"After the Deprogramming"...
The songs capture the musical fun, adding heavily reverbed vocals, and range from the almost-but-not-quite-explosive opener "Electric Goat" to the more laid-back "Age Of Smoke"'s beautiful melody and counterpoint, which features a more expansive arrangement that includes cellos and a clarinet. Each song has its own character, and can often sound quite different from its fellows; the jaunty "Wallet" wonders how to get past the doorman without an ID, or to remember what old friends look like without their pictures readily available. Quiet closer "Night Comfort Theater" heads into alt-country territory, but the guitar effects that bubble just underneath the surface, combined with the subject matter (the song is an ode to Tom LaBrie, host of "Night Comfort Theater" on Sacramento-based UHF station KTXL in the 1970s and '80s, and also owner of LaBrie's Waterbed Warehouse -- thank you, Google!) are slightly more offbeat than traditional revivalist fare.
Andrew Mall, Splendid, Oct. 25, 2005
Attacking social consciousness on all fronts, this album is only a representation of Cubby's music arm. They have also run a zine and a cable access show, and here put their considerable talent to work on a new full-length. They are from the San Francisco alt-rock scene, but their challenging music has what seem like Irish sensibilities, but use spacey morphs to produce a new sound rife with fantasy and futuristic invention. Great pop rock.
DP, IMPACT Press, Fall, 2005
C'est de l'ordre de l'insaisissable. Du pas bien défini, ou alors une somme de petits trucs qui piquent immédiatement la curiosité et l'envie d'en entendre plus. Est-ce le nom du groupe, THE CUBBY CREATURES, ou celui du disque, "After the Deprogramming"? Ou bien encore le joli packaging aux allures de sérigraphie... ou tout simplement la très belle intro violon et arpèges sur l'entrée de "Electric Goat", le magnifique titre ouvrant l'album.
Pierre, Soit Dit En Passant, September, 2005
The Cubby Creatures After The Deprogramming [album, Rodent Records, betyg: 4] Ett band som kallar sig The Cubby Creatures (Krypin-varelserna) och kommer från San Francisco, gör oundvikligen att ens associationer – åtminstone om man är lite musikhistoriskt bevandrad – leder till droger, hippies och 1967. När musiken dessutom har klara psykedeliska drag och Emily Davis på violin, så är det lätt att tänka Curved Air, LSD, Fritz The Cat, långt hår, fransjackor, Cheech & Chong och peacemärken. Men då glömmer man att det är 2005 nu, att det här är The Cubby Creatures andra fullängdare och att bandet snarare ser ut som välkammade college-ungdomar än bakgatu-hippies, samt att dagens indierock kan låta lite hur som helst. Även psykedelisk, såsom The Cubby Creatures gör när de är som bäst. Musiken har beskrivits som smart och jämförelser har gjorts med allt från Beatles och Pink Floyd till Camper Van Beethoven och Olivia Tremor Control. I en låt som "Electric goat" skulle jag vilja krydda med lite Bowie också, men framförallt låter The Cubby Creatures som sig själva. Bandets musik är melodisk, relativt ren och rak rock i grunden. Psykedelian ligger inbäddad i melodierna eller används som effekter, såsom raketbränsle för att få pjäsen att lyfta. Att plattan sedan ger lite träsmak efter ett tag är småtrist, men det gör inte så mycket. Detta är nämligen riktigt bra för det mesta.
Robert Ryttman, Zero Magazine, Jul. 14, 2005
What deprogramming? Oh, for the days when NorCal alt-rock ruled the airwaves, or rather, brain waves – if these lovable Cubby Creatures could speak directly rather than playfully, that's what they would yelp, between sweet, dense (but brainy) spasms of generally exuberant indie psych. The S.F. four-piece dial into an almost lost channel of tuneful NorCal musical surrealism – imagine 24-7 Pavement, Camper Van Beethoven, and maybe even Cake – that never quite inveigled its way into the minds of every listener in the country, although it gave it a damn good college(-rock) try. After a backward masking-tinged interlude, "Electric Goat" does everything short of name-checking Camper, with Bill Fisher's sarcasto-aggro vocals and Emily Davis's violin action. Restless, smarty-pants minds want to know, as Fisher muses on "Song for the Secret," "Where did you get your indie credibility? / Is it the style of the clothes you wear / Or is it your amazing ability / To buy the greatest records ever pressed to vinyl." Fiddling as the center fell away, post-'90s rock, these poster kids haven't been completely deprogrammed – although their saving grace might be their ability to find beauty amid all us cynics ("Antenna").
Kimberly Chun, San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 25 - May 31, 2005
Standouts from After the Deprogramming include the frolicking pop of "Pawn Takes Queen," and the calling out of indie elitists on "Song for the Secret," but the album in its entirety is a blissful excursion into smart indie rock that avoids the condescension found so often in this scene.
David Barker, Silent Uproar, May, 2005
	"Who Remembers Kathy Barra?"...
If you're not already a Cubby, you can find out how to become one on the Cubby Creatures' new five-song EP Who Remembers Kathy Barra?On it, one of the Creatures explains "[A Cubby] can be anything you want it to be; it's about changing the world through what you have inside." Perhaps this idea is better left unsaid -- or rather, better listened to, either on Kathy Barra or the group's full-length album, The Blessed Invention. A mouthpiece for the group to preach the word of the "Cubby," a higher power that is the band's source of inspiration for all things kooky, the music -- an eclectic hodgepodge of clarinet, keyboards, violin, and samples -- is pure fun. With their own zine, cable "excess" show, and preacher (the Rev. Myrtle Motivation), the Creatures may yet convert us all.
