Echodrone – a band. Echodrone – an album. Shoegaze – not known for its vivid imagination. Shoegaze – the scene that (sometimes, inadvertently) celebrates itself.
Meet Eugene and the introduced-in-installments rest of Echodrone. I’m going to start this series by asking for a response to the following implied accusation:
BAND NAME :: WHERE IT IS FROM (maybe)
Slowdive :: Siouxsie and the Banshees song
MBV :: 1981 slasher film
Sennen :: Ride song
pinkshinyultrablast :: Astrobrite EP
Highspire :: Hometown
Echodrone :: Skywave album
Brandon:
Well, our name came from the band members at the time – Eugene, me and “the other Mark” – putting together words that we thought were indicative of our sound together to form a name. We loved delay and droney music and Echodrone sounded the best when put together. We knew about Skywave but not about that album – we only found out that the names were the same when one of the band members contacted me on Myspace to mention it!
Eugene:
Yeah, I really wish there was a deeper story to how we came up with our name! I’ve gotta say though, it was pretty cool to be contacted by one of the Skywave guys. Anyways, as far as shoegaze bands sharing names with various songs/movies/albums…I think, overall, the shoegaze/dreampop community is very respectful and we’re all more than willing to pay homage to influential artists of the past and present! Sennen is a perfect example of this respectful mentality.
Æ: [brief, but necessary rave over ‘Cold Snap’]
Eugene:
‘Cold Snap’ actually holds a special place in my heart. When I moved to Baltimore, I got caught in one of the worst snowstorms in Baltimore history (Winter of 2010). It was an absolute nightmare! The entire city shut down because all the roads were covered in three feet of snow. Because the city had shut down, I was basically stuck in my apartment for over a week with very little human contact. I was fine with this situation at first. I watched movies, read books, listened to music – basically indulged myself in all the activities I didn’t have time for when the city was “active”. But, after about the fourth day of being stranded from all my friends and family, I became a pretty huge sad sack. I started to lose interest in everything. My loneliness became palpable. I even celebrated my birthday alone that year because no one could make it into the city. Anyways, rather than just sit and around and mope, I thought the best way to deal with these emotions would be to capture them in a song. So, fueled by feelings of loneliness and isolation, I powered up my laptop and recorded the basic sketches of ‘Cold Snap’.
Æ – [unnecessarily detailed commentary on how ‘Cold Snap’ sounds a bit like a story of lost love and/or love lost] + [wise observation that Droneecho is a much cooler name and why couldn’t one of the bands have picked that]
Eugene:
I think a lot of people heard the “lost love” story in the Cold Snap lyrics. There are definitely elements of that type of story in the lyrics, for sure! But yeah, it’s more of a story about the loss of all important human relationships in one’s life. That was one of the major ideas behind the ‘Cold Snap’ video.
Dronecho is a fantastic name! Maybe the perfect name for an Echodrone side project 😉
Æ – [filled with (possibly false) hope]
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