"Baby Calendar are a three piece of guitar, keyboard, drums and bass with great girl / boy vocals - punchy, poppy, and never sloppy. They're on the road over half the year, perfecting their craft, winning over hearts all around the country one house show at a time."
- No Karma
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Baby Calendar's history began with Tom Gorrio and Jackie Biver playing open mic nights with only an acoustic guitar, a cheap Casio keyboard, and a tambourine. The duo would harmonize on original and spiky pop tunes like "Green Tea" and "Modulatura". These early songs had a feel and sound that was unlike anything else going on in South Florida, or anywhere else to their knowledge. In those early days, the duo was often compared to the then rising indie-pop duo, Mates of State, mainly because of the male-female harmonizing vocals and optimistic pop style of the songs. Even with those comparisons, people and critics praised Baby Calendar’s original and inventive songwriting and structures.
Tom and Jackie recorded an EP of indie-pop duets (Your Move/2004) and were pleasantly surprised by the success of that EP. At the end of every show, dozens of new friends made would leave smiling with a CD in hand.
In December 2004, Tom and Jackie played their first show with a drummer, electric guitar, and bass (Jackie picked up the bass but didn't drop playing keyboard or tambourine), and the energy was rushing through the entire venue. The feeling was so right, Arik Dayan, long time friend of Tom, was folded into the band permanently. Baby Calendar was now Tom, Jackie, and Arik.
Baby Calendar recorded a full length album as a full band (Fifteen Year Old Sneakers/ 2005) with the help of Tom's brother, mostly in their garage. Everything was done with a DIY ethic, 'why have someone else do what we can do ourselves?' / ‘Let’s have fun with it and see what we can do ourselves!’ With a full band full length in hand, Baby Calendar being setting down plans for touring.
2005 was a whirlwind of touring over most of the United States, including as far NW as Seattle, WA, as far SW as Los Angeles, all throughout the south and Midwest, upstate NY, and down the east coast. Tom, Jackie, and Arik began to make friends with lots of other touring bands who they would run into on the road repeatedly. The DIY touring circuit became like a second home. Some of the bands that BC performed with as part of the touring rock n' roll life include We Versus The Shark (Hello Sir), Mathematicians (Make Your Fate), The Teeth, Slingshot Dakota (Immigrant Sun), Defiance, Ohio (Plan-It-X/No Idea), Fake Problems (Sabot) and many other bands on underground and indie labels who are now blossoming into the public eye.
Many of the bands touring during that 2005 punk rock summer and beyond are now getting national distribution and playing festivals like SXSW and CMJ. That DOES include Baby Calendar! 2006 included much of the same touring of the United States, with more friend making and merriment occurring along with a strengthening from within of the band's sound and live performance. Tom, Jackie, and Arik became more solid performers as they became more comfortable with crowds of all sizes in venues of all conditions.
After performing at the DIY punk festival Plan-It-X fest (www.plan-it-x.com) for 2 years in a row (2005 & 2006), and the Athens Popfest in 2006, Baby Calendar will now be performing at the CMJ Music Marathon in November of 2006, which boats indie rock inspirations such as The Decembrists, Blonde/Redhead, Chin Up Chin Up, The Shins, and The Black Keys just to name a few.
The trio of Baby Calendar have proven their road legs and resilience, they have demonstrated their strong sense of rhythm and harmony, writing catchy and melodic pop songs that are not generic or predictable in any way. They are flexible, energetic, awesome performers, and awfully friendly people in general. A Baby Calendar show is filled with energy and smiles, as evidenced by their friends and fans all over the U.S.!
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All three members of Baby Calendar were born and raised in Miami, FL, a surreal city very much separate from the rest of Florida, more connected to the Carribean and South America though the Atlantic Ocean. Miami is a unique environment with a unique ecosystem and culture from the rest of the world, truly and equally Baby Calendar has a unique style that's both tropical and eclectic!
Not completely twee or pop, not completely punk or rock, but with elements of each, Baby Calendar stands unique, creative, inventive, and enthusiastically optimistic about life and music without sacrificing honesty!
Marking Time (October 5, 2006)
Baby Calendar embraces maturity without bailing on twee
Baby Calendar is a textbook example of how an indie band makes it. Sort of.
The trio — Tom Gorrio, Jackie Biver, and Arik Dayan — just issued its first nationally distributed album, Gingerbread Dog, and went on its first Southeast tour this past summer [edit: this is an error in the article, this was actually our 11th or 12th tour and we’ve toured practically the entire United States within the past 2 years]. This month the group plays at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, one of the biggest music festivals of the year. It's a modest amount of success for a band that continues to improve year after year.
