Birds of Avalon is a rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina whose sound fuses elements of psychedelic and progressive rock. The band consists of Cheetie Kumar, David Mueller, Scott Nurkin, Paul Siler, and Craig Tilley. After a 7-year stint in The Cherry Valence, guitarists Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler felt a growing desire to move on. In a final whirlwind year that saw The Cherry Valence touring Europe multiple times, the couple, Kumar and Siler, got married and left the group.

PropertyValue
dbpedia-owl:Artist/genre
dbpedia-owl:Artist/label
dbpedia-owl:MusicalArtist/background
  • group_or_band
dbpedia-owl:Person/activeYearsEndDate
  • 2005-01-01 00:00:00 (xsd:date)
dbpedia-owl:Person/activeYearsStartDate
  • 2005-01-01 00:00:00 (xsd:date)
dbpedia-owl:Person/homeTown
dbpedia-owl:activeYearsEndDate
  • 2005-01-01 00:00:00 (xsd:date)
dbpedia-owl:activeYearsStartDate
  • 2005-01-01 00:00:00 (xsd:date)
dbpedia-owl:background
  • group_or_band
dbpedia-owl:genre
dbpedia-owl:homeTown
dbpedia-owl:label
dbpprop:abstract
  • Birds of Avalon is a rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina whose sound fuses elements of psychedelic and progressive rock. The band consists of Cheetie Kumar, David Mueller, Scott Nurkin, Paul Siler, and Craig Tilley. After a 7-year stint in The Cherry Valence, guitarists Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler felt a growing desire to move on. In a final whirlwind year that saw The Cherry Valence touring Europe multiple times, the couple, Kumar and Siler, got married and left the group. They began playing with Craig Tilley (The Weather), where they laid the foundation for what was to become the first batch of Birds Of Avalon songs. They added drummer Scott Nurkin (Dynamite Brothers) and soon added David Mueller on bass. Birds Of Avalon has been praised in media outlets; according to CityBeat, they “can tear it up in a three-minute barn-burner or lure you into an extended psychedelic journey, wandering schizophrenically like a Brian May guitar solo. " Since their inception in 2005, Birds Of Avalon have toured extensively, sharing the stage with bands such as The Flaming Lips, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Raconteurs, The Fucking Champs, Oneida, Mudhoney, Valient Thorr, Vetiver, Federation X, and Drunk Horse. They have also supported The Hold Steady a few times. Birds Of Avalon's debut full length album, Bazaar Bazaar, was released by Volcom Entertainment on May 22, 2007. The album was produced by the band and recorded with Mitch Easter, Greg Elkins, and Brian Quast. The band followed up Bazaar Bazaar with the Outer Upper Inner EP in early 2008. Recorded at Mitch Easter's Fidelitorium, it was done completely on 4-track 1/2 machines. The record was conceived as an experiment between Easter and the band to see if they could preserve the band's generally complex sound using recording equipment and techniques from the late 60's. They supported this release with a heavy tour schedule ending in late summer of that year. The band then retreated to their home and began an extensive period of writing and recording, using their rehearsal space at Kumar and Siler's house as a makeshift studio. Recordings done at the home resulted in band's second full length album, Uncanny Valley, released in summer 2009 on Volcom Entertainment. The album was quickly recorded on an old 3M 16-track tape machine borrowed from Mitch Easter who, with Cheetie Kumar, mixed the record at Fidelitorium. The name Uncanny Valley comes from a theory which was introduced by Japanese roboticist, Masahiro Mori, in 1970 to describe the phenomena by which human beings become more unsettled by robots or other human facsimiles in direct proportion to how lifelike they appear. In addition to handling guitar duties for Birds of Avalon, Siler was one of the co-owners of the downtown Raleigh nightclub Kings. The club, which opened in July 1999, quickly became one of Raleigh's major concert venues, hosting a wide variety of local and national touring acts. Kings has served as a headquarters of sorts for the local underground rock scene, and to some extent, Birds of Avalon owes its existence to the club (in addition to co-owner Siler, Kumar, Mueller, and Tilley have all worked at Kings). The club recently closed after the property which housed it was sold to the City of Raleigh to facilitate the construction of a nine-story parking garage. Kings' owners are currently considering alternative locations in downtown Raleigh, which has gentrified rapidly since the opening of the McDowell Street location in 1999.
dbpprop:background
  • group_or_band
dbpprop:currentMembers
dbpprop:genre
dbpprop:hasPhotoCollection
dbpprop:label
dbpprop:name
  • Birds of Avalon
dbpprop:origin
dbpprop:reference
dbpprop:url
dbpprop:wikiPageUsesTemplate
dbpprop:wordnet_type
dbpprop:yearsActive
  • 2005–present
rdf:type
rdfs:comment
  • Birds of Avalon is a rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina whose sound fuses elements of psychedelic and progressive rock. The band consists of Cheetie Kumar, David Mueller, Scott Nurkin, Paul Siler, and Craig Tilley. After a 7-year stint in The Cherry Valence, guitarists Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler felt a growing desire to move on. In a final whirlwind year that saw The Cherry Valence touring Europe multiple times, the couple, Kumar and Siler, got married and left the group.
rdfs:label
  • Birds of Avalon
owl:sameAs
skos:subject
foaf:name
  • Birds of Avalon
foaf:page
is dbpedia-owl:MusicalWork/artist of
is dbpedia-owl:artist of
is dbpprop:artist of
is dbpprop:redirect of
is owl:sameAs of