ARTICLES:
"ON ITS FIRST RELEASE in six years, [Velvet] makes plenty of noise. "Well Thought Out and Well Planned" is a series of clamorous attacks and closes with a 12-minute track, "Theo Huxtable Syndicate," that eventually becomes a feedback exchange between guitarists Joe Brewer and Joe Calvarese. Yet this final section of the song introduces a tuneful instrumental motif that floats atop the din, much the way vocal melodies do on the five other numbers. That strategy is typical of the local grunge-goes-pop quartet, which deftly balances aggression and accessibility.
The album opens with "Bombs Away," whose title metaphor is given unexpected historical context by snippets of FDR's speech announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor. More typical, however, is "Four," which sets off its squalling passages with a chiming bridge and a multi-voice mantra of "We'll move on." The song's lyrics repeat the album title as its music illustrates it: From dirty-guitar tumult to clean vocal chorales, [Velvet] plans its music with great care."
-- Mark Jenkins
The Washington Post 12/21/07
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Standout Track:
No. 1, “Bombs Away,” a guitar-driven descent into apathy. Vocalist Joe Brewer, 27, and guitarist Joe Calvarese, 28, shrug off global chaos with a layered, melodic chorus: “Bombs away/Can’t change anything at all.” A sound bite of FDR’s Pearl Harbor speech comes in at the bridge, adding a historical analogy to the song’s modern concerns.
Musical Inspiration:
“We’re all berated by everything in the news,” says Brewer. “You want to make a difference, but you’re tired of hearing it. It doesn’t even phase you. It should. It should get to you right in the heart.” But Velvet took care to quote from “Day of Infamy” instead of “Mission Accomplished.” “We wanted to avoid using a George W. Bush speech that would alienate people unintentionally,” says Calvarese. “We try really hard not to be a political band with some agenda.”
Smells Like Teen Spite:
Velvet came together in 1995, when Brewer, Calvarese, and bassist Andrew Walker, 30, were still students at Hyattsville’s DeMatha Catholic High School (drummer Udi Farber, 26, joined later). “Joe had gotten in trouble and lost his free period, and for punishment, had to sit in my English class,” Calvarese says. “I thought, This guy looks like Kurt Cobain or Tom Petty. I couldn’t tell which,” he says. He asked Brewer if he could tag along to a jam session. “He said ‘no,’” says Calvarese. But within a week, Brewer had relented and invited him to a practice. “When I heard him play, I finally said, ‘Yeah, OK, you’re a lot better than me, you should be in the band,’” says Brewer.
—Amanda Hess
Washington City Paper 12/20/07
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'ROCK IN THE 'BURBS' -
Joe Brewer spends his days enforcing Hyattsville’s city code. Joe Calvarese provides litigation support at the U.S. Attorney’s office. Udi Farber teaches Hebrew at schools in the Washington, D.C.,-area and Andrew Walker is an arborist.
But once their 9-to-5 jobs have ended, the four members of the rock band [velvet] get together and jam.
‘‘It adds something to your life other than just working 9-to-5 and going home and watching TV,” said Brewer, 27, of Mount Rainier, who plays guitar and sings.
The members of [velvet] have been making music together since they attended DeMatha Catholic High School in 1995, with the exception of Farber, who joined the group as a drummer three years ago. They will release their fourth studio album, ‘‘Well Thought Out and Well Planned,” Friday. They recorded albums, all released independently, in 1996, 1998 and 2001.
‘‘This album is a big accomplishment for us,” said Friendship Heights resident Calvarese, 28, who plays guitar and provides some background vocals.
He said the group had been preparing to go back into the studio when their previous drummer left the band. After Farber joined the group, they wanted to take time to get used to each other’s playing styles.
‘‘We took the time to get everything together. We didn’t want to rush into the studio and do something sloppy,” he said.
Brewer said the six years between their last album and ‘‘Well Thought Out and Well Planned” were spent practicing, playing shows and saving up money to record a good product.
