that was The Clock Work Army snapped when Wheeler decided to leave the band due to a lack of interest in the project. In February of 2007, Emily decided to give up on the band that was poised to become San Diego's rock darlings, leaving it all behind in a pile of dust and bones. Over the next two months, Neveu left music behind and, although she yearned to be creative, she found relief in her paintings and collages. But music was her calling and, with the encouragement of Jenkins, Neveu began to re-work old songs and write new ones. Bit by bit, she pieced together the album, incorporating themes that were present in her own life. She wrote about the ocean, its ebb and flow, its swirling sound, and its constancy. She wrote about the night sky, its darkness and twinkles of brightness, its hollow sound, and its infinite space. She wrote about love, its bouts of pleasantries, its scarring demise, and its inevitable plateaus. And, finally, after nearly two years, Emily Neveu emerged from the studio, now as Calico Horse, with the lovely and, on occasion, brilliant album Mirror. The album sets sail on a winter evening, wearily floating away from the fog-covered docks. It tumbles to the bottom of the cold, black sea, rises up to the moonlit sky, and drifts off to sleep as the sun begins to rise above the horizon. "All We've Left To Do Is Pay The Boatmen" begins with chiming bells, calling in the ghost ships that were wandering the lonely sea. But we are cast out into the dark waters with eyes closed, dreaming our way through the night. "Rest your head, slowly close your breath, completely satisfied, completely say goodbye. It's your time," sings Neveu, bringing in the theme of death that takes many forms throughout the album. "Awake in the Clouds" follows, describing the dark sky where our souls collide when people die. The influence of Pall Jenkins is obvious in this track, with it's sea shanty rhythm and dark guitar melody. Then we hear "Happy Placebo Syringe Day," a song that traces the lives of two drug-happy lovebirds and the entracing, out of body, yet fulfilling experience of an altered state of mind. Never has death seemed so eerily bright, when Neveu ends the song, "We lay side-by-side in wooden boxes." As mentioned before, the pirate-like sound of Black Heart Procession is present throughout the album, as is the slow, yet sweet sound of Low and Sparklehorse, but there are upbeat elements of grandiosity that are scattered in between. "Onomatopoeia" highlights Ted Humphrey's virtuosity as a drummer, building a heavy rhythm with Petti's bass line. Wheeler's guitar melody is as pleasing as it is piercing while Neveu pounds away at the piano. "Colors" follows the same recipe while "Hi-Fi Plane Ride" sounds like a k-pop, techno jam. But, what truly stands out during the entire album is Neveu's voice, which is soothing, robust, and versatile as Leslie Feist's or even Liz Fraser's. In the closing track, "Goodnight," Neveu sings us to sleep in a beautifully haunting manner. Each time she sings the wordless chorus, we slip further into sleep. From the opening bells of "All We've Left to Do is Pay the Boatman" to the closing thump of "Good Night", Calico Horse takes us on a dream-like journey aboard a rickety boat made of lost love, life, and direction. And, in the end, we find ourselves alone on the boat, eyelids closing as fast as the sun is rising, drifting off into our dreams. Out now on Banter Records."