Gorrio, a 25-year-old Peruvian who moved here when he was three years old, says all the band members grew up in Miami. Dayan (drums, xylophone, and tambourine) also came to Miami as a child. …Biver (bass, keyboards, and vocals) is a native Miamian. Each member spent time in other bands prior to Baby Calendar: Gorrio played in Lasso the Moon and a punk band called the Be Sharps, and Biver played in a rock group called Para.
"Everybody that we know plays in a band or two," says Gorrio. He notes that there are "hundreds" of bands in Miami, but most of them break up or change their name within a year. Since so few of them have enough stamina and drive to survive and build a formidable fan base, the local scene tends to be jaded and cynical. After all, why support a crappy rock band if it breaks up just as it gets good?
It took about three years for Baby Calendar to earn the trust of local indie fans. The group began with just Gorrio and Biver writing songs together for fun. In 2004 the couple put out a CD, Your Move, and played a few tentative-sounding shows at I/O Lounge and Churchill's Pub, with Gorrio on acoustic guitar and Biver on keyboard. They grew bored of doing acoustic shows, so they went electric and added 22-year-old Dayan, also formerly of Lasso the Moon. A second self-released album, 2005's Fifteen Year Old Sneakers, marked Baby Calendar's artistic development.
"We were really nervous and stiff," Biver says of those early shows. "But we all really loosened up." Now, says Biver, Baby Calendar plays "happy" shows. "When we finish playing, everybody's like, 'Oh, we like listening to your music. It makes me smile a lot.' So we try to keep a positive vibe."
Baby Calendar began playing shows outside Miami and eventually reached Athens, Georgia. An acquaintance there told them about Mike Turner, owner of a small but respected indie label called Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records. Biver says the band wooed him: "I sent him a package with some little handmade pieces of fabric, some music, and a letter." After months of correspondence, Turner agreed to put out the group's third disc, Gingerbread Dog.
Issued this past May, Gingerbread Dog — inspired by a dog owned by a member of local band Fake Problems — is far and away Baby Calendar's best album to date. Though still a large part of the band's identity, the cuteness factor isn't so dominant. Instead the group constructs tightly wound rock arrangements that contrast nicely against Gorrio and Biver's harmonies.
"Everybody likes the new songs a lot. People say we're taking a new direction and that it's more mature," says Gorrio. Standout songs include "Laboratories" and "Lemon Snaps," as well as "The Way of the Samurai," on which he sings of getting bullied in the second grade. "I'd daydream of swords and nunchucks/camouflage masks/Why I'd be a samurai," he sings. "I'll take them all, I'll take them all/Make sure they'd regret messing with."
"The main thing we sing about is love songs," says Gorrio, "through little scenarios inside the song, but not saying it so literally." Occasionally, as on "The Way of the Samurai," they talk about other stuff, but everything has a positive message.
"We've grown into a mixture of serious and funny and cutesy — somewhere in the middle. We have some ideas about wanting songs to be colorful and bright and fun, but at the same time we want them to have depth and to express the things we're thinking about," says Biver. "We're not trying to be cutesy, but we've definitely accepted that it's part of our thing."
Now Baby Calendar is gathering momentum. In August it performed at Athens Popfest, a three-day music festival organized by the group's record label. The showcase put Baby Calendar on the radar of many indie-rock fans, and Gorrio and Biver's boy-girl harmonies favorably drew comparisons to veteran groups like Mates of State and Rainer Maria. CMJ comes later this month.
"We want to take this as far as we can go and want as many people to hear and experience our music as possible," says Biver. (Mosi Reeves)
Podbop
When I think Miami, I don't think clap-happy indie-pop, but that's not stopping Baby Calendar. The trio have only been at it for two years and recently released their third full-length on HHBTM Records (who organize Athens Popfest).
Within the first minute of Within Cell Walls you can hear why Jackie Biver's vocals draw many comparisons to Rainer Maria's Caithlin De Marrais. Jackie's belted-out lyrics are balanced by moments of delicate coo-ings. And, like any respectable love-pop band, they also have claps, a casio and a tambourine.
I'm not sure whether they are romantically involved but their back-n-forth male/female vocals definitely echo the chemistry that floats around between the husband/wife duo of Mates of Sate. Well, except that there are three of them, but who am I to stop free love?
ATHENS POPFEST 2006 LIVE SHOW REVIEW
Athens Exchange (August 10, 2006)
I can barely contain myself as I write about Baby Calendar's show on Wednesday night at Little Kings. This might be one of my favorite new bands, and I don't really like indie pop all that much. That being said, my general feeling about Baby Calendar is... they rocked! Before the first song was over, Arik, the drummer and tambourine player extraordinare, had already taken his shirt off and was dancing around the stage in short shorts and no shoes. I'm jealous that I was not having as much fun as the band seemed to be having. The crowd must have felt the same way, because they turned into a crowd of dancing fools as soon as the set was under way.
