Bob and Martha
“A long time ago, I used to live in a basement in Vancouver that my friends and I called ‘the Shire’. Our landlords who lived upstairs hated us because, as they would claim, ‘we smoked drugs and partied all night’. The neighbourhood wasn’t very fond of us either. It was probably because one of them had a huge fucking tree that looked like a marijuana bud, which we called, ‘the Tree of Life’. For our outdoor sessions, it was either smoke and chill out under the Tree of Life, or walk a few blocks to the marsh and blaze there. The Tree of Life was a convenient spot, so it was a heavily favoured choice. The dude who lived in the house had a family with little children, so he fucking hated us a lot too.
Anyway, during this awesome period of my life, the Shire had many visiting guests from different places around the world. At one point it was a dude who went to school in Montreal with my childhood buddy. We smoked a ton of chronic and then went to a dope ass house party. That day, I was already blacking out by the time we reached our destination, and the next thing I remember, I was waking up under the ever-so-gracing Vancouver rain out in the streets covered in my own puke. The thing about living in the Shire was that it was a shit load of fun living there, but I wouldn’t be able to recall the faces that came and went. But this dude, as fate had already planned, would make another appearance in my life.
In New York, I would run into this guy again. It was at a bar, and at first I didn’t recognize him. But he knew of the Shire and I recalled the story he told me. It was fascinating. That very night, I would be introduced to Aparna and Dan, who performed together as Bob and Martha. We watched them play, and I bought their CD. The rest is history.”
-David Choi
Bob and Martha was formed in the summer of 2012 in an explosive firework of creativity and kittens. Self-described “old souls” from Brooklyn, NY, Aparna Muralidharan and Dan Bonsignore found each other on the internet before meeting at the Zombie Hut in Gowanus, BK. A few beers in, these two kindred spirits bonded over a mutual love of loop pedals (also kittens). After several hours spent in a basement rehearsal space, Bob and Martha emerged, executing poppy yet haunting melodies over complex and multitudinous guitar loops. Joe Rath joined the band in 2014, providing booming bass lines to fill out the complex sound, which has since been described as psychedelic pop or experimental meditation-rock. It evokes similarities to Bjork, the Doors, and Modest Mouse. Bob and Martha is currently an active force within the Brooklyn music scene and is planning a small tour of the Northeast in the spring.
http://bobandmartha.bandcamp.com
