Album Notes

Iris Berry is one of LA's best-kept secrets.  A native Angeleno, for the past 20 years she has been an integral force in it's literary and musical underground scenes.

A founding member of the The Ringling Sisters (A&M Records), vocalist for the Lame Flames as well as The Flesheaters.  The Ringling sisters - famous for their numerous benefit shows enlisting local fundraising help from the likes of Henry Rollins, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, X, Possum Dixon, Ann Magnuson, The Gun Club (in their last-ever appearance), the Red Hot Chili Peppers, River Phoenix, Mike Watt, Concrete Blonde, and more.  Berry's rock & roll stlye is rivaled only by her literary chops.  

Her poetry and short stories have been widely anthologized in a number of literary journals and collections.  The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (1999 on Thunders Mouth Press) a difinative collection of contemporary poetry featured her Punk Rock Royalty along side the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and WilliamS.Burroughs.

In 1996 her book of short stories and poems were published in the often dark yet infinitely smart and funny Two Blocks East of Vine (Incommunicado Press).

The year before that New Alliance released a CD of Berry reading from her own work, Life on the Edge in Stilettos, well received by critics and fans alike. Berry toured extensively honing her distinctive voice and reading style.

Collect Calls - her long awaited follow up CD has just been released on Bad Bunny Records.  Produced by Tony Malone, Collect Calls features - tracks of inimitable Iris Berry, some with musical backing.

Currently Iris is touring and writing, working on Tales of the Tropicana an oral history of the Tropicana Motel and her forthcoming book of short stories, In the Shadow of the Hollywood Sign.