Dave Gardner was an obsessive record collector who had gotten involved in the mid-80s avant/industrial/noise crowd in the San Francisco bay area, using tapes, record players, cheap samplers & broken guitars. He recorded a couple of albums and played with a dozen or so bands; during this time (while living at an art/music collective space) he first met Hawaii-born Tim Digulla.
Tim eventually moved to San Francisco, worked with robot performance group Survival Research Labs and recorded with the psychedelic spacerockers Imajinary Friends (on Bomp) before ending up with Naut Humon's Sound Traffic Control studio/soundsystem.
After hearing some low-fi cassette tracks mixing easy listening with harsh electronics that Dave was working on, Naut offered to sponsor an album on the then-new Asphodel label his wife had, and suggested Tim and Dave record together.
After a couple years work, they released the retro-lounge-themed TRIP TEASE (1997) which mixed cut-up exotica & electronics with real instruments in a slickly surreal, obsessively detailed way. By a lucky coincidence, it was released at the height of the brief lounge fad and turned out to be a surprise pop success, showing up in the background everywhere; indie movie soundtracks, international ads for beer, TV (MTV's Real World, the Sopranos, Sex in the City), the corner bar.
Tim eventually moved to San Francisco, worked with robot performance group Survival Research Labs and recorded with the psychedelic spacerockers Imajinary Friends (on Bomp) before ending up with Naut Humon's Sound Traffic Control studio/soundsystem.
After hearing some low-fi cassette tracks mixing easy listening with harsh electronics that Dave was working on, Naut offered to sponsor an album on the then-new Asphodel label his wife had, and suggested Tim and Dave record together.
After a couple years work, they released the retro-lounge-themed TRIP TEASE (1997) which mixed cut-up exotica & electronics with real instruments in a slickly surreal, obsessively detailed way. By a lucky coincidence, it was released at the height of the brief lounge fad and turned out to be a surprise pop success, showing up in the background everywhere; indie movie soundtracks, international ads for beer, TV (MTV's Real World, the Sopranos, Sex in the City), the corner bar.
Working with producer/engineer/guitarist Alex Oropeza (Broken Horse, Tarnation), they recorded their next album, the excessively eclectic, dreamily cinematic, almost unclassifiable UH-OH (2001) with a set of renowned guest musicians, including classical percussionist William Winant, and the late Vince Welnick (Grateful Dead) among many others.
After years of changing membership, the live version of Tipsy eventually stabilized. In person, they are a much noisier, more unrestrained thing.
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