We’re now accepting orders for the Debut CD from the Chandler Travis Three-O, “This is What Bears Look Like Underwater” on our shopping page.
The Three-O (Fred Boak, John Clark, Berke McKelvey, and Chandler Travis -because what’s a Three-O without four people?)’s debut album is the classic length (twelve songs), plus a couple of fan favorites (NRBQ’s “Things To You” and the Fab Four’s “In My Life”), recorded over the last year or so at Trout Towers Casino and Ice Station Zebra, with guest star turns from Philharmonic bandmates Rikki Bates, Mark Chenevert, Dinty Child, Keith Spring, and Cliff Spencer. Closest in mood and texture to Chandler’s recent “After She Left”, “Bears” stakes out ample territory of its own, both traditional and strange. Half comfort, half mirage. The ten Chandler songs (three with lyrics by longtime collaborator David Greenberger) come in concise, somewhat meticulous settings, which we call “arrangements.” Live, this small band is very proud of the variety of sound and emotional dynamics it has on tap, but here, we’re more trying to take you on one particular trip to a place you’ve never been before.
Our friend Joel Patterson wrote about the Three-O:
What really ropes you in is the awesomely courageous and gentle way Travis explores human emotion. All his many love songs are at the heart of it all meditations on a theme – not sentimental wishy-washy fantasies of imaginary happiness, but site specific stories of two way streets, cul-de-sacs and dead ends. It’s honest in confronting the tragic aspects, as well as the delirious joys, of falling in, out of, and sideways in love.