Baby Calendar's vocalists, Tom and Jackie, go back and forth creating exciting and catchy melodies that leave you tapping your feet. "Cute" is normally such a condescending word, but it's honestly how they sound, and I don't think Baby Calendar would deny this. The harmonies between Tom and Jackie are amazing; they sound like seasoned pros, not kids from Miami playing music for fun. Even while jumping around on stage and singing/playing their hearts out, they never miss a beat.
It was loud, but not loud just for volume's sake. Their sound sort of enveloped the entire inside of Little Kings and wrapped all around me, still, never overpowering their melodies. I don't know what their following is like around Miami, but if Baby Calendar continues to show up in Athens, I'm sure they will acquire a loyal, local fan base in no time. Look for them again on August 18th at Little Kings for the Casper and the Cookies CD release party. From Popfest, they will continue on their Summer 2006 East to West, South to North USA tour. (Sera Kate Sims)
You Ain't No Picasso (July 28, 2006)
"..a quirky indie-pop sensibility... "Traffic in the Tropics" stops, starts, and then changes pace in the middle of the song, not unlike something you might find on SnS’ (Shapes and Sizes) new album. Also, there’s some nice interplay of the masculine and feminine vocals, and even some Mates of State-style "oh, oh"s."
Skatterbrain (July 3, 2006)
"..heavily melodic and exciting pop songs with undeniablely cute back and forth boy/girl vocals"
Low Velocity blurb
Indie pop with alternating, multi-sex vocal harmonization is a risky endeavor. Done poorly, it can inspire second-hand embarrassment of the worst sort - a knee jerk reaction to hackneyed and sugar sweet cutesiness that causes listeners to whither and die on the vine. But rest assured: Baby Calendar is tactfully done. While a majority of the songs are about pedomorphic subjects like lunchboxes, moving out of your parent’s house, or other varied forms of high school nostalgia, they are delivered with a tangible amount of maturity. Jackie Biver's fragilely adorable vocals fit well with the band's animate modulation and Tom Gorrio's singing. The 2006 release of "Gingerbread Dog" serves as evidence of Baby Calendar’s musical cultivation as it is a dramatic improvement over both the 2004 release "Your Move," and 2005's "Fifteen Year Old Sneakers."
Closer Magazine (May 20, 2006)
Clever Twee Pop That Snaps and Crackles on their way to musical adulthood Baby Calendar gains copious fans
With influences ranging from punk to Billy Joel and Weezer and indie rock roots in the local scene, the members of Baby Calendar have taken an adventurous leap that has landed them in twee pop territory. The trio is Jackie Biver (vocals/bass/keys), Arik Dayan (drums) and Tom Gorrio (vocals/guitar), and they are due to tour the country for the second time—and with a new release in hand — this summer. Enthusiastic, pepped up and ready to go, these 20-somethings are fun, silly and ridiculously artistic. They live wholeheartedly by the DIY philosophy, doing all the dirty work themselves — Biver is their manager — and all the while glowing with both modesty and vibrant talent. “We sit there and make all the CDs and merchandise ourselves; we book our own tours,” she says. “It gives us a lot of control.”
... [The members of Baby Calendar] are bright, optimistic and persevering. They sing and play in lustrous colors, sometimes dipping into a pond of aural sparkles or shiny bubbles for a splash of extra pep. Ideas of butterflies, determination and hanging out are thrown about. The lyrics are kind of like Hemingway’s prose: deceivingly simple and true, there for one to read — or listen to — between them. (Natalia Real)
...read the full interview here.
Miami New Times (May 4, 2006)
For the past couple of years, as we near the dreadful Florida summer, nothing comes as close to "good omen" as a brand-new Baby Calendar release. Seriously, the group's saccharine goodness helps combat the humid heat that takes over the Magic City and, though not substantially proven yet, might actually cause strangers to greet each other. I was suspicious of the band's recording lull but, at last, the trio of Jackie Biver (vox/keys/bass), Tom Gorrio (vox/guitar), and Arik Dayan (drums) will have a new full-length album titled Gingerbread Dog on Georgia's Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records. Then they'll embark on another marathon tour in which they'll gig your granny's knickers if she'll have 'em. Their blend of indie-pop, gospel inflection, whimsical punk, and childlike innocence is high on the "infectious" and has allowed them a purely DIY lifestyle while selling hundreds of copies of their previous EP and LP. And yes, there is talk of a split seven-inch hitting stores by this fall, as well as an unconfirmed statement about their moving to Georgia. In tow on the tour will be fellow indie popsters Fake Problems, with their Naples take on electric folk, and the street-corner acoustic punk of Tallahassee's On the Strings Of. But really: peaches? Fuck the peaches, Babies — oranges are so much better. (Abel Folgar)
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (March 24, 2006)
HOMEGROWN MUSIC
Forget the beat-up van full of beat-up old amps. This summer, Miami natives Baby Calendar will pack up a Honda Element and hit the road, hauling their quirky, jangling indie pop everywhere from Houston to Kalamazoo.