VENUS ZINE Record Review of "Mirror" by Camella Lobo Published May 13, 2008 "Anything you've read by now about this San Diego band will surely mention that the Black Heart Procession's very own Pall Jenkins produced its debut album, Mirror. And although opening track, "All We've Left to do is Pay the Boatman," appears to pick up right where BHP's The Spell left us in 2006, Calico Horse's lighthearted sound won't be tied to the melancholy BHP for very long. From beginning to end, the album is a ride through a whimsical but raucous world of darkly cheerful piano and pulsing guitar riffs. Wait, is that a Theremin? It's spooky, too! Making economical use of Jenkin's somber and moody influence, Calico Horse frontwoman Emily Neveu's haunting vocals are still uplifting enough to err on the side of upbeat. Formerly of the now defunct Clock Work Army and garage rock band the Muslims, Neveu also lends some lovely keyboard and guitar to the record. Her shadowy song writing paints her as a San Diego sunshine kid with a dark side, one who seems constantly torn between windsurfing and hiding in her closet with a flashlight and Ouija board. The second track, "Awake in the Clouds" showcases that internal struggle as Neveu's delicate harmonies compete with a deep, clashing floor tom, a sonic battle between good and evil. Her band mates -- Dave Pettijohn on bass, Matt Mournian on guitar (both lending vocals), and drummer Tom Peart -- compliment the sometimes schizophrenic soundscapes that are surely representative of Neveu's desire to create a dark and brooding, yet elated and hopeful aesthetic in her songs. Digging deeper into sunny tracks like "Happy Placebo Syringe Day" and "Colors," which both channel chipper Velocity Girl anthems from the early '90s, it is apparent that Calico Horse is capable of standing very cheerfully on its own. Perhaps Jenkins was out sick those days."

SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE June 5, 2008 by George Varga PRETTY GOOD WORK, EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT NAMED STEWY STINKER "You can only imagine the waves of excitement that swept over me when I discovered that, at last, a San Diego band had named itself after Virginia Lee Burton's classic 1941 book, “Calico the Wonder Horse, or the Saga of Stewy Stinker.” Well, you could if I had actually read what is reportedly a lighthearted tale of the Wild West by the author of “Choo Choo” and “Maybelle the Cable Car.” But Calico Horse is a much more refined monicker for a band than, say, Stewy Stinker, even if the members of this gifted San Diego quartet have never read Burton's book. And, under any name, the often absorbing music featured on “Mirror,” Calico Horse's soon-to-be-released debut album, commands attention. The group's command of mood and texture is as notable as UCSD graphic arts graduate Emily Neveu's luminous singing, which is inviting even in its darker moments. Then, there's the expert production by The Blackheart Procession's Pall Jenkins, a kindred musical spirit who appreciates the power of understatement and the fact that the silence between notes is as important as the notes themselves. To these ears, though, one of the most endearing things about Calico Horse's 13-song maiden album is that it features four waltzes. “Awake in the Clouds,” “Father Feed Me,” the delightfully eerie “AJ” and the album-closing “Goodnight” are all built upon a 3/4 waltz rhythm, which is a staple of American country music and of European classical music from the late-1800s. That Calico Horse is able to perform four waltz-based songs on one album and make each sound fresh and distinct is an unexpected treat. So is the way the band has absorbed and reshaped a variety of influences, from Radiohead, Tom Waits and Siouxsie Sioux at their most melancholic, to – if I may venture a few left-field guesses – The Art Bears and The Roches' self-titled 1979 debut album with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp. In bassist Dave Pettijohn, guitarist Matt Mournian and drummer Tom Peart (no relation to Rush's Neil Peart), former Clock Work Army/Muslims mainstay Neveu has a band that plays with unusual poise and empathy. And if Calico Horse can match the heady quality of “Mirror” when the band kicks off its 12-city tour tomorrow at the Casbah, it could become a force to reckon with. (If you can't make the Casbah gig, don't despair: Calico Horse concludes its tour with a June 26 date at the Belly Up Tavern, where it will share the stage with the Hollywood Bowl-bound The Album Leaf.) "

PERFORMER MAGAZINE Live Review March 12, 2008 by Dave Boodakian CALICO HORSE/PAPERCUTS/BEACH HOUSE "With a mix of experimental and melody-driven tunes, local band Calico Horse and touring bands Papercuts and Beach House played to a packed house at The Casbah. San Diego’s cozy hotbed for independent rock. Taking the stage first and showcasing a laidback alternative sound was Calico Horse, formerly known as The Clock Work Army. Frontwoman Emily Neveu provided much of the band’s excitement, her carefree but intriguing vocals holding the audience’s attention as she switched between guitar and keyboard. Accompanying Neveu was Dave Pettijohn (bass/vocals), Matt Mournian (guitar/vocals) and Tom Peart (drums). Though the first three songs made it questionable whether or not Calico Horse was actually having any fun, its members began to lighten up as the room filled up, incorporating heavier dynamics, and in turn, more life into their songs. Any late arrivals trickling in were greeted with the band’s standout final song, “Hi-Fi Plane Ride,” notably bolstered by the contributions of rhythm section Pettijohn and Peart, and properly serving as the culmination of Calico Horse’s set"

