Shannon and the Clams is an indie

garage punk A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...

quartet based in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. Known for a vintage sound that incorporates elements of

doo-wop Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chica ...

, classic R&B, garage psych, and surf, Shannon and the Clams has drawn comparisons to both

Buddy Holly Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas ...

and 1960s

girl group A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups, many of who ...

s. They are also said to love "music from '50s oldies to '80s punk".

History

The band includes vocals from bassist Shannon Shaw, guitarist Cody Blanchard, and keyboardist Will Sprott, along with drums by Nate Mahan. Shaw and Blanchard met at the

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

, where they began performing together. Shaw is also a member of

queercore Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifical ...

punk outfit

Hunx and His Punx Hunx and His Punx is an American punk band from San Francisco, California. History Origins Hunx, real name Seth Bogart, started the band in 2008 after years of performing in a pop group called Gravy Train!!!! The group's sound has been com ...

. Shannon and the Clams' debut album, ''I Wanna Go Home'', was released in 2009. In 2011, the group followed up with their sophomore effort, ''Sleep Talk''. Their third album, ''Dreams in the Rat House'', was released in May 2013. Their album ''Gone by the Dawn'' is described by Still in Rock as "the most beautiful manifestation in recent years of what I would call the 'Elvis Presley culture'". Released in 2018, ''Onion'' was Shannon and the Clams' first release on

Dan Auerbach Daniel Quine Auerbach (; born May 14, 1979) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer, best known as the guitarist and vocalist of The Black Keys, a blues rock band from Akron, Ohio. As a member of the group, Auerbach has ...

's Easy Eye Sound label. Auerbach also produced the album.

Reception

A reviewer at Still in Rock stated that their "shows are among the best in the world, with an inexhaustible spirit and a musical style with no equivalent. Its influence on the independent scene is one of the greatest, together with

Ty Segall Ty (stylized as ty) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. It was founded by Ty Warner in 1986. It designs, develops and sells products, most notably Beanie Babies, exclusively to speci ...

and very few others." A reviewer at Punknews.org wrote that Shannon and the Clams has the "sound of a prom band in 1964 getting dosed with

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

and having the sweetest lovelorn freak out. Imagine a brawling

Etta James Jamesetta Hawkins (January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012), known professionally as Etta James, was an American singer who performed in various genres, including gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, rock and roll, and soul. Starting her career in 1954, sh ...

, backed up by the

13th Floor Elevators The 13th Floor Elevators was an American rock band from Austin, Texas, United States, formed by guitarist and vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland. The band was together from 1965 to 1969, a ...

singing Shangri La's tunes." The ''

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...

s Jessica Hopper described Shannon and the Clams as "something from a

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his Cinema of Transgression, transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamin ...

lucid dream... complete with horny teenage anthems that walk the line between greasy, frantic 50s rock 'n' roll and innocent, hip-swinging 60s pop." In an effusive review of ''Onion'',

Allison Wolfe Allison Wolfe (born November 9, 1969) is a Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, writer, and podcaster. As a founding member and lead singer of the punk rock band Bratmobile, she became one of the leading voices of the riot grrl movement. Wolfe ...

wrote: "Reminiscent of

the Collins Kids The Collins Kids were an American rockabilly duo featuring Lawrencine "Lorrie" Collins (May 7, 1942 – August 4, 2018) and her younger brother Lawrence "Larry" Collins (born October 4, 1944). Their hits in the 1950s as youngsters, such as "Hop ...

, both Shannon and Cody's voices mingle and soar, and I often can't tell their beautiful articulations apart. No matter – this is a gorgeously sincere and infectious body of work that I can't put down."

Band members

* Shannon Shaw – (vocals, bass) * Cody Blanchard – (vocals, guitar) * Nate Mahan – (drums) * Will Sprott – (vocals, keyboards) ''Guest Members'' * Eric Moore - (drums - Australian Tour 2022) * Chris Icasiano - (drums) * Garett Goddard - (drums)

Discography

Studio albums

Singles and Eps

References

External links

Official websiteShannon and the Clams
on MySpace
Shannon and the Clams Documentary
{{Authority control Garage punk groups Indie rock musical groups from California Musical groups established in 2009 Musical groups from Oakland, California 2009 establishments in California Hardly Art artists