Beulah

Miles Kurosky and Bill Swan of Beulah began as officemates in the mail room of a San Francisco security firm during 1994. Although they initially harbored a mild mutual dislike, the pair discovered a common enthusiasm for music. Setting that friction aside in 1996, they devoted the following eighteen months to honing a lo-fi indie-rock approach and laying down tracks, which yielded the 1997 single A Small Cattle Drive in a Snow Storm. Anne Mellinger entered the fold in time to help capture the Handsome Western States EP for Elephant 6 later that year. By 1998 the group’s fluid membership included Kurosky, Swan, Steve LaFolette, Pat Noel, Steve St. Cin, Bill Evans, and Ana Pitchon. Extensive road work alongside Neutral Milk Hotel and Apples in Stereo elevated Beulah’s profile across indie circles in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Before the year closed, the core band enlisted eighteen additional players to document its second full-length, When Your Heartstrings Break. Released on Sugar Free, the album earned widespread praise for its prominent strings, horns, and organs, which illuminated some of the group’s most luminous songs to date. Two years afterward, The Coast Is Never Clear surfaced on Velocette. With the arrival of the new millennium, St. Cin and Pitchon stepped away; drummer Danny Sullivan, bassist Eli Crews, and keyboardist Pat Abernathy then rounded out the lineup. Yoko, presenting Kurosky’s most somber material yet, reached listeners in September 2003. Early speculation that the band might disband unless sales surpassed the combined totals of prior releases was promptly dismissed by the members themselves. They proceeded with well-attended tours across North America and Europe while reviewers hailed Yoko as Beulah’s strongest effort. Ultimately the responsibilities of family life proved insurmountable for several members. After a string of U.S. performances, the group concluded its run on August 5, 2004, with a free concert at Battery Park in New York City. The following summer saw the release of the band’s first concert DVD, A Good Band Is Easy to Kill.