BU Today Sessions: Palm Spring Life
Energetic sound tracks from debut album SWIMSSWIMSSWIMS
Trying to nail down the sound and ethos of Palm Spring Life in a 250-word write-up is nearly impossible. Just ask band manager Audrey Schuler (CAS’15). When she needed to pen a band bio, frontman and former BU neurobiology major Ted Chafizadeh rejected every draft she wrote.
The enigmatic description on the band’s Facebook page offers few clues: “A nameless ensemble of howler monkeys playing turnip whistles—Carrots and vegetables with people names—invisible space aliens with detached hovering mustaches—inanimate sandwiches made to look animate with olives and toothpicks—a lemur that has never come into contact with a firearm and doesn’t know that it should be his life’s calling—a pheasant with too many noses.”
So when it came time for us to write something about Palm Spring Life, band member James Steinberg advised that we just “publish what Ted wants, dude—it will be easier that way.” After five consecutive late-night back-to-back-to-back phone calls with the enigmatic and aloof frontman, we relented. Here’s his response:
“We would like you to think we are a band from Allston, Mass., that is definitely not a proxy for Xultor, the omnipresent, omniscient, and all-handsome floating invisible humanoid torso in space above Ontario, Canada. The band’s members were born to human parents in the United States, and definitely not in an invisible android lab that was created by Xultor, nor his faithful half dragonfly, half lioness concubine, Marthaequastal. No, Palm Spring Life is just like you.”
Here’s what is known about the band: when it launched in 2012, all of the musicians were BU students. But Chafizadeh transferred to Berklee College of Music, and today the band boasts just one BU musician, bassist Steinberg (CAS’14). The other members, drummer Brandon Pironne and guitarist Michael Mason, like Chafizadeh, are both Berklee alums. Their debut album, SWIMSSWIMSSWIMS, was released in April 2015.
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