https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

Salem’s Bend Hit the Parking Lot and Premiere “Cold Hand” Video

salem's bend

Imagine you roll into a parking lot and find Los Angeles trio Salem’s Bend jamming out in front of their van, surrounded by cameras filming their new video. What do you say? Do you leave your car, rock out for a while, and then go about your business? Maybe do your shopping or whatever it is you came to do, like nothing’s happening? That would be the New York solution, but I don’t know how it goes in L.A., if it would be the same or what. I like to think I’d park, walk over, check it out for a bit, maybe take a picture on my phone, nod, give a cool-cat thumbs up and be on my way. I’m sure the reality would be excruciatingly awkward. In any case, pretty friggin’ awesome idea to put some guerrilla filmmaking to work for the song “Cold Hand,” which is the first new material Salem’s Bend have shown off since Ripple Music released their self-titled debut (review here) last year.

You can’t say the track doesn’t earn it. At more than nine minutes, it’s a substantial work in terms of runtime, but even more than thatsalem's bend war cloud kook tour poster, the chemistry it demonstrates between the lineup of guitarist/vocalist Bobby Parker, bassist/vocalist Kevin Schofield and drummer Zach Huling proves beyond worthy of the showcase. And make no mistake — Salem’s Bend are playing the song live in the clip. Parker set up mics to get a pro-sounding recording and was wholly successful in that, but this is an actual, amplified performance of “Cold Hand,” not just a studio version laid over captured footage. They bring their own lighting and do well to set the mood, and as they push into the fuzzed-out blues jam that starts toward the middle of the track, they make it plain that they’re ready to begin exploring a whole new league of spaciousness from what they brought to their first album. Right on, right on, gentlemen. Preach.

Salem’s Bend hit the road starting July 12 — egads, that’s tonight! — for a West Coast tour alongside Ripple labelmates War Cloud and fellow upstarts Kook, and “Cold Hand” that begins with a gig presented by Vegas Rock Revolution and also features former tourmates The Rare Breed. You can find all the dates for the 12-date run under the video below, as well as some comment from Parker on making the video, recording the song, and the shorter companion track “Winter Sunn” that’s still to be unveiled.

Check it out and enjoy:

Salem’s Bend, “Cold Hand” official video

Before we start to work on the second album, we wanted to get a couple new songs out. “Cold Hand” is a song that we jammed out together, and we have been playing it live for the past several months. It’s fun to play, as it has a lot of improvisational parts that we feel out as a band, so its never quite the same twice. Because of that, we figured we’d record the song live to try to capture that essence. Kevin is a great director/cinematographer and has some killer film gear so we figured why not film it as well!

We enlisted the help of my dad, Lee Parker, who is a great director and cinematographer and has been in the film business doing every kind of job for a long time, and also my friend Herman Ming, who is also a great director, cameraman, and filmmaker himself. They did the mobile camera work for us and helped us set everything up. We chose a parking garage for our location so that we could get a massive reverbed-out sound, especially for the drums. I set up the mics to capture all our instruments and vocals, and then mixed and mastered in my home studio. It’s a raw performance with mistakes here and there, but I think we captured our live sound well and gives one small view into our show for those who haven’t been able to see us live yet. Zach and Kevin nailed their parts and sounded excellent.

Since Cold Hand is such a long song, we figured we counter that with a faster and shorter track for the B-side “Winter Sunn.” We wrote this one really quickly together in the studio and recorded it the next week at the same time we recorded Cold Hand, in the parking garage. We’re happy with the way it turned out and think its a good counterpoint to the more epic A-side.

We’re heading out on another summer tour of the Western US, covering some new ground and new states this time. The first half (minus a few dates on our own) will be with the awesome Bay Area band War Cloud, who just recently joined the Ripple family! And the second half will be with the amazing San Jose rippers KOOK, who we played with last year on tour and are excited to play with again! Kicking off the tour in Vegas on July 12th with our Ripple road brothers The Rare Breed for a rad show setup by Vegas Rock Revolution.

List of dates is as follows:
July 12th – Las Vegas, NV @ Backstage Bar and Billiards w/ The Rare Breed
July 13th – Tempe, AZ @ Yucca Tap Room
July 14th – Los Angeles, CA @ The Lexington w/ War Cloud
July 15th – Atascadero, CA @ Camozzi’s Saloon w/ War Cloud
July 16th – San Jose, CA @ The Ritz w/ War Cloud and Kook
July 17th – Sacramento, CA @ Blue Lamp w/ War Cloud
July 18th – San Francisco, CA @ DNA Lounge w/ War Cloud
July 19th – Eugene, OR @ Old Nick’s Pub w/ KOOK
July 20th – Portland, OR @ Highwater Mark w/ KOOK
July 21st – Seattle, WA @ Lucky Liquor w/ KOOK
July 22nd – Kennewick, WA @ Eagles Lodge 2485 w/ KOOK
July 23rd – Boise, ID @ The Shredder w/ KOOK
July 24th – Reno, NV @ Jub Jub’s w/ KOOK

Salem’s Bend is:
Bobby Parker – Guitar and Vocals
Kevin Schofield – Bass and vocals
Zach Huling – Drums

Salem’s Bend on Thee Facebooks

Salem’s Bend on Bandcamp

Ripple Music website

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

Tags: , , , , ,

One Response to “Salem’s Bend Hit the Parking Lot and Premiere “Cold Hand” Video”

  1. Suzy Gee says:

    I like the acoustics, good idea car park! I like the way the bass came in first with low drums and cymbal, first reminded me of Cream, then Sabbath I like the overall sound idea. Crashing drums, slow but sure lead guitar, bass always good…….as I’m listening I hear Stevie Ray Vaughn also. How about an exit like Keith Moon!!!!!!!!!!
    I enjoyed it
    Xxxxxxxxxx

Leave a Reply