MY OLD KENTUCKY BLOG "Well, I just about barfed when I read a one-sheet describing Calico Horse as "what Radiohead would be like with a female at the helm", but I swallowed it and listened anyway. The bands don't often write those things, so you just hope an intern, or worse yet a blogger, did it and either pass or pop it in. The group, formerly known as The Clock Work Army, will release a new album this year - under this new Calico Horse moniker. The new name marks Emily Neveu (vocals, guitar, piano) and Dave "Petti" Pettijohn's (bass) split with former guitarist Scott Wheeler as well as their previous drummer and the addition of two part-time newbs. The album was produced by Pall Jenkins, member of MOKB-approved Black Heart Procession, ultimately led me into checking further into this band. Immediately, if you're familiar with BHP's work, you can tell Jenkins was a good choice. The majority of Calico Horse's songs are dark, moody and piano-driven - similar to BHP. It's all very Feist on some serious downers, or very Blonde Redhead minus the art scene and helium."

Live Review by Cat Dirt "Calico Horse started the show. They drew a strong crowd of local music fans. Obvious, to me, that Calico Horse is a pick for 2008 San Diego Music Awards "best new band" category. Emily (ex-Muslims) is the singer/guitar player/keyboardist that powers the band, though I note she's added Matt (ex-Influx Cafe, Blue Monday) on guitar and has a capable bassist and drummer. This was my first live encounter with Calico Horse and I found Emily an intriguing front woman. Calico Horse has a rock baseline, but most of the songs have a light, lilting quality to them that put me in mind of Tori Amos. Emily's singing is charmingly imperfect. Sophie heard an early PJ Harvey quality in her singing. I was engaged by the performance and want to hear the recorded work. Judging from the attendance last night, Calico Horse already has an avid local following."

Song Review by SD Reader "I liked it very much; it's a very pretty song. It reminded me of a band called Quixotic. It also reminded me of seeing Siouxsie and the Banshees live. I think the girl has a lovely voice. I thought the mood of the song was very "full" and her voice was very complementary to the music. [The song] seemed fairly dark, but I couldn't pick up on some of the words. There's kind of a one-beat drum -- almost like a drum-circle drum and then a keyboard or synthesizer. Some guitar. It was really simple in terms of there wasn't a lot of instrumentation. I don't think it would be huge commercially, but I think they could certainly support themselves as musicians."

MAGGOTRON HAS SPOKEN ". . . I've got a better idea. Go see a live show. Even better, go see a live show at the Casbah. Even better than that, go see the best show that the Casbah is throwing down this month. One of the best bands in San Diego right now, Calico Horse (formerly The Clockwork Army) takes the stage probably around 9:30pm this Friday evening to be followed by Brooklyn (where else?) indie scenster biggies, MGMT and Yeasayer. If you haven't listened to any of these bands yet, take a moment to go do it now because they're all fucking ridiculous. I'm so pumped about seeing Yeasayer I'm thinking about heading over to the 7-Eleven parking lot and starting a one man mosh-pit for no good reason. I saw Calico Horse two weeks ago open for Black Heart Procession and they were incredible. They had a keyboard malfunction and the lovely tigeress frontwoman, Emily Neveu improvised using someone's glockenspiel. That woman has mad glocken, yo, and her vocals are hauntingly gorgeous. They have a bassist with a penchant for all things Jean-Luc Godard and a guitarist who will teach you vocal harmonies for 48 Thai bhat and a Parliment. They are fearless."