Golden Shoulders is a band from

Nevada City, California Nevada City is the county seat of Nevada County, California, United States, northeast of Sacramento, California, Sacramento, southwest of Reno, Nevada, Reno and northeast of San Francisco. The population was 3,152 as of the 2020 United States ...

. Formed in 2001 by songwriter Adam Kline, the group operates with a rotating lineup and has featured significant contributions from such notables as

Joanna Newsom Joanna Newsom (born January 18, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. After recording and self-releasing two EPs in 2002, Newsom signed to the independent label Drag City (record label), Drag City. Her debut album, ''The Milk-Eyed ...

(who sang and played piano on the first Golden Shoulders album, ''Let My Burden Be'', before going on to international acclaim), Todd Roper and Greg Brown (

Cake Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabor ...

Deathray Deathray (1998–2007) was a band from Sacramento, California, formed by former Cake members Greg Brown and Victor Damiani, and Dana Gumbiner, a musician formerly of the Sacramento indie band Little Guilt Shrine. After leaving Cake, Brown an ...

), Rich Good (

the Psychedelic Furs The Psychedelic Furs are an English rock band founded in London in February 1977. Led by lead vocalist Richard Butler (singer), Richard Butler and his brother Tim Butler on bass guitar, the Psychedelic Furs are one of the many acts spawned from ...

, the Pleased),

Dan Elkan Dan Elkan (born September 7, 1978) is an American singer-songwriter and producer, who is best known as the singer and guitarist for the rock band Them Hills. Elkan has performed live with Broken Bells, Hella, and Kim Deal, and has appeared on ...

(

Broken Bells Broken Bells is an American indie rock band composed of artist-producer Brian Burton (better known as Danger Mouse) and James Mercer, the lead vocalist and guitarist for the indie rock band The Shins. Broken Bells compose and create as a duo ...

Hella ''Hella'' is an American English slang term originating in and often associated with San Francisco's East Bay area in Northern California, possibly specifically emerging in the 1970s African-American vernacular of Oakland. It is used as an i ...

Josh Klinghoffer Josh Adam Klinghoffer (born October 3, 1979) is an American musician best known for being the guitarist for the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers from 2009 to 2019, with whom he recorded two studio albums, '' I'm with You'' (2011) and '' The Geta ...

(

Red Hot Chili Peppers The Red Hot Chili Peppers are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1982, consisting of Anthony Kiedis (vocals), Flea (musician), Flea (bass), John Frusciante (guitar), and Chad Smith (drums). Their music incorporates elements of a ...

John Frusciante John Anthony Frusciante ( ; born March 5, 1970) is an American musician and the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, having been with the band across three iterations. He has released 11 solo albums and 7 EPs, ranging in style from acoustic gu ...

PJ Harvey Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer-songwriter. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments. Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined local band Automat ...

Beck Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi mus ...

), Rusty Miller (Jackpot), Jonathan Hischke (

Dot Hacker Dot Hacker is an American experimental rock band from California, formed in 2008. The band consists of Josh Klinghoffer (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Clint Walsh (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Jonathan Hischke (bass) and Eric Gardner (drum ...

), Rob Kieswetter (

Bobby Birdman Robert John Kieswetter, better known by his stage name Bobby Birdman, is an American musician. Kieswetter is originally from Nevada City, California, and lives in Los Angeles, California. He has released albums on Hush Records, Not Not Fun, Fryk ...

Hunter Burgan Hunter Burgan (born May 14, 1976) is an American multi-instrumentalist. He is the second and current bassist of AFI (band), AFI. Biography Burgan grew up in Grass Valley, California. He is a vegan. Career Burgan was bassist in The Force w ...

(

AFI AFI may refer to: * Actual flip-angle imaging, a type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) * ''Address-family identifier'', a 16 bit field of the Routing Information Protocol * AFI (band), an American rock band ** ''AFI'' (2017 album), the tenth ...

), songwriter Brett Shady, drummer

Neal Morgan Neal Morgan (born March 7, 1979) is an American drummer, arranger of drums and percussion, and singer-songwriter. Morgan is best known as the drummer for Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan, among other songwriters, and for five solo albums. The ...

, and more. A complete, current list of contributors can be foun
here
Golden Shoulders has released four albums, ''Let My Burden Be'' (2002), ''Friendship is Deep'' (2004), ''Get Reasonable'' (2009), and ''Could This Be the End'' (2019), along with the EPs ''Bee 17'' (2005), ''Kin'' (2006), ''Music Friends'' (2013), ''Music Romans'' (2016), and ''Music Countrymen'' (2019). Thus far, other than two cover songs and two co-written songs, all officially released Golden Shoulders songs have been written by Kline and arranged by the musicians on the recordings. Live arrangements differ from the recorded versions based on the whims of the performers. Golden Shoulders' first album, ''Let My Burden Be'', peaked at No. 66 on the

CMJ CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events, online media company and a distributor of up and coming music CDs, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music ...

chart, which measures college radio plays in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The April 2005 issue of

MOJO Mojo may refer to: * Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in Hoodoo Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Mojo'' (2017 film), a 2017 Indian Kannada drama film written and directed by Sreesha Belakvaadi * '' ...

magazine gave the Golden Shoulders' second album, ''Friendship is Deep'', a review of four out of five star

The follow-up album, ''Get Reasonable'', received another four star review from

in the November 2009 issue, and the next, ''Could This Be the End'', also received four stars in

's December 2019 editio

Golden Shoulders also had several songs featured on the popular episodic video blog,

lonelygirl15 ''lonelygirl15'' is an American science fiction thriller web series created by Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Greg Goodfried, and Amanda Goodfried. It was independently released on YouTube from June 16, 2006, to August 1, 2008, and was also bri ...

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The band has toured the

several times, including 2004's Speed of Sound Tour, 2006's Annyong Tour, 2009's Flawless Tour, 2010's Drive Across America Tour, and 2017's What's The Hecks Tour. The shows performed on these tours were largely performed without

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

, meaning that at many shows, no microphones or amplifiers were used, though the band sometimes appears as a full-band, plugged-in lineup when playing in their home state of California.

Discography

* ''Let My Burden Be'' CD (Released October 22, 2002) * ''Friendship Is Deep'' CD (Released August 23, 2004) * ''Bee 17'' EP (Released June 8, 2005) * ''KIN'' EP (Released August 22, 2006) * ''Get Reasonable'' CD (Released May 5, 2009) * ''Music Friends'' EP (Released April 23, 2013) * ''Music Romans'' EP (Released May 6, 2016) * ''Could This Be the End'' CD/LP (Released September 13, 2019) * ''Music Countrymen'' EP (Released December 27, 2019)

References

External links

Official website

Official Facebook page

Golden Shoulders on Spotify
{{Authority control 2001 establishments in California Indie rock musical groups from California Musical groups established in 2001 People from Nevada City, California