The group recorded their first three albums at Phase Studios in College Park, but former DeMatha classmate Andros Rodriguez, a producer for major bands in New York, produced and mixed their fourth album.
Their sound is what Brewer described as typical rock: ‘‘Two guitars, bass, drums, screaming, some melody and energy.”
But Calvarese said as they’ve gotten older, their music has evolved.
‘‘We’ve rounded out some of the edges, so we’re more refined. But we still rock hard,” he said.
Brewer said it was hard for their albums to have the same level of energy that their performances did.
‘‘When people saw us live they would tell us we sounded so much better live [than on our CDs]. So we tried to capture that energy more this time,” he said.
But even with the release of their fourth album, Brewer said he and his bandmates don’t necessarily have dreams of rock stardom.
‘‘We’ve always said that if a label can match our salaries and retirement then we’d sign [with them],” Brewer said. ‘‘But we don’t do it to make money. We do it because we enjoy playing in a band together and being friends.”
-Maya Prabhu
The Gazette 12/20/07
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'VELVET'S RESPONSIBLE ROCK' -
"We're friends more than we are band mates," said [velvet] frontman Joe Brewer of guitarist Joe Calvarese. The pair, who met at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, started their 12-year friendship in a way you might find in a teen comedy.
"[Calvarese] was a year ahead of me [at DeMatha], and I would get in trouble, so my detention was to sit in his honors English class," Brewer, 27, said. "We kind of struck up a friendship, and he came over to band practice one day. He played guitar, and we just kind of hit it off from there."
Now, 12 years later, [velvet] is still around and playing shows in the Washington area. The band will release its fourth independent studio album, Well Thought Out and Well Planned Out, with an album release party at the Black Cat on Dec. 21.
The band's four members were all university attendees at one point, with Calvarese, 28, and bassist Andrew Walker, 30, both graduating in 2001. Brewer dropped out but received an associate's degree later, and drummer Udi Farber, 26, the newest member of the band, is a current student.
The band's name dates back to its inception but doesn't mean much to the band - it was just what they came up with when they were 15, Brewer said. To make what Calvarese called a bland name a bit more interesting, [velvet] uses a very specific punctuation, with brackets around the name and an entirely lowercase script.
"It's hard to really make that name look appealing," Calvarese said. "It's a capital V and a lowercase v, and as far as a logo goes, it just looked like crap when you write it out like a normal word. So, we tried different stuff for a while. We had it in cursive, but that kind of looked a little too pretentious - a little too emo. I don't know where the brackets exactly came from, but they looked good. … It's a visual cue."
Because Walker, Calvarese and Brewer have been playing together as [velvet] since high school, the band has a sound steeped in that era. The band's sound has matured since then, however, with touches of emo and punk mixed in with the grunge.
"When we started off, we were more on the punk side, maybe because that's all we knew how to play," Calvarese said. "Then we moved into a much heavier phase - the music was a lot heavier - but then it sort of got a little more melodic and ... now we've just kind of found a happy medium."
Brewer breaks it down a bit simpler.
"I like to rock, I like to be loud and I like to scream," Brewer said.
"I hope that never goes out of style," Calvarese added.
As students at the university, [velvet] played at the All-Nighter in the Stamp Student Union and house parties on the outskirts of the campus, Calvarese said.
Perhaps [velvet]'s longevity comes from the band's relatively light schedule. Because all four members have day jobs - Calvarese at the United States Attorney's office in Washington, Brewer as a city inspector for the Hyattsville government, Walker as a horticulturist and Farber as a student and Hebrew teacher - [velvet] only plays three to four shows a month, Brewer said.
"We like to be able to have money along with playing shows, so we can go out and buy all that nice equipment," Brewer said. "We're kind of like the responsible rockers. No one makes money in a band. It's like a one-in-a-million shot to actually make it. We'd love to be out touring, but we also like our 401(k)s."
Both Brewer and Calvarese contribute [velvet]'s longevity to the band's close friendships.