Singer-keyboardist Jackie Biver, singer-guitarist Tom Gorrio and drummer Arik Dayan have only been together for about a year and a half, but already they have two albums out and one more coming out in May. Your Move is an acoustic EP from Biver and Gorrio, then Dayan joined in on drums on full-length Fifteen Year Old Sneakers. Gingerbread Dog will be released by Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records. Its 11 tracks are full of clever, catchy indie pop that fits right in with the Athens, Ga.-based label. Relentless touring and a DIY [ethic] (the band has booked the entire summerlong national tour themselves) have made Baby Calendar local heroes, who are now poised to take on the national scene. (Liza Hearon)
New Times Broward (October 6, 2005)
Twee-Piece: Baby Calendar
Miami's march into the national indie-rock ranks continues with Baby Calendar. The locally loved trio balances twee-pop tendencies with unpredictable songwriting, occasionally aggressive guitar, and clever, pop-culture-cluttered lyrics. Composed of guitarist/vocalist Tom Gorrio, bassist/vocalist Jackie Biver, and drummer Arik Dayan, the band has been on the road, traveling through the Midwest and up the East Coast for most of the summer and gearing up to 180 back out to Texas and beyond next month. Not surprisingly, Baby Calendar's perambulations have honed its dynamics, and reviews from other cities have been universally great. The band's second self-released album, Fifteen Year Old Sneakers, just dropped in August, with sunny snatches of indie faves like Grandaddy and Menomena finding their way into its finely crafted 11 songs. "Welcome to our world/Take off your shoes," Gorrio and Biver harmonize on "Within Cell Walls." As quirky, catchy, and charming as it is, Baby Calendar's world is the kind you can get comfy in. (Jonathan Zwickel)
Everybodyyouknow.com (June 2005)
Gravity Boots and MySpace Love: Oscar Finds out a Little More about the Karate Kids that make up Baby Calendar
At first, Baby Calendar was the product of two great and talented individuals, whom I feel rather lucky to recognize as real friends. In the year 2004, Jackie Biver (pronounced Bye-ver) and Tom Gorrio were joined together by a mysterious force some might call fate. Their love for music and for each other was clearly manifested in life and, sure enough, on the few songs they started composing as a duo. Your Move (2004) was their first album, which was recorded in the commodity and privacy of Tom’s digital four-track. The duo’s sweet harmonies and catchy songs, accompanied by interesting acoustic guitar chord progressions and additional arrangements (tambourine and synthesizer), proved that Baby Calendar was the outcome of mutual understanding and elegant simplicity. In 2005, Arik Dayan joined the band as their drummer and Baby Calendar changed into a more solid "indie-rock" outfit. The trio is working on releasing their second record, Fifteen Year Old Sneakers, which comes out June 23. (Oscar Loo)
...read the full interview here.
Baby Calendar Live! (May 2, 2005)
I recently had a chance to see Baby Calendar play at Super Happy Fun Land. This trio really made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Aric, Tom, and Jackie really made an impression on me with the bounce in their step and their smiles all around. It's nice to see a band that really enjoys playing together and are not afraid to show it. They really put out the effort, and it didn't go unnoticed by the crowd that stuck around to see them.
Basically, these guys sounded like "poppy" indie-rock, but they threw in a few extra gems that were tastefully added to the mix. The Casio keyboard parts were not necessary but were very complimentary and well-played. Tom, the guitarist, mixed in some jazzy/ska-like phrases, as well as some Devo-esque sensibilities, that fit in seamlessly. Tom's musical sensibilities added a lot to their sound without forcing a given song too far away from what I assume to be the band's genre of choice (i.e., indie-rock).
Vocally, Jackie and Tom did a really good job. Their voices complemented each other well, and they did a good job of sharing the sonic space usually reserved for vocals. Aric, for his part, was a total freaking madman on drums. I noticed that his drums were set sort of high, and that nothing in his drum kit looked like it was angled towards him. When he began to play, I understood why: downward force is usually thwarted when forced to make contact at angles. Aric was all about that downward force, although he was also secure enough not to overlook his dynamics.
Overall, it was a good show that was professionally played. One tip for the youngsters on tour: never, I mean NEVER spend the night with a maniac like BROMAN. I saw these guys take off with BROMAN after the show, and the sadness grew deep within me. Who knows what sorts of defilement they would encounter? Either way, the next time I'm Baby Calendar's home town of Miami, Florida, I'll warn them about that. (Shawn Rameshwar)
