Counting Crows

selected  Counting Crows TShirTS, PosTerS & Prints

Counting Crows is an Academy Award nominated American alternative rock band originating from Berkeley, California. Counting Crows became highly popular in 1994 following the release of their debut album August and Everything After, which featured the hit song "Mr. Jones." Their influences include R.E.M., Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and The Band

Singer Adam Duritz and guitarist Dave Bryson (both formerly members of Bay Area band The Himalayans) formed Counting Crows in San Francisco in 1991. As well as his experience in The Himalayans, Duritz had contributed to recordings by the Bay Area group Sordid Humor, though never a member. Counting Crows began as an acoustic duo, playing gigs in and around Berkeley and San Francisco.

By 1993 Counting Crows had grown to a stable lineup of Duritz, Bryson, Matt Malley (bass), Charley Gillingham (keys) and Steve Bowman (drums), and were regulars on the Bay Area scene. The same year, Counting Crows was signed to Geffen Records. On 16th January 1993, the band, still relatively unknown, filled in for Van Morrison at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony; they were introduced by an enthusiastic Robbie Robertson

At some point before their signing to Geffen, Counting Crows recorded demo versions of a number of songs, known as the 'Flying Demos'. These later surfaced among the Counting Crows fanbase. Tracks include "Rain King", "Omaha", "Anna Begins", "Einstein On The Beach (For An Eggman)", "Shallow Days", "Love and Addiction", "Mr Jones", "Round Here", "40 Years", "Margery Dreams of Horses", "Bulldog", "Lightning" and "We're Only Love".

Various songs from this tape would later resurface on Counting Crows's debut album August and Everything After; the songs contained on the tape featured different music and in some instances different lyrics.

Counting Crows took their name from a divination rhyme about the crow, heard by Duritz in the film Signs of Life. The rhyme is used at the end of the song "A Murder of One" on the album August and Everything After: "Well I dreamt I saw you walking up a hillside in the snow / Casting shadows on the winter sky as you sat there, counting crows / One for sorrow, two for joy / Three for girls and four for boys / Five for silver, six for gold / Seven for a secret never to be told." In the poem, the act of counting crows is particularly useless. Duritz reveals that a name is just a name, and, with that, is useless and can be anything.


From the beginning, Counting Crows focused on performing live. Counting Crows's debut album August and Everything After, produced by T-Bone Burnett, was released in the autumn of 1993. Counting Crows toured heavily in 1993 and 1994, both as headliners and in support of artists such as Cracker, the Cranberries, Suede, Bob Dylan, Los Lobos, Jellyfish, and Midnight Oil. The first single, "Mr. Jones," refers to The Himalayans bassist (and Duritz's childhood friend) Marty Jones and Kenney Dale Johnson, the drummer of Silvertone (Chris Isaak's band), describing the desire of working musicians to make it big and the fantasies they entertain about what this might bring. In December 1993, MTV began playing the video for the song. It was an unexpected hit, drawing massive radio play and launching the band into stardom. August and Everything After became the fastest-selling album since Nirvana's Nevermind. In 1994 Counting Crows appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Show with David Letterman, and toured with The Rolling Stones. The album sold 7 million copies, but success took a toll on Counting Crows; drummer Steve Bowman left, and Duritz suffered a widely-reported nervous breakdown, which was not his first.

Counting Crows played only two gigs in 1995.This allowed Duritz to write a set of songs that became Counting Crows's second album, Recovering the Satellites.Released on October 10, 1996, it was heavier than August and Everything After, perhaps due to the addition of second guitarist Dan Vickrey, who had joined Counting Crows in early 1994. A response to the sudden fame that "Mr. Jones" had brought, it contains lyrics such as "These days I feel like I'm fading away / Like sometimes when I hear myself on the radio" (from "Have You Seen Me Lately?") and "Gonna get back to basics / Guess I'll start it up again" (from "Recovering the Satellites"). Dealing with the theme of Duritz's unease with his newfound fame, the album was described as "a concept album of sorts about trying to pick up the pieces of a family, a social life and a psyche shattered by fame."

In July 1997, after nine months of near-constant touring in support of the album, Duritz developed nodules on his vocal cords, leading to the cancellation of a number of gigs. After taking time off to recover, Counting Crows toured for the rest of 1997, concluding with a show at the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York. This concert was released as half of a double live album Across a Wire: Live in New York City. The other disc was a recording of an acoustic set from Counting Crows's appearance on VH1's Storytellers.

In 1999, Counting Crows released This Desert Life, sales of which were propelled by the success of "Hanginaround" and "Colorblind" (which was heard in the movie Cruel Intentions). In support of the album, Counting Crows embarked on a co-headlining tour with alternative rock band Live; the bands alternated who performed first. Frequently, Duritz joined the stage for Live's performance of "The Dolphin's Cry," and Live's Ed Kowalczyk sang a verse of "Hanginaround" with the Crows.

For the album and subsequent tour, Counting Crows invited session player and long-time friend David Immerglück to join Counting Crows full-time. Immerglück had played on August and Everything After and Recovering the Satellites, but other musical commitments had prevented him from joining Counting Crows full time. Immerglück plays a variety of instruments with Counting Crows, including acoustic, electric, and pedal steel guitars and mandolin, as well as contributing backing vocals.

On July 9, 2002, Counting Crows released their fourth studio album, Hard Candy. The album included a cover of Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi." Vanessa Carlton contributed backing vocals to the single edit of the track, which appeared on the soundtrack for Two Weeks Notice.

Mid-way through the Hard Candy tour drummer Ben Mize decided to leave Counting Crows to pursue his own musical interests. Mize completed the American leg of the tour, and was then replaced by Jim Bogios, formerly drummer with Sheryl Crow.

In November 2003, Counting Crows released the greatest hits album, Films About Ghosts. (The title is taken from the lyrics of "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby," which appeared on This Desert Life) They also toured in 2003 with John Mayer, Maroon 5, and the Graham Colton Band.

In 2004, Counting Crows's "Accidentally in Love" appeared on the soundtrack of the hugely popular computer-animated film Shrek 2. The song was nominated for an Academy Award, and later versions of the 2003 greatest hits album include the track.

In June 2006, Counting Crows released New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall, a live album assembled from performances on their 2003 tour in support of Hard Candy. Although it is composed mainly of performances of already released material, it also contains "Hazy" (co-written with tour support act Gemma Hayes) and various vendor-specific additional tracks, such as "Blues Run the Game".

Duritz hinted in a number of interviews that Counting Crows' next studio record will be released in late 2007. He indicated that Counting Crows recently had spent three weeks working in a recording studio with Gil Norton, the producer behind Recovering the Satellites. Duritz has revealed the working title of the album to be Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, explaining, "Saturday night is when you sin and Sunday is when you regret. Sinning is often done very loudly, angrily, bitterly, violently." Vickrey has stated that "the idea at the moment is to have kind of a rocking side and then an acoustic-y, maybe country-ish side. We got the first half done in May in New York, so half of it is pretty strong and done. And now we're going to work on the second half, the country tunes, during the tour." On his website, Duritz has said that the new album will be released in November of 2007.

from Wikipedia licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.