[mp3s here]

Brittany's Spot DJ page (w/ Ben Fong-Torres interview answers)

Download a PDF of the bio here

Brittany Shane
Brittany Shane
Self-release, April 24, 2007
 
“I felt grounded when I was free.” Brittany Shane has an unbelievably positive outlook on touring, especially considering her first tour started on September 11, 2001. The way she talks about flights being cancelled, having to find a way to get from her new home in San Francisco to her native Wisconsin for the first date, learning she can wear the same outfit everyday on the road, playing to small somber audiences and bonding with them, et cetera, you’d think she was talking about flowers and puppies and forgetting the hardship, sweat, and long hours in a van. Brittany Shane is not naïve and wears no rose-colored glasses, though; she simply has a matchless flair for turning ugly into beautiful.
 
Shane’s self-titled EP is certainly gorgeous; even though themes include loss and heartache, each track is pacifying and poetic. Shane’s unreserved optimism on “Better” grows on the listener, disarming enough at first then evolving into a wholly comforting song. On “Pretty Sky,” one of the first songs Shane ever wrote, she explores the struggle of leaving a bad relationship behind and growing from the experience: “I looked away just in time/Who needs your rain/ when I’ve got my own pretty sky.” Above the haunting pedal steel on “Move Into Light,” Shane croons, “I want to see/what used to burn in me/ and send it off into flight.” Brittany Shane is the anti-Emily Dickinson.

The light of Brittany Shane attracted a whole host of guest talent on her recording: Michael Lockwood (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Lisa Marie Presley), Adam Levy (Norah Jones), Rami Jaffee (Foo Fighters, The Wallflowers), Hugh McCracken (Paul McCartney & Wings), Bobby Black (Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Jim Campilongo), Tom Ayres (Persephone's Bees), Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Jefferson Starship, Chris Isaak). Zack Smith (Scandal) produced the record, and Joe Chicarelli mixed it. The instrumentation is rich but subtle, leaving Shane’s vocals in the spotlight.

Brittany Shane was not always a musician (in fact, she failed her music theory class), but has always been a writer. She first got into music when, as a young woman, she was inspired by Joni Mitchell, Sheryl Crow, Hope Sandoval, Margo Timmins and others who put their stories to guitar accompaniment. Shane was inspired to add music to her poetry, so she traded guitar lessons for smokes and was soon “turned loose on unsuspecting coffee houses” in Madison, WI. After singing her way to San Francisco, Brittany met and collaborated with several other Bay Area musicians before her current line-up, which includes her husband, Bob Spector, on keys and guitar, Ted O’Connell on bass, Michael Papenburg on guitar and lap steel, and Eric Morris on drums.

Between them, Brittany Shane and her band are reassuring jaded audiences from The Fillmore to Café du Nord, and are planning to tour the Midwest and the rest of the country soon. You will also hear Shane’s music on an upcoming independent film, so keep an ear out. Please listen to Brittany Shane’s EP and let her positive spirit calm you.

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