Artist Biography
by Jason Ankeny
The country art band Tarnation was essentially a vehicle for Paula Frazer,
a talented singer and songwriter who returned to roots music only after
a successful foray into 1980s post-punk. Born and raised in Sautee
Nacoochee, Georgia, a tiny community located in the foothills of the
Smoky Mountains, her musical influences readily came from both parents.
She sang in the church choir where her father was a Presbyterian
minister, while her mother taught her piano and introduced her to music
from George Gershwin and Billie Holiday
to the contemporary music of the '60s and '70s. At the age of 14, the
Frazers moved to Arkansas, where she began performing with local jazz
groups and wrote and recorded demos of her own folk-inspired songs.
After graduating high school,
Frazer relocated to San Francisco, and during the early '80s she performed with bands including
Frightwig and Trial, where she met frequent collaborators
Desmond Shea and
John Borruso. She also played with Cloiter, who released an EP on NufSed; the label's owner, Brandon Kearney, was an early member of
Tarnation, which
Frazer formed in 1992 with former
S.F. Seals members
Lincoln Allen and
Michelle Cernuto, along with steel guitarist
Matt Sullivan.
NufSed issued the band's 1993 debut album I'll Give You Something to
Cry About in a limited edition of 1,000 copies. The album made its way
to the
Red House Painters'
Mark Kozelek, who introduced
Frazer to 4AD. The label released
Tarnation's second album,
Gentle Creatures, which featured production work by
His Name Is Alive's
Warren Defever, in 1995. That year, however, the other three members departed to pursue their own work, leaving
Frazer
to assemble an initial touring lineup that, after a further change on
bass, became the unit that recorded the band's 1997 album,
Mirador. After various touring appearances, including dates in Europe with her hero,
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds,
Frazer found herself once again without a band.
She dropped the
Tarnation name in favor of her own in 1998, releasing a string of solo albums (2001's
Indoor Universe, 2003's retrospective
A Place Where I Know and 2005's
Leave the Sad Things Behind) on Birdman Records.
Frazer revived
Tarnation for 2007's
Now It's Time, much of which was recorded at her home on an eight-track tape machine. After forming the p
Tracklist
| 1 |
It's Not Easy |
3:20
|
| 2 |
Yellow Birds |
3:38
|
| 3 |
Never An Easy Way |
2:39
|
| 4 |
Game Of Broken Hearts |
3:01
|
| 5 |
They Took You Away Once Again |
3:02
|
| 6 |
Rancho Carne Humana |
2:26
|
| 7 |
Big O Motel |
6:22
|
| 8 |
Christine |
3:39
|
| 9 |
Sweat And Blood |
2:35
|
| 10 |
Do You Fancy Me |
2:42
|
| 11 |
Strangers |
3:33
|
| 12 |
Lonely Lights |
2:34
|
| 13 |
Spanking Potion No. 5 |
1:48
|
| 14 |
The Ring |
4:28
|
| 15 |
Tell Me It's Not So |
2:27 |
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