Fringe Area Fm Radio

It's been a long time… but CAKE is back from the fringe and ...

Bested, by the time a third offering is endeavored, you’re lucky if anyone remembers you exist. However, to those rare few for whom durability and vision come naturally, their fan base’s loyal to their creative whims, a unique voice can become ubiquitous. CAKE is one of those bands.

For the past 20 years—for the Gen X or Y set, we know that sounds weird—CAKE has occupied a peculiar niche in the rock world. Originally marketed as one of any wobbly number of “alternative” bands when their debut Motorcade of Generosity produced the single “The Distance”—a quirky punk/soul/blues tune featuring the soon-to-be trademark monotone vocal presence of vocalist John McCrea—that the Sacramento-based band ushered in a new amalgam of sound to a tired FM radio routine. And that sound has very seldom been tampered with since CAKE was first thrust onto the fringes of the alt-rock explosion of the mid-‘90s. In fact, it doesn’t appear much has been tampered with—should you forego the easy target of some of the band’s lineup changes—at all, which is why it’s altogether alarming how fresh , it’s really a band finally embracing a democratic songwriting process. Still, the comforting ambience of fuzzy, single-note guitar lines, peppy trumpets and that dangerously dance-y combo of groove-goopy drums and snare-tight bass pacing sounds like a great friend who’s returned home from a very long trip. And this friend works for a new employer—or in CAKE’s case, it’s their very own label, Upbeat Records . And he has transformed his workplace to run entirely on solar power—i.e. the band’s Sacto studio. And he has begun to pass out tree saplings while on the clock—yeah, they give away trees during gigs.