Ambitious orchestral pop group the Polyphonic Spree comes to the Chapel
Embarking on its first extensive tour in almost a decade, bandleader Tim DeLaughter and his psychedelic-pop collective the Polyphonic Spree come to the Chapel in San Francisco Wednesday evening.
DeLaughter first rose to fame as singer/guitarist of Dallas-based neo-psychedelic alternative-rock band Tripping Daisy in the early 1990s. Developing a solid local following with their mix of Beatlesesque hooks, heavily processed vocals and crunching riff rock, the band's independently released first album Bill earned the band radio airplay and a deal with Island Records. After Island reissued Bill, the quartet's 1995 major label debut I Am an Elastic Firecracker established Tripping Daisy as a group on the rise, scoring them an MTV hit with the single "I Got a Girl."
Tripping Daisy pushed into more experimental territory with their next album Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb three years later, but the band came to a sudden end with the drug overdose death of guitarist Wes Berggren in 1999 (though they released one self-titled posthumous collection of music in 2000). DeLaughter and fellow band members bassist Mark Pirro, and drummers Bryan Wakeland and Jeff Bouck would form the Polyphonic Spree as a way of coping with Berggren's death.
An expanded ensemble of musicians playing woodwinds, brass, harp and strings and a robed choir of vocalists joining the core band. The new group still drew inspiration from the Beatles, but embraced the '60s orchestral pop and soul of the 5th Dimension, the Association and the Beach Boys with the soaring songs heard on the first album, The Beginning Stages of...The Polyphonic Spree, in 2002. The large group's ecstatic live performances and distinctive stage wear with matching robes for the two dozen vocalists and musicians onstage for appearances at Austin's South By Southwest and the edition of London's Meltdown Festival curated by David Bowie introduced the unusual group to a wider audience.
Widespread use of the uplifting anthem "Light and Day" in films and television (along with a memorable iPod commercial) further raised the group's profile, as did a tour supporting Bowie in 2004. Their second album Together We're Heavy continued in a similar vein as the debut recording and featured the hit singles "Hold Me Now" and "Two Thousand Places." The band also was featured in an episode of the hospital sitcom "Scrubs" and performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in front of a global television audience that year, while providing the score for Thumbsucker, the first film of director Mike Mills, in 2005.
The Polyphonic Spree would put out additional albums more sporadically -- the more power-pop effort The Fragile Army in 2007, the one album to feature guitarist Annie Clark aka St. Vincent, and Yes, We Can six year later -- as well as providing songs for television (HBO's "Weeds" and Showtime's "The United States of Tara") and recording covers ranging from their hit version of Nirvana's "Lithium" and a live selection of tunes from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to the Christmas songs regularly featured at their annual holiday concerts collected on Holidaydream: Sounds of the Holidays, Vol. One.
The Polyphonic Spree has not mounted a major tour since 2015 (the last time they played San Francisco), but have remained active with semi-regular performances in Texas and festival appearances. After a long silence on the recording front, DeLaughter and company in 2021 issued a new album of cover songs that included the group's interpretations of tunes by INXS, the Monkees, the Bee Gees and Rush, followed by their latest collection of new original material -- Salvage Enterprise -- last year.
The band's current West Coast tour presented by show promoter (((folkYEAH!))) comes the Chapel on Wednesday night comes ahead of the premiere screening of Atmosphere later this month, an immersive cinematic experience that will be shown at domed planetariums that pairs the new music with animation and films created by an array of visual artists. The Polyphonic Spree also touches down at Harlow's in Sacramento on Tuesday and Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz on Thursday. Philly-based indie rockers Another Michael open the shows.
(((folkYEAH!))) Presents The Polyphonic Spree
Wednesday, Sept. 4, 7 p.m. $30-$35
The Chapel