Bands
Darren’s Touring & Recording Projects.
The/Theys
We’re not drawing a line in the sand, we’re painting the whole picture from scratch. With every song, idea, and conversation, we allow ourselves to be defined only by the end results of our creations. We are a group that is devoted to authentic creativity, that stems from a rapid fire “no one knows” mentality. With this project, we plan on growing creatively, artistically, and professionally through our combined effort to hone in on our ability to freely express ourselves, and have a great time doing so. This is a passion project from all of us that will be everchanging and evolving along with us. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to ride with us, or check us out.
Cavedoll
Eclectic-Indie-Pop-Glam-Prog band comprised of Camden Chamberlain, Zak Mason, Brian Kubarycz, Eric Stoye, Vanessa Angulo, Josh Emery, & Nate Simpson. Songwriter/Producer/Curator Camden Chamberlain’s hyper-creative musical collective also frequently features Van Christensen, Greg Nielsen, Mike Sasich, Jamison Wilkins, Terence Hansen, and Anthony Phan, along with distinguished collaborators such as the legendary siren Ruby Friedman, Grammy-nominated producer/drummer Alex Elena, renowned TV/film/West-End-Musical composer Tim Phillips, Rich DeCicco of The Ladies Of Sport, Gentry Densley of Iceburn, Maya Coppola, Dustin Swan, Jake Emery, Ahmond, Josh Wells, Calhoon Popadopolis, Pat Maine, and so many more. At the core are Camden Chamberlain and Vanessa Angulo who once shared a home, cars, dishes, and a marriage... They now share children, music, and a close friendship. Based in Salt Lake City and Saint George, Utah as of 2019, the project eschews genres yet never loses complete sight of certain pop-sensibilities. One can typically expect, on average, two or three full-length releases per year. So be sure to check in with this prolific and unique project regularly! Your ears will thank you.
Crook & The Bluff
Awe-inspiring landscapes, towering monolithic formations, a powerful, indomitable spirit, unpredictable and mysterious in character. These elements of the American West are ever-present in the music of Crook & the Bluff. Known for their dynamic performances and commanding aura, Crook & the Bluff’s unholy joining of western psychedelia and dirty, desert blues, influenced by the vast and beguiling wilderness of their high desert home, can only be fully experienced live. At the forefront of this 4-piece is the booming baritone and piercing falsetto of lead singer Kirk Dath. Principle songwriter, and founding member, Dath is the voice that guides listeners through torrid scenes of desire, or ushers them across the River Styx with mellifluous whispers of absolution. Darren Farnsworth, the well-oiled engine of the group, provides both propulsion and elegance from behind the kit. Equipped with an arsenal of songs depicting lust, love, loss, murder and malevolence, Crook & the Bluff’s music explores diverse themes and often meddles in strange curiosities. Storytellers at heart, “The Bluff” engulfs listeners in a spectrum of orchestrated vibrations, with eerie ballads of torment and revenge, a sultry number lamenting a lost bird that administer the pulse to the dance floor, or the droning, hypnotic piece that buzzes through the efficacy of licking toads. Equal parts musicians and mad-scientists, the band has crafted a deep symbiosis with its armory of equipment, using it to manifest colourful and mesmerizing soundscapes that has many fans describing them as “the Pink Floyd of the American West”. Crook & the Bluff is a band more at home on the road, driven by an appetite for exploration, foreign encounters, and peering into the kaleidoscopic jewels of their minds, they regularly leave their hometown of Salt Lake City to tour throughout Euorpe, Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and California. Headlining music festivals, Craft Lake City, Escalante Music Festival, Utah Arts Festival, and MGME, The Bluff has also shared the stage with national acts including, Murder By Death, Wovenhand, Leopold and His Fiction and Jamestown Revival. Crook & the Bluff delivers their music with passion, intensity, and precision that leaves audiences bare, feverishly aching for more.
