Album Notes

The world is watching Adrian Bourgeois! Okay maybe not the whole world (that’d be kind of creepy), but probably Big Brother and at very least a good handful of local entertainment rags, powerpop blogspots, and online independent music reviewers; in short, that small elusive world in which buzzes are born. And they all seem to be saying the same thing. “There’s no doubt he’s a young artist poised for pop greatness,” reads this year’s International Pop Overthrow West Coast Guide, “Definitely one to watch!” “I can’t wait to see what’s next,” gushes an album review on the blog Powerpopaholic and Sacramento music magazine Submerge agrees that, “The future is bright indeed for this pop star in waiting.” Jackson Griffith of the Sacramento News and Review even makes the prediction that “One day in the not-too-distant future, Adrian Bourgeois will be an influential force in pop music.” The common message: The whole world is not watching Adrian Bourgeois….but maybe they should be! Perhaps this is all boilerplate talk, the type of thing that is written about an artist that is superfluous enough to make him sound good but not specific enough to commit to any type of serious interest. Not so in the case of Adrian Bourgeois who may not be old enough to remember when Ronald Regan was president but takes his main musical inspiration from the era of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon and who recently finished his first year of college with the news of being crowned California’s capitol’s best songwriter and winning first place in the nationally popular OurStage competition. “He’s a wide-eyed six-year-old boy trapped inside a twenty-something pop-genius’s body,” writes Jon Meyer of the Boston radio station WERS dubbing Bourgeois’s songs “musical finger paintings” and concluding that “There’s as much C.S. Lewis as there is Simon and Garfunkel in this Californian’s airy, dreamy folk-laced sound.” Jackson Griffith is almost poetic when describing Bourgeois’s songs as possessing “a remarkable melodic confidence—just when a tune has ingratiated itself into your memory, in the way the kind of pop music does that inspires one to whistle, the melody sweeps upward, turning and dancing in that unpredictable way that a flock of birds does when it moves toward the sun,” and more succinctly as “among the finest post-Beatles pop tunes I’ve ever heard.” And Not Lame Recordings had this to say about Bourgeois’s mostly self arranged and self performed and completely self written debut album: “His plaintive, inviting voice intoxicates, filling the listener with the beautiful arrangements and Bourgeois’s easy cadence makes for an inviting introduction on this debut---yet it’s the slow, urgent, unfolding melodies that shine, shine, shine and are impossible to miss.” The future indeed does look bright for Adrian Bourgeois who is busy rehearsing his new band, a small ensemble of multi-instrumentalists called the Coincidence, for west coast throughout the remainder of the year, but the present doesn’t look so bad either. According to the Sacramento News and Review, “It’s becoming silly to say, “Watch this guy; he’s going places.” The fact is he’s already there.” Why believe in Adrian Bourgeois? Adrian Bourgeois believes in you. He is an old fashioned sort of artist in that the songs he writes are inspired by moss-covered monuments, soldiers with umbrellas, merry-go-rounds that come to life, and reading other peoples’ minds. He believes that music itself as a sound and an essence cannot change the world but music that is written about love and magic, water and fiction, war and childhood, can indeed change the world, as well as the ocean that moves the world and the tiny drops of water that create the ocean. This is why he believes in you. You are the ocean. Adrian Bourgeois believes in creating drops of water because even the ocean gets thirsty sometimes. Album credits (in order of appearance) Adrian Bourgeois- drums, keyboards, organ, MOOG synthesizer, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, baritone guitar, harmonica, percussion, electric sitar, lead vocals, harmony vocals Mike Roe- electric guitar Larry Tagg- bass Krystyna Ogella- cello Christina Maradik- viola Reylynn Goessling- violin Justin Farren- harmony vocals Natalie Gordon- harmony vocals Robby Mogan- electric guitar, electric sitar Gary Landaker- bass Paige Lewis- harmony vocals Ralph Stover- bass David Houston- mellotron Mike Douthit- horns Tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 9 and 10 produced by Adrian Bourgeois and David Houston Tracks 4, 6, and 7 produced by Adrian Bourgeois and Brent Bourgeois Track 8 produced by Adrian Bourgeois and Ralph Stover Track 11 produced by Adrian Bourgeois All songs written and illustrated by Adrian Bourgeois