Kelley Stoltz

All Music Guide:

Singer/songwriter Kelley Stoltz grew up in the Detroit area, but eventually found his way to San Francisco after taking a detour to New York City, where he worked in the mailroom at Jeff Buckley's management company. Armed with a four-track recorder and a wealth of lo-fi pop songs, Stoltz began recording his own material, performing all the parts himself and drawing comparisons to artists like Brian Wilson and Captain Beefheart. Those songs caught the ear of Monte Vallier, who helped Stoltz clean up and sweeten the recordings for release as The Past Was Faster. After that, Stoltz upgraded to an eight-track and self-released Antique Glow in a limited quantity of 200 vinyl copies, each one housed in a different, originally designed sleeve by Stoltz himself. Antique Glow was then picked up by Jackpine Social Club for wider release in 2003, which both raised his profile and allowed him to quit his teaching job.

Stoltz found a more permanent home for his music in 2005, when he signed with Sub Pop and released the Sun Comes Through EP. A full-length album, Below the Branches, followed in March 2006. Stolz's band toured that summer as the opening act for the Raconteurs and returned to the studio in 2008 to record his lushest production yet, Circular Sounds. Two years later, he toured with Echo & the Bunnymen and released another layered pop album, To Dreamers, which featured his live band on two tracks.

Wikipedia:

Kelley Stoltz is an American singer, songwriter and musician. He currently resides in San Francisco, Calif.. His music has been compared to that of Brian Wilson, The Velvet Underground, Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen.

Musical career

Kelley Stoltz was born in 1971 and grew up in Michigan. He moved to New York in his early twenties. While living in New York in the mid 1990s, Stoltz served as an intern with Jeff Buckley's management company where he worked as a "fan-mail" sorter. In the late 1990s he relocated to San Francisco and began his own musical career. Stoltz recorded his first album The Past Was Faster in 1999, released on Telegraph Records. Stoltz self-released his second album Antique Glow in 2001. The original release was 300 vinyl LPs in hand-painted sleeves. Later the album gained wider distribution when it was released by Jackpine Social Club in the US, Beautiful Happiness in the UK and Raoul Records in Australia. His next project was recorded in the last week of 2001: a track by track cover of Echo & the Bunnymen's Crocodiles album recorded on his 8-track tape recorder.

In late 2003, Stoltz toured Australia for the first time and recorded a 4 track direct to disc EP at Corduroy Records. In 2004, Mojo magazine gave Antique Glow a four (out of five) star review and featured an article on Stoltz in their "Mojo Rising" column. In 2005, Stoltz signed to Sub Pop and released "The Sun Comes Through" EP. He also toured Europe in April and Australia for a second time in Dec 2005-January 2006. His first full length release for Sub Pop, entitled "Below the Branches", was released in February 2006.

In tandem with the release of "Below the Branches" was an industry first: "Below the Branches" was the first record in history to make an on-package claim about renewable energy use with the Green-e logo. Stoltz tracked his electricity use and with the help of the Green-e program, offset the all the electricity used to record his record with green tags from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. In Kelley's words: “Using renewable energy to offset the electricity I needed to power my guitar amps and my recording machines was a simple and effective way for me to do something about my impact on the environment. Green-e certifies that I am buying 100 percent renewable energy. Hopefully, people will see their logo; check into what they do, and make renewable energy a part of their lives, too."

Stoltz and his band were the opening support band for The Raconteurs, on their July and August 2006 tour. Stoltz also performed at the 2006 Lollapalooza in Chicago. His song "Birdies Singing" from "Below the Branches" has been used by Volvo for the Volvo C30 commercial in Sweden in 2007; it has also been used for the Regions Financial ad campaign of 2007 in the U.S. Stoltz's song, "Memory Collector" is featured in a Marriott Hotels ad, and several of his songs were used in the hit FX series, "Damages." In early 2006, Stoltz produced God's Boat, the debut album from The Passionistas - which was released on June 5, 2007. He also produced or worked on other bay area albums Thee Oh Sees/Sucks Blood, Bart Davenport/Palaces, Moore Brothers/Aptos and Colossal Yes/Charlemagne's Big Thaw.

On February 5, 2008 Stoltz's album Circular Sounds was released by Sub Pop. In 2010 he opened for his heroes Echo and the Bunnymen on a North American Tour after the scheduled opening group was waylaid by the 2010 Icelandic volcano eruption.

On October 12, 2010 Sub Pop released Stoltz's album To Dreamers. Additionally, Stoltz appeared on Sonny Smith's Sonny and the Sunsets album Tomorrow is Alright.