Secret Emchy Society - EPK
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Secret Emchy Society
Secret Emchy Society is a queer outlaw country / americana band from Oakland, CA for fans of Waylon Jennings, Willi Carlile, Sturgill Simpson, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, and Lucinda Williams. As the First Lady of Queer Country, she is known for her distinct voice and ability to blend Americana, California Country, Hellbilly, Goth, and Honky Tonk, spinning radically distinctive tales from her singular perspective. Emchy’s not only a highly regarded musician in the Bay Area—nominated three times for Best Local LGBT Band by Bay Area Reporter—but she’s also a seasoned student of the history of LGBTQA musicians dipping their toes in genres that have always been “off-limits” for non-hetero participants. She was the founding editor of Country Queer and hosted Gimme Country’s popular Emchy’s Outlaw Americana show. She’s also worked and toured extensively with the original queer country cowboy Lavender Country, and has played bills with the award-winning singer-songwriter Amythyst Kiah (from the all-women-of-color supergroup Our Native Daughters), Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, the Vandoliers, Pine Box Boys, Adeem the Artist, out transwoman folk-punker Shawna Virago, Carolyn Mark, and many more. The band has also been multiple times as a 'Must See' band at both AmericanaFest and SXSW by NoDepression and Pandora.com. Needless to say, Cindy Emch has become well-known to anyone paying attention to the increasing popularity of turning old tropes on their ear by melding classic twang with a punk ethos. Emchy’s first taste of music was from her mother, who played standards on accordion. She grew up with a love for Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, but when she hit her 20s, a college radio show introduced her to country legends like Yoakam, Cash, and Lucinda Williams. Throw in partiality to a smattering of post-punk bands like X, Violent Femmes, and Black Flag, and it’s easy to see what led Emchy to the Bay Area in 1995, where she honed her sound when she co-founded two well-regarded punk-country bands, Vagabondage and Rhubarb Whiskey. After cutting her teeth as a side player for years, it was a lucky accident one night when she ended up at the front of the stage, taking the reins to act as bandleader, only to realize that was where she had belonged all along. Emchy’s music, created with her longtime band Secret Emchy Society, has been compared to songwriters like Ray Davies, Marijohn Wilkin, John D. Loudermilk, and Cowboy Jack Clement, who wrote the early hits for African-American country pioneer Charley Pride. SES’s debut album, 2017’s The Stars Fell Shooting Into Twangsville, swings beautifully from accordion-drenched waltzes to slow ballads to high-tempo roof shakers with lyrics soaked in long-standing country tropes, from day-drinking to painful love to oversized ambitions. It was followed by 2019’s Mark’s Yard, a sparsely recorded collection of cover versions from singular songwriters like Tom Waits and Hank Williams Jr. In 2020 she released The Chaser, a classic honky-tonk album both dark and light, ominous and joyous. It landed her positive coverage in No Depression, Wide Open Country, Ditty TV, NPR, The Boot, and Americana Highways, just to name a few. The band's fourth full length album - Gold Country / Country Gold could just as easily have been named “Secret Emchy Society Goes Electric.” It included collaborations with a number of artists including queer country crooner Paisley Fields and trans musician Mya Byrne on “I Wish I Was in Texas,” and drag and burlesque performer Jbird McLaughlin’s “My Old Flame.” Along with their new electrified sound came lyrics that spoke to longing, wishing, loneliness, and nostalgia for friends and loved ones to be around. It also reckoned with the social upheaval that came with the pandemic years, bringing into focus a community that Emchy says she always assumed would be there for her. “The fact that I was watching a lot of these wonderful, independent dive bars that I love so much struggling and other artists working really hard to adapt and trying hard to stay connected with each other really affected me,” she explains. The band has plans to release a 'summer goth' version of their take on Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of each other on June 12, 2024, with an EP of live and rare tracks over the summer. Their next full length album - Queen of Assholes - is currently slated for 2025. Listen to Gold Country / Country Download Hi Res Photo of Secret Emchy Society Visit Website: http://www.emchy.com ### |
What people are saying:
Secret Emchy Society's 'Gold Country / Country Gold' named 10 Favorite Americana Albums of 2022 by ConcertHopper.com Secret Emchy Society's 'The Chaser' named Best of 2020 by Americana Highways, Atlanta Auditory Association & ConcertHopper.com "One could describe Emch as if Nick Cave had grown up in Bakersfield with a dynamic swagger that could part the Red Sea." - NoDepression "In a world of frat dudes singing about Applebees, Gold Country ~ Country Gold is a welcome middle finger to modern country, offering up a brand of smoke-filled honky-tonk that's traditional as they come -- albeit delivered with a fiery, punk disposition. Also 'Think I Do' is the jam" - Cory "Round Up" Graves (Vandoliers) "Showcases Emchy's boisterous voice against a Bakersfield beat." - Wide Open Country "Cindy Emch of Secret Emchy Society is a standard bearer for queer country artists." - Rock and Roll Globe "If Nick Cave took his murder ballads to the next logical conclusion and leaned into his country side, his music would likely sound more than a little like Secret Emchy Society’s tragically underrated catalogue. The latest Gold Country/Country Gold is more of the same from Cindy Emch, The First Lady of Queer Country, and that is hardly a bad thing." - Americana Highways "The album finds the band with a rich, mature sound — the band has never sounded more confident. The album explores the gamut of classic country sounds, from honky tonk to outlaw to Western swing." - Adobe & Teardrops "The band led by Cindy Emch is at the vanguard of the modern queer country movement, not so much a genre as an insistence on inclusion in a genre that's never been known for its willingness to change." - Concert Hopper “Imagine Bill Monroe and Sid Vicious having kids together.” - From Under The Basement "Secret Emchy Society is a great storytelling songwriter with a huge catalog of both original music and cover songs." - Rock the Pigeon "Brilliant." - Belles and Gals "Americana band cherish live shows and boozy late-night rendezvous." - B-sides and Badlands "For fans of Buck Owens, Sarah Shook, Dwight Yoakam, Lydia Loveless and Shovels & Rope." - Post to Wire |
