Friends of Dean Martinez is an American

instrumental rock Instrumental rock is rock music that emphasizes instrumental performance and features very little or no singing. Examples of instrumental music in rock can be found in practically every subgenre of the style. Instrumental rock was most popular f ...

post-rock Post-rock is a subgenre of experimental rock that emphasizes Texture (music), texture, atmosphere, and non-traditional song structures over conventional rock techniques. Post-rock artists often combine rock instrumentation and rock stylings wit ...

band featuring members of

Giant Sand Giant Sand (formerly Giant Sandworms) is an American musical group from Tucson, Arizona, United States. Its most constant member is singer-songwriter Howe Gelb. The groups have developed idiosyncratic sound rooted in alternative country, but t ...

, Calexico, and Naked Prey. The band combines Americana with

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

, ambient, lounge,

psychedelia Psychedelia usually refers to a Aesthetics, style or aesthetic that is resembled in the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience produced by certain psychoactive substances. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic ...

, and dub and intertwines surf rock-inspired

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

History

The band was formed in

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

, as an experimental side project by various members of

, Calexico, and

Naked Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. While estimates vary, for the first 90,000 years of pre-history, anatomically modern humans were naked, having lost their body hair, living in hospitable climates, and not ...

Prey. Their debut album, '' The Shadow of Your Smile'', was released on the

Sub Pop Sub Pop is an independent record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. Sub Pop achieved fame in the early 1990s for signing Seattle bands such as Nirvana (band), Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney, central players in the gru ...

label in 1995. Friends of Dean Martinez had gone through line-up changes in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

, before reforming in Tucson. Currently, the band includes Bill Elm on

steel guitar A steel guitar () is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar i ...

and

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

, Naim Amor on guitar, Tommy Larkins on

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

, Joe Peña on drums, and Thøger Tetens Lund on bass. Former members Burns and Convertino started the band Calexico.

Cinematic musical work

They performed a live score to the silent film '' The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' at the

Alamo Drafthouse The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, which is famous for serving dinner and drinks during the film, as well as its strict policy of requiring its audiences to maintain proper cinema-going etiq ...

in Austin. Film-scoring work includes the

Richard Linklater Richard Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American filmmaker. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. In 2015, Linklater was included on the annual ''Time'' 100 li ...

film '' Fast Food Nation'' and the

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...

-narrated feature documentary '' Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea.'' Upon seeing ''Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea'' for the first time, Elm recollects, "I felt I could really write music for this. It was a nice fit for what we do, the images, and the story. It felt natural to watch it and want to write music. It was inspiring, and that's the most you can ask for when you score something or write music." In December 2010, Elm and Jackson won Best Original Score at both the Machinima Inside Gaming Awards and Spike TV's Video Game Awards for their work on ''

Red Dead ''Red Dead'' is a series of Western-themed action-adventure games published by Rockstar Games. The first entry in the series, '' Red Dead Revolver'', was released on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in May 2004. Originally developed by Capcom, ''Red ...

Redemption.''

Discography

Albums

* '' The Shadow of Your Smile'' (1995) * ''Retrograde'' (1997) * ''Atardecer'' (1999) * ''A Place in the Sun'' (2000) * ''Wichita Lineman'' (2001) * ''Under the Waves'' (2003) * ''Random Harvest'' (2004) * ''Live at Club 2'' (2005) * ''Lost Horizon'' (2005) * ''Fast Food Nation OST'' (2006) * ''Red Dead Redemption OST'' (2010) * ''Undead Nightmare OST'' (2010)

EPs

* ''Atrasar'' (2001) * ''In the Wire'' (2001)

Singles

* "Polena" or "Seashells" (1995) (as Friends of Dean Martin) * "Cordova" or "Monte Carlo" (1996)

Compilation albums

* ''On the Shore'' (2003; two discs combining songs from ''Wichita Lineman'' and ''Live At Club 2'' on disk 1, with ''Under the Waves'' on disk 2)

References

External links

* At MySpace * ''Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea'' official website * ''Fast Food Nation's'' official website * "Redemption songs: the making of the ''Red Dead Redemption'' soundtrack," ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 26 May 2010. {{Authority control American post-rock groups Musical groups from Tucson, Arizona Sub Pop artists Knitting Factory Records artists Glitterhouse Records artists Rock music groups from Arizona