Candy's River House
Jordan Matthew Young, of Candy’s River House, is one of the hardest working musicians in Salt Lake City. In the summer of 2016, Darren had the pleasure of seeing first hand how hard Jordan works. They went on a three week tour through Nevada and California playing roughly 20 shows during their adventure. The trio was made up of Jordan on vocals and guitar, Nathan Simpson on bass and Darren on the drums.
PIG EON
PIG EON is a conglomeration of some of Salt Lake City’s most interesting working musicians. All members have been gigging around town for years. PIG EON is a working band for the working man. The band tags itself as “Voodoo Dirt.” A blues-driven acoustic rock act with experience and taste, Pigeon will lull you into leaving bread crumbs out in the grass.
Juana Ghani
Juana Ghani is one of the most unique live experiences in Utah. Their band is made up of ten musicians and as much as twenty plus circus like performers. They have played some of the biggest festivals in Utah and continue to wow their spectators with their flare of belly dancers, fire throwers, sword jugglers and more.
Tony Holiday
Tony Holiday had asked Darren to join his band, The Velvetones, on a three week tour through Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon and California. The band was made up of guitarist Landon Stone, bassist Jeremiah Maxey and Darren on the drums. They had Michelle Moonshine traveling with them as their opening act. There were many tales from this adventure in their tour van affectionately called the Red Fuzz. After the tour, they played a handful of shows and music festivals together and Darren ended up on a couple of songs off of Tony’s album, “No Need to Rush It” with Jordan Young of Candy’s River House.
Victoria Lagerström
Darren had the privilege of playing with Victoria and Dave Tate for this project. It was a cool experience having Dave come up from Southern Utah with his recording gear to lay drum and percussion tracks down on a skeleton of songs. After about a year, the album blossomed into “Dancing With The Sun” which was released in 2012.
Pour Horse
The Pour Horse was a hybrid of two Utah bands; Dead Horse Minstrel and The Pour. The group was primarily a quartet with Nik Grainger, Jeremy Whitesides, Josh Olsen and Darren Farnsworth. The band in its last year trimmed down into a three piece. The band played at many festivals from Arizona, Utah and Idaho such as Desert Rocks, Uncle Uncanny's and the Idaho-Down.
Honest Soul
With members Colin Robison, Brian Thurber, Steve Bauman and Darren Farnsworth, the band practiced and pieced together a full album in an industrial warehouse in South Salt Lake. Honest Soul has had some magical shows over the years opening for bands such as Michael Franti’s Spearhead, Jimmy Vaughn and Charles Bradley. They played at some of Utah’s hottest music venues such as The State Room, The Depot, Red Butte Amphitheatre and the Snow Park Outdoor Amphitheater.
Two And A Half White Guys
Darren had a couple mini tours with Two And A Half White Guys. The first of which was to Colorado at the High Desert Ska Festival in June 2007. The following year he joined them on another tour down to Los Angeles to play at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood.
Caesar Myles & The Dreaded Truth
When Darren returned home from to the San Francisco Bay Area, he went back to JJ’s Blues Bar in San Jose. JJ’s is the place where Darren started playing blues at the young age of 17. He ended up connecting with some local musicians and eventually started sitting in with the Dreaded Truth. He played many shows with them including a weekly gig in Redwood City called the Loading Zone. The Dreaded Truth played all over the Bay Area from San Jose, Berkeley and San Francisco.
Archie Lee Hooker
When Darren returned back home to the San Francisco Bay Area, he went back to JJ’s Blues Bar in San Jose, where he had been going to their blues jam since he was only 17. He ended up connecting with some local musicians and eventually started sitting in with Archie Lee Hooker, the nephew of the blues legend, John Lee Hooker. He played many shows with them including a weekly gig with Archie and Shawn Gonzales at a bar in Redwood City called the Loading Zone.