Lisa Hom, SF Weekly, Nov. 14-20, 2001
At the same time, The Cubby Creatures, that most healing, cathartic, San Francisco-based performance/video/zine collective, is coming to us! The Cubby, I'm told, is "like love," meaning it's everywhere, waiting to be accessed. Their new CD, Who Remembers Kathy Barra? is a karma-cleaning tribute to that poor, archetypal, gradeschool classmate unfortunate enough to look like a rodent, "picked on so much I thought she'd bleed." Maybe in your school it was Naked Mole Rat, Albino Mouse, or Weasel. Poor outcast Kathy Barra was unfortunate enough to look like a rat and have a name that sounds like Cappybarra, the largest rodent of all. Sigh. Poor Kathy. Singing always makes the world a little kinder, doesn't it?
Monica Drake, Portland Mercury, Nov. 29, 2001
Desentrañar la cuestión medular de este disco no es fácil. Si bien el visor del CD player marca "diez", las verdaderas canciones son cinco. Entonces, ¿dónde están las que faltan? A modo de introducción unas voces de radio se acoplan, charlan y se ajustan para darle lugar a lo que viene... es justamente "lo que viene" lo mas difícil. El tema que le da la bienvenida al resto no termina de ser esclarecedor: un violín, una batería acariciada, una voz arrastrada, coros, un vuelo increíble que parece contenido, que no termina de explotar. La primera reacción es sorpresa, al menos para los oídos que no están acostumbrados a tan tremendo despliegue de recursos musicales. En "Knitting Bee" los beatles todavía existen, pero esta vez no de Liverpool sino desde San Francisco. A estos seis freaks no les importa nada y elaboran sobre la marcha una melodía fresca, con campanitas y clarinete, casi de circo. Y ahora se empieza a entender, esos interludios hacen las veces de entrevista entre tema y tema. La oscuridad se adueña del paso siguiente. Susurros en "Diseases" y hasta escalofríos. Otra vez el clarinete. Un vals que se podría ilustrar. Hasta que arranca el violín y nada de lo que era domina la canción, todo a un paso del punk desmedido. "Samy" es indescriptible. No hay letra, es que no importa la letra. Es solo un violín que por momentos se cansa y vuelve a despertar. Arranca con furia y por lo bajo alcanza altura. Y así en un ida y vuelta constante de ritmos. Para terminar, la elección no podía ser mejor. Con "Bean is..." se cierra una secuencia psicodélica, por demás experimental, que se interna en lo no convencional. Luego concluyen: todos tenemos un cubby adentro. Genial.
Victoria Viajera, RockUnder, December 2002
At the end of this much-too-short EP from SF's clever, quirky popsters The Cubby Creatures, you can't help but wanna hit 'play' one more time. Five playful and pretty tunes that sound as if each of the six Cubby folk had a gleeful time performing them and want to draw you into the festivities too. Much more melodic and less ramshackle than their previous release "Blessed Invention". A tilt-a-whirl of clarinet and violin-flourished melodies tossing different styles and spoken word interludes (which stretch the actual track count on your cd player from five to ten in total) into the mix with a jubilant abandon. The rollicking second song "Knitting Bee" is truly a deadringer for an Olivia Tremor Control tune, and y'know the Cubby Creatures could snugly slip in to fill the space vacanted by the defunct OTC - although actually all of the OTC offshoot projects have been doing that quite well on their own.
Aquarius Records
Kathy Barra, cursed with a name that sounds like "Capybara" and therefore called "a huge rodent" by her tormentors throughout elementary school, is finally vindicated in the title track of this EP by the San Francisco Cubby Creatures. But the main reason to pick up this spunky little EP is for the song "The Knitting Bee," which I first heard on my local alternative radio station, and then sat in my car for 20 minutes -- in a cold parking lot -- just to hear who it was by. "Knitting Bee" is so pop-perfect I was certain it was some long-forgotten Brit-invasion gem from the 60's, and was surprised to learn it was actually a brand new song. A tune about knitting circles that was inspired by "The Church of Craft" (see item in this issue), it's the kind of bop-along song that sticks in your head for hours. The rest of the record is cute too, and sounds vaguely like a boy-version of Chia Pet (points to you if you understand the reference), what with its un-rock lineup of guitars, drums, violins and clarinets. IIf you buy only one record with a song about knitting on it this year, let it be this one.
Debbie Stoller, Bust magazine, April, 2002
	"The Blessed Invention"...
The [Cubby] Creatures use a basic guitar, bass, and drums setup, plus clarinet, keyboards, violin, and assorted samples to create complicated, densely layered, cheerfully surreal music characterized by unexpected juxtapositions and inversions -- see "Up Song," featuring the line, "Somebody said the world's gonna end/So pick out your clothes and pack up your friends." That somehow exemplifies the Cubby Creatures. You might hear some of the eccentric pop of vintage Kinks, some of the inspired art-damaged lo-fi psychedelia of the Elephant Six Collective (The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Apples in Stereo et al), and some of the inspired madness of Captain Beefheart. But then there's always that violin, which gives all the upbeat weirdness a folky, dirgelike edge.
Jesse Ashlock, Epitonic.com, Dec. 6, 2001

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