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The Glass Bead Game takes its name from the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Herman Hesse about an intricate and sophisticated past-time of futuristic aesthetes.
Intricate and sophisticated are good words to describe the band's music, and Cera Byer's lyrics, which contain enough skewed rhyme and complex toyings with poetic language that their transubstantiation into melodies may not be quite Nobel-worthy, but are definitely noble.
Cera began training as a classical pianist at age four, but at twelve decided to start skipping her lessons in order to hang out on the streets of Berkeley developing a massive caffeine addiction and a penchant for song writing. She started playing the guitar when she was informed that she couldn't fit a piano in the cargo hold of a greyhound bus and hasn't stopped yet.
Bassist and resident rockstar JD Schreiber joined the project in summer of 2001 when Cera begged and pleaded and rolled around on the floor until he agreed in order to calm her down. He's played in such fantastic bands as Headcase-o-matic, Cavity Search, and most recently, The Lemon Lime Lights. You can periodically find him dropping the bass and strumming a guitar, rocking an octaphone, or doing ungodly things to an accordion.
PhantomDrummer Pat Spurgeon (also of Ramona the Pest), and violinist Jeff Hobbs have graced the duo with their super powers, adding powerful vintage rhythms and atmospheric harmony to Cera's emotionally charged and sporadic melodies.
Together the four create a lush soundscape that has been compared to such acts as Kristen Hersh, early Cowboy Junkies, and bay area chamber rock group Bonfire Madigan.
The game has been playing in the studio lately, working at the Expression Center for New Media on several songs that will soon be independently released for public consumption. |
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| "A sonorous sea just before dawn, ready for silence or storms, Cera's voice isn't just a 23rd century Janis Joplin time-travelled into a trinity-sessions-esque landscape for our edification. No, the Glass Bead Game is as bizarrely playful as it is deadly serious -- a game that plays for the sake of playing. Drawing on a worldliness that you'd be hard pressed to find in someone twice her age, Cera still writes from the perspective of innocence.... Offbeat, skewed, and rigorously bizarre innocence, like an extraterrestrial finger paint mural. Cera's fluid intertwining of guitar and voice finds a strong undercurrent with upright bassist JD, who attacks the bass with bow, brushes, shakers, and anything else in arms reach, taking the bass from a hyper jazzy walk-about to a languid atmospheric sound reminiscent of the didgeridoo within the space of a few bars. Adding to this melee are the vintage rhythms of percussionist Pat Spurgeon, and violinist Jeff Hobbs, who soars through the mixture adding a second sail to Cera's slow and lovely melodies." - S. MacKracken, The Vision Thing |
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| Date |
Venue/Club |
Location |
| October 09, 2002 |
Broadway Studios |
san francisco CA, USA |
| October 18, 2002 |
Cafe Eclectica |
albany CA, USA |
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Location:
oakland CA, USA
the glass bead game Website
cera@steelmedia.net
Regular Tour Area:
San Francisco Bay Area |