"Whenever we have band arguments or band problems, it all boils down to the fact that we're all friends and we'll always be friends," Calvarese said. "We're involved in each other's lives to the extent that ... if they made it illegal to have a rock band tomorrow, we'd still hang out all the time."
"It's really a simple formula," Brewer added. "Just practice. Play shows. Be friends."
-Rudi Greenberg
The Diamondback 12/7/07
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For over a decade, [velvet] has crafted songs of sonic brilliance
interspersed with moments of quiet beauty. Their appreciation for mind
numbing fury has kept them on the fringes of the more jangle-oriented D.C.
scene. However, it is this very fury that has helped [velvet] rise above
the fray.
After opening for Eyes Adrift (Krist Novoselic of Nirvana, Bud Gaugh of Sublime, Curt Kirkwood of The Meat Puppets) at Washington, D.C.’s Black Cat – Generation Gap Magazine described Velvet as being “eerily reminiscent of the band Hum” but with a style of their own that is quite difficult to pin down.
Formed in 1995, this College Park, Maryland band has released four
stellar independent albums on Signal to Noise Records with their latest album 'Well Thought Out and Well Planned' being produced by famed up and coming producer Andros Rodriguez (clients include Thrice, Death Cab for Cutie, Something Corporate, Justin Timberlake, Jet, All American Rejects, Madonna, and Kayne West among others)
[velvet] is perhaps best known for their awe-inspiring live act, which
has garnered the respect of music critics and legions of loyal fans. Over
the years, Velvet has toured relentlessly around the mid-Atlantic and
amazed crowds and headlined at such venues as the Black Cat (Washington, D.C.), Fletcher’s (Baltimore, Md.), The Recher Theatre (Towson, Md.) and several television and radio appearances including MHz Networks, 99.1 WHFS (R.I.P), 98Rock, DC101 and countless college radio stations throughout the nation. They have opened for such national acts as: Good Charlotte, Eyes Adrift, The Anniversary, Fairweather, and Hot Rod Circuit.
In a recent “Reader’s Choice” poll by the University of Maryland’s daily
newspaper, The Diamondback, Velvet was voted best local band. Upon the
release of their third self produced album, “short term memories…” (Signal to Noise Records, 2001) Dave March of 99.1 WHFS fame (R.I.P.) in Washington, D.C. declared, “Velvet is probably one of our most requested local bands.”
DC101 DJ Roache stated that "there needs to be more bands like [velvet] who help people remember that there are still good local ROCK bands."
As part of their quest for world domination, Velvet has had songs featured on the Discovery Channel’s “Outward Bound” series, and in the feature-length horror film Jigsaw (Tempe Entertainment). [velvet]'s latest album 'Well Thought Out and Well Planned' has received rave reviews from both media and fans.
-Daniel Obregon
CEO
Signal to Noise Records
Come celebrate Valentine's Day with us at SOhO in Santa Barbara on Saturday, February 14th, 2009. Tickets are available at www. sohosb. com for $15. We look forward to seeing you there!
Hey there! How are things? Just wanted to let you know that "Proof of Faith" opens at Art Whino this SATURDAY. If you can't make it to the show, you can check out www. myspace. com/artwhino after the weekend for pics or go to www. artwhino. com to purchase work. God bless, and please keep in touch!
Me and my cousin Matt got drunk of jaegermeister and stole your couch. One mans trach is another man's regret for taking something that's been most likely fucked on.
yo yo got a show june 11th at the black hole rock club in dundalk(just outside bmore) me sam and justin got a 30 minute set starting at 1130. new shit. no biggie tho, more to come. hollr
The new album is amazing! For anyone reading this, buy this album, you wont regret it. You guys have really crafted your sound and the production is solid. Thanks for sending me a copy! You should all feel very proud of this album, its the best one yet, and I love all the others!
Hope you guys have a great show tonight! Sorry I can't make it up to DC to be there. I'll get up there for a show sometime in the Spring. In the mean time, we have to talk about shipping me a new CD!
![NoCo [No Compromise]](http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/26/s_7eb65284f3db5f084be7d1ec1a77205c.jpg)
