Next door neighbors by day, record producers by night, 100 Year Picnic's Jeff Greeneberg and Edwin Pierce, serve up their best and most personal piece of work, with eleven vignettes on modern life, relationships, and basically working it out.
Infectious melodies with wistful and sometimes wry storytelling--It touches the soul like a great party with close friends. The song "Looks Are For Free" was a 2nd place winner in the fall/winter 2008 Indie International Songwriting Contest.
The record's getting great reviews:
"Bloomington duo 100 Year Picnic delivers a stunning collection of songs on Tales Of A Modern Splash. Friends/neighbors Jeff Greeneberg and Edwin Pierce revel in family and the everyday humdrum of life lived to the fullest while channeling The Beatles and Wilco. Greeneberg dons a slithering John Lennon on “I Don’t Know What To Tell You” before switching gears into Calexico’s Joey Burns’ twin brother on “Isolation.” Guests Brian Choban and Jennifer Rusk imbibe the funky “Everything’s Perfect” with sweaty trumpet bleats and Prince-worthy calisthenics."
Janine Schaults, Illinois Entertainer, January 2009
"100 Year Picnic, one of my favorite independent bands has released their newest full length release, Tales of a Modern Splash. The album is full of great songs; multi-layered and perfectly textured, each song has it’s own story to tell."
"One of my favorite songs on the new album is Looks Are for Free. It, like a few other songs on the album has properties that remind me of the Beatles, though to call Jeff Greeneberg and Edwin Pierce another John and George would be to misunderstand their motives. 100 Year Picnic’s music is mostly based around their families that they both love and tolerate, and this can be seen in their songs."
jamesb.com, Utah, May 2008
"This is rock 'n' roll evolved; it's pop music for grown-ups."
"The influences are both obvious and welcome. "Looks Are For Free" sounds like Rubber Soul era Beatles with a touch of David Bowie. That song is followed by "Another Phase," which blends vintage '80s synth (when did the '80s become vintage?) with the alterna-pop-bounce of XTC. Fans of Tears For Fears' post- "Big Chair" material will enjoy both the lush "Greener Than The Trees" and the fantastically layered "Everything's Perfect."
"There are plenty of more contemporary influences to be found as well. "We Were Not The Same" could pass for a lost Ben Folds Five track, and "Slow Down" would not sound at all out of place on a Chris Cornell album."
"If there's an earworm on this album, though, it has to be "Make Things Right." With its exquisite vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Byrds and an upbeat radio-ready hook, I could not get this song out of my head. Nor did I want to...."
Kyle Schiebel, TCStyle Magazine, Illinois, April 2008
"The reflective songs leisurely unspool over a variety of catchy rock music, each a completely realized story..."
"Tales of a Modern Splash" is an eclectic mix of alt-pop songs about the journey from post-college adulthood into early middle age family life. Maybe that's just the 40-something, father-of-teens in me talking, but these are pop songs I can identify with..."
"Like super heroes with secret identities, the two guys behind 100 Year Picnic are in fact Jeff Greeneberg and Edwin Pierce: self-described dads, husbands and next door neighbors with a basement full of instruments and enough tech skills to run their own recording studio and website..."
"If their first album reminded me of a cornfield-based Fountains of Wayne, this wide-ranging new album sounds a little like a lot of all our favorite music but it reminds me of nobody except themselves. 100 Year Picnic has a grown-up pop sound all their own."
Eric Anderson, nextnc.com, Colorado, May 2008
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