“I don't remember a time when I wasn't making music. It’s my expressive language of choice because it really gives me an opportunity to tap into my subconscious. It’s a need to express myself, a need to create. Music is the only art form that seems to really move me emotionally…without it, I'd be lost.” - Shane Sweet, Sandbox

Welcome to Shane’s eclectic world, where music is art, art is music, and everything is creative and original.
Shane and his band Sandbox will be releasing their album Me and Him and Horse on March 27, 2012. “Each song is a stand alone story or experience, separate from the others for the most part. I really tried to get away from common threads in this album.”

The process of Sandbox is unique: “I write and play all the parts in the recordings. On the new record, I brought in a few specialists to play violins and horns, plus a tap dancer and a 16-person choir. But beyond all of that I play each part you hear, and live I am joined by my awesome band."

Shane and Sandbox also regularly do Art Installations in his warehouse in downtown LA. The newest one is called “The Speakeasy,” to coincide with the new album. “The Art Installations began with a sense of dissatisfaction at shows. I would always go to shows, especially to those big stadium shows with big, famous, hugely budgeted bands and I was always left thinking, they could be doing so much more with that audience, they could be wowing people so much more. So that led to me wanting to have the ‘Disneyland Effect.’ When you leave Disneyland as a kid for the first time and you hit the parking lot and realize, oh yeah, I am in this city near this freeway and in the real world, I am not in the magical world anymore. I wanted to create an event that would have that effect on adults. I wanted to create an environment, a world for all these people to disappear in and transmute in and be safe in that fantasy for awhile." Now a few Installations deep, 'The Speakeasy’ is the latest and the concept is doing a Prohibition Era ‘Speakeasy’ that is nuanced and Era specific, featuring all of the sights and sounds and attractions of that time combined with modern bands and tons of surprises including exotic animal shows, blind pig style drinking options, secret passwords and entrances, and much more.

Shane’s musical heroes are not much of a surprise…creative, introspective types, much like Shane himself. “John Lennon is definitely number one,” Shane reveals. “Lennon completely opened my eyes to how music could be made and what music could mean on an individual and on massive scale. And so much of what he did and said, whether it be the super subversive stuff of the ‘White Album’ or the simple demands of ‘Imagine,’ it all took courage, and that is most admirable. Kurt Cobain is also a hero of mine based on one simple fact: 5,000 years or so into the whole musical creation thing, he totally put a band together that creates an entire new music genre which from that point on, changed the course of popular music. The idea of what a hit could be and should be totally changed post-Nirvana.”

Sandbox will also tour extensively to support the album. What can one expect from a Sandbox live show? “Get ready for the wall of sound. We are a seven-piece band and we use all of it, the violins and keys blending with the guitars, lead vocals and harmonies abound. It's a lot of sound and we also like to change things up from show to show, so there's always a chance you'll be hearing a song performed in such a way that perhaps no one has heard performed in that fashion and perhaps no one will hear it that way again. For the installation shows it's the live experience on steroids. We bring in the choir, the tap dancer, horn sections, marching band, everything you hear on the recordings will be there live, in person, and it's always amazing to see that much stuff working together, and I think it also lends to a greater appreciation of everything that goes into recording a song, seeing it all laid out before you like that. And in general for the art installations, be prepared to be interactive: the environment, the crew, the cast, the bands, it's all part of the Installation which means you as a guest are as well! We may come up to you and expect you to be in on the rules of a Speakeasy just as quickly as you may think to ask us those very same rules. Don't be shy!”

“Our music and art are fun, thoughtful, diverse, insightful…and masked,” Shane concludes. “I want people to get a real human experience out of my music, the recordings in specific. I want people to see and experience environments from them and experience real humanness in the songs, people lie, they say things they don't mean, they don't say things they DO mean, people are coy, people say they're happy when they aren't, and all the characters in the songs are very much human in that regard, you don't find much shooting from the hip from the characters' perspectives and I hope that people see that and can connect to that sense of realness.”

As far as Sandbox’s pedigree, they’ve performed at the Fringe Festival and the Glasgow Green in the UK in addition to performing on BBC Radio 1. They’ve also performed at Hempfest, which draws a crowd of over 100k people. This year they are playing SXSW and also have three national tours. Their first performance of 2012 will be at the Maximum Exposure Showcase in February which has already sold 5000 tickets. And of course, there is “The Speakeasy.”

Stay tuned for news of Sandbox’s national tour, album release and Art Installations performances soon…

Every human being, even the youngest, is already old – that is, so close to death that he or she does not, in any case, have time to efface the accidental quality of the accidents of which his or her life is composed… We human beings are always more our accidents than our choice.” – Odo Marquard “In Defense Of The Accidental”
For some reason you are a person, or perhaps one of those very clever apes, who finds himself reading a band bio. You probably feel like you have some choice in the matter, but I assure you this is not the case.

If you’ve heard of Piebald (not completely unlikely) or Arlo (somewhat more unlikely), then you have heard Travis Shettel, Aaron Stuart, and Nate Greely in their spunk-filled youth (gross).

If you haven’t heard of either, don’t feel bad, I’ll fill you in. Arlo made a couple records for Sub Pop in 2001 and 2002, some people called them power pop, compared them to Sloan and The Posies. They toured their butts off across the U.S., Europe, and Japan, with folks like Foo Fighters, The Shins, The Walkmen, and Rilo Kiley. They got weirdly popular in Japan for a little while, got in some fights, and broke up in 2004.

Meanwhile, on the east coast, Aaron and Travis were in Piebald, being more hardcore, or post-hardcore, or some kind of -core. They stayed together a few years longer than Arlo due to better record sales and superior conflict resolution skills, put out five albums on various labels, and wandered the globe, playing shows with Jimmy Eat World, Jejeune, Saves The Day, Dinosaur Jr., and probably more stuff they can’t remember. By 2008 they called it quits as well.

Suddenly bandless and therefore jobless for the first time since high school, these strays were taken in and fed by other bands. Travis played with The Duke Spirit for a while, and started and ended a band called The Was. Nate toured with his Sub Pop labelmates The Elected, and then with the Seeds (yes, with Sky Saxon, it was trippy). They returned to Los Angeles around 2009 with improved chops and broader horizons, recruiting Pete Beeman (Burning Brides) on drums and Ryan Jebavy (Nighttime) on keys, and formed The Hunting Accident. Check out the songs on our music page, browse the photos, come to a show. Let’s be friends.

Indie-rock trio Derde Verde crafts colorful, chameleon-like song structures sprinkled with noise, analog electronics, melodic guitar lines and rhythmic twists. The L.A. based band named themselves after Val Verde, a rural valley town of coyotes, rolling hills, and big sky, an hour north of the city.

Their new EP, Let Me Be A Light will be released this April on 12" Vinyl, CD, and download, and is now available for pre-order at derdeverde.bandcamp.com, where a new song, "Secret" is now streaming.

Derde Verde’s last album, Moon/Mirror, was self-released in September 2011 and shows a range of influences from shoegaze, to krautrock, to indie electronica… "instantly engrossing, buoyed by excellent arrangements and impressive vocal harmonies... Derde Verde may be the closest thing Los Angeles has to its own Radiohead right now" Tom Child (LA Record Issue 105).