Monolith Coverage: Interview with Beats Antique

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The afternoon sun warmed the crowd buzzing around the MadeLoud stage on Sunday at the Monolith Festival as the urban hip sound of Zoe Jakes, David Satori and Sidecar Tommy otherwise known as Beats Antique ignited the stage with exotic sounds and dancing.

Curious as to what that may have sounded like?  Click here and then continue reading...

Beats Antique was a hidden gem and a favorite discovery at the Monolith Festival, mixing funky modern electronic beats with horns, strings, percussion or in Tommy's own words, "Anything from the old world." Thus the name Beats (modern electronic sounds) Antique (mixed with more traditional instrumentation). And the members of the band itself are not only refreshing and authentic but every bit as intriguing as their sound.

The group which originally began to make music two years ago for the eastern tradition of Belly Dancing has grown into much more in a short span of time. In fact, the formation of this striking bay area band wasn't like the traditional joining forces of friends who decided to make music one day. Zoe told me that all three of the members had been friends for a long time and that they had also been in various other bands individually and together. But Beats Antique was birthed out of an emboldened momentary whim. Zoe's boss, Miles Copeland (formerly an executive at I.R.S. Records) was looking for new, young, modern band to produce. He told her about this one evening and she replied to him, "If you're serious about this I have some friends and we will do it. I knew I had a lot of talented musician friends but I hadn't talked to any of them about it at that point." So the next day when Miles called her back to ask if she was serious about making an album with him she jumped in with both feet asking David and Tommy to join forces with her.

Flash forward two years, two EP's and numerous festivals and tours later the group is gaining momentum and a formidable following. David told me that a fan approached him after the set at Monolith yesterday saying, "She had traveled for 15 hours to see us." adding, "It has all kind of happened so fast." They are currently working on their third self released album as their music continues to evolve. Tommy elaborated saying, "The firs album was primarily music for Belly Dancers and was more acoustic and organic. And with the second album we began adding more electronic beats. It was a lot more collaborative and that is why we entitled it Collide." Both David and Tommy continued by describing how on the first EP they worked more as individuals on the tracks but with Collide it was literally a collision of each others styles meshing together on each track.

This lively trio is all about putting on the show from mixing their own sound live and balancing the acoustic instrumentation with the electronic sounds to Zoe's exotic belly dancing and hope to add in more theatrics such as videos choreographed to their music during live sets soon. As it is now they already have a pretty infectious package because there wasn't really a person standing still during their performance on Sunday afternoon. Even the bigger critiques in the back couldn't keep from bustin' it just a little bit to the smooth layers of music mixed in with the booming bass lines.