Bryan Scary & The Shredding Tears

31st October 2006, The Shredding Tears was released to the world. To support the record, Scary put together a touring band – ALSO called The Shredding Tears. Backing Scary’s vocals and keyboards were second keyboardist Mike Acreman, guitarist Graham Norwood, bassist David Ostrem, and drummer Brian Bauer. Scary and his band soon began to draw a large word of mouth following, due to there glam, theatrical stage show. Each song was given its own glittering visual representation, complete with wacky costumes and set pieces all of which was filtered through the darkly comedic mind and maniacal stage persona of Bryan Scary.The band drew comparisons to Queen, ELO, Sparks, and Of Montreal, among other artists unafraid to court the dramatic. After some heavy touring, Scary and the band returned to the studio to begin crafting the next album, the first to feature his touring ensemble. It was a conceptual work inspired in-part by Thomas Pynchon’s epic novel “Against The Day,” with nearly every song delineating a tale of flight, airships, or the wild blue yonder. The record got heady with interwoven themes of innocence lost and the uses of enchantment. It opened with a magical fairy-tale and closed with a cynical commentary on that same fairy tale. Fanciful, poppy and psychedelic (albeit with a glamorous 70′s bend), the material on FLIGHT OF THE KNIFE was built around ADD-inflicted arrangements and liberal genre-playing, as the band careened from jazz to funk to classical to country to music-hall. On the 1st April 2008, Flight of the Knife by Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears, was on Black and Greene Records. Critical acclaim began to pour in - the album received praise from Pitchfork, SPIN, Rolling Stone, MTV and other delectable periodicals. It was the “Editor’s Pick” on iTunes and rocketed to the top-30 albums in a day. It was also ranked No. 6 in their "Rock Albums" section as well. The acclaim of FLIGHT OF THE KNIFE led to two years of touring, which got brought to an abrupt end whilst in Mid-tour in L.A. While preparing to record an EP for Elijah Woods’ Simian Record, the band’s van and trailer was stolen, along with all of their gear! Tour derailed the band were stuck in L.A. The band being ever resilient used this time to finish up the 5 track EP for Simian. Most of that EP was produced by the new no.2 member Jonathan Sadoff. Later, Scary added a 6th track produced with Bryce Goggin (Apples in Stereo, Pavement). The completed Mad Valentines EP was released in late 2009.