from San Francisco Chronicle, DATEBOOK, March 29-April 4, 1998
BLOODROSES
DIPS INTO THE HILL
Bloodroses, with its romantic, spooky brand of folk rock, is marked by the spectral keyboards of Ben Jacobs and the forlorn vocals of Michele Muldrow. Muldrow, the band’s lead singer, bass player and main songwriter, has a striking stage presence that rivets fans. She dresses like a Victorian schoolteacher but looks more like an absinthe drinker who just stepped out of an Aubrey Beardsley print.
The quartet, which plays Wednesday at the Bottom of the Hill, also includes guitarist, Erik Meade who bought his first electric ax from a teenager Wynonna Judd just before she left Marin for Nashville; keyboard player Jacobs, who has written music for video games and commercials; and drummer Tommy Rickard, who played cow punk with Tex and the Horseheads and metal with Vain.
Muldrow is already a music-biz vet; she cut her teeth in Moth Macabre, a group she characterizes as a Pixies rip-off band.” It put out a self-titled album for Interscope Records in ‘93 and folded shortly thereafter.
“I came to San Francisco after the band broke up to clear my head and maybe go to art school,” Muldrow said, “but the songs kept coming.” After playing with various groups, Muldrow put Bloodroses together about two years ago. “I wanted that ‘60’s folk-rock sound.” Muldrow said, “but stripped down to its essentials, with plenty of space for the listener’s imagination to play in.”
There are echoes of the past in the band’s sound. The arrangements are moody and sparse, and that holds true for Muldrow’s singular lyrics as well. Images tumble through the tunes. “I try to avoid rhyming,” Muldrow said, “rhymes fill songs with the same words over and over. Our music is wide open and I look for language that opens the emotional range and looks toward the lyrical horizon.”
- j.poet
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