JEBU
JEBU was originally started off in Ogden, Utah as "Inside Green" and often played downtown on 25th Street at bars such as Beatniks, who was at the time managed by local legend Bad Brad Wheeler of KRCL. They played with local bands like Tanglewood, Fry Sauce and have played a couple shows with Black Uhuru. If you are a Utah local, you may have caught them at independent festivals around Utah from Park City, Heber to Goblin Valley. Their strengths were making music in the studio. Darren and Jed Keipp were the constant of the band, and have together produced over 5 albums worth of music. Unfortunately, only two of their albums are available online. Filthy is all right.” By Randy Harward, CityWeekly.net - June 11, 2007 Jed Keipp, vocalist-guitarist for the groovalicious trio Jebu, is extolling the virtues of filth, with regard to music. He equates filth to reality, says it makes the music more interesting. He’s right. When you wanna get down, you don’t wanna do it to permanent-pressed, perfectly coifed Harry Connick Jr.—you want somebody greasy enough to move the booty. Take James Brown: He may be sharply dressed, but he’s funky—and not just in the rhythmic (or olfactory) sense. “You got to have some dirt in the music [in order to] to have a sound,” says Keipp, who also goes by Jebu (a nickname given to him by his drummer). “The filth is like honesty. Music is made to woo people and get them excited; honesty, something they can relate to, keeps things rolling.” So has been the rallying cry of Jebu since its inaugural year of 2000. Keipp had made rounds as a drummer with James Shook & the Resolutions, Ogden jazzer Joe McQueen, guitarist Mike Christianson and his former band, Inside Green, but what he had in experience he lacked in fulfillment. Hence, Jebu materialized on a “hazy desert trip” to Goblin Valley as a means to make sense of Keipp’s myriad musical interests (Paul Simon to Hendrix to James Brown to the Police) and satisfy a desire to hold both songs and chops at a premium. Keipp enlisted Farnsworth, a collaborator since Inside Green, and pal Critchlow. Farnsworth brought the influence of King Sunny Ade, Daniel Lanois and Manu Chao; Critchlow contributed anything from Marvin Gaye to Fugazi. Confusion, disjointedness and pretentiousness might have ambushed such a mix, but Jebu, much like bands such as Mofro and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, fuse their muses and deftly dodge the traps. They’ve engineered an organic sound, simultaneously real and fantastic. And downright dirty. To illustrate, consider a potluck backyard barbeque feast with bowls of funk, heaping plates of blues, kettles of classic rock, appetizers from around the world and kegs of southern comfort jazz. Flies patrol the picnic table; buxom babes wearing tube tops are spilling all manner of lickable substances (say, chili) on themselves and there’s nary a napkin in sight (but a herd of Tex Avery-lookin’ horndogs wait nearby, eager to oblige). Now pair that aesthetic with instrumental acumen that would sate even the whiniest wine-and-cheeser. That’s Jebu. This scenario is audible and palpable on Jebu’s five-song demo CD—a taste of things to come as they work on their proper debut, Phase Four. The trio drops disco and funk à la Jamiroquai on “Love Biscuits,” merges psychedelic folk and world music on “Dive In,” and deals trip-hop, blaxploitation funk, breakbeat and bop blend on the closing instro “The Chase,” all without a seam. Want to let us in on the secret recipe, Colonel? “Onstage, we try keep things moving with a bunch of different grooves, although it stays tight and bumping where it needs to be, because I can’t stand a noodler,” says Keipp. “I like variety; I love to hear bands that jam, not jam bands. They got to know when to add to a song instead of play over it. A song has got to breathe.” Don’t forget that special ingredient. The “dirt” manifests mostly via Jebu’s live presence as an unseen but busy vibe. It gets in people’s pants to make them dance and maybe scratch an itch, fulfill some basic, primal, unstated urge. And it’s by the live show the band will finance its own basic urge, Phase Four. “I can’t wait to get this out,” says Keipp. “We are producing it ourselves and funding it as well, so get out to those shows, people, and support Jebu. I wanna get this album done.”
Darren Farnsworth