Beechwood

Generating a murky yet muscular strain of streetwise rock & roll, Beechwood emerged straight from the sidewalks of New York. By the members’ own account, they were essentially without housing when their first nationally distributed album appeared and had brushed against criminal pursuits while attempting to launch the group. The band initially built its profile through appearances at clubs and D.I.Y. spaces around the city, refining a sound that combined punk’s sneering liberty with strong infusions of glam, psychedelia, and noise rock to produce an expansive sonic mixture. Their stripped-down first album, Trash Glamour, arrived in 2014, yet it was Songs from the Land of Nod in 2018 that extended their reach beyond New York, while Sleep Without Dreaming in 2022 demonstrated sharper focus and power after a revised lineup took shape.

Guitarist and vocalist Gordon Lawrence and drummer and vocalist Isa Tineo formed Beechwood. The pair first crossed paths at age sixteen through a mutual interest in skateboarding. Lawrence had received his initial guitar at eleven and soon discovered he could accompany Ramones records with a handful of chords. Tineo, whose father played drums, grew up surrounded by percussion equipment and later found that drumming provided an effective outlet for aggression. After deciding to merge their notions of rock & roll, the duo added bassist Sid Simons and took the name Beechwood from the street where Lawrence had lived as a child.

The group made its first appearance at a St. Patrick’s Day show supporting Murphy’s Law; despite little stylistic overlap with the headliners, the performance succeeded and set them in motion. Following the independent release of Trash Glamour in 2014, their live activity helped establish a local following in New York. The band also drew widespread attention in 2017 when police halted an outdoor concert they had organized in June—an episode reported at length in the New York press, though footage confirmed the musicians had done nothing improper.

Beechwood signed with the veteran independent label Alive Naturalsound in 2017, issuing Songs from the Land of Nod in January 2018. Five months afterward the trio returned with Inside the Flesh Hotel, a harder and more vigorous third album. Early the following year Alive reissued the previously scarce 2014 debut, which had circulated mainly on cassette. Personnel shifts occurred when Isa Tineo departed; Sid Simons then switched from bass to guitar, and the band enlisted bassist Jensen Gore and drummer Russell Yusuf. This configuration recorded Sleep Without Dreaming in 2022, a particularly potent and cohesive effort.