Born and raised in San Francisco, Tani was just a bit too young for the Summer of Love, but was still profoundly influenced by the California culture that gave the world country rock from the Bakersfield variety to psychedelic to the singer songwriter types.
Tani & 77 El Deora represent the best in Americana: smart without making a fuss about it. The lyrics are worldly but universal. The musical ideas hit home. The playing is as good as you’re going to hear this side of Austin. Above all, the… Show more band covers a lot of ground, from wistful ballads to hard driving honky-tonk rock, from personal meditations to satirical cultural observations, from electrified twang to down-home acoustic. Once in a while, they even find new shades of meaning in some cover you thought had been long since played out. This band is different. This band is special.
“All in all, possibly the best indie ‘Americana’ band to come from the Bay Area . . . ever . . . period.” - Paul Olguin
Barely into his twenties and hungry for experience, he moved to central Texas to work the hardcore country, blues and rock circuit between Austin and Dallas, playing five sets a night, seven nights a week for months at a time, eventually making connections that led to his moving to New York City just as the punk rock scene of CBGBs and Max's Kansas City was exploding in Lower Manhattan. By 1977 he was back in San Francisco as punk, power pop and new wave was taking hold in the Bay Area and began a stretch of five years and four critically acclaimed albums with ex-Flamin' Groovies front man Roy Loney's band, The Phantom Movers.
Through the rest of the '80s and '90s, Maurice was the lead guitarist and a featured vocalist for Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra and Big Bang Beat, two large, 12-18 piece dance bands that gained worldwide exposure from a 2 hour PBS New Years Eve tri-mulcast (2 television stations with different views and FM stereo radio audio all broadcasting simultaneously) that was broadcast annually for many years on public TV around the US and Europe. ZPMO won the Bammy Award for Best Independent Album of 1985. After 15+ years of touring, Tani was ready for a change and made the decision to return to his roots in original music.
Since making the shift back to songwriting in 1999, Maurice has spent the past 13 years as an active part of the California alt-country/Americana scene. Fronting his own bands, Calamity & Main, 77 El Deora, he has produced a series of albums for himself and others. In recent years, with singer Jenn Courtney as his muse, central character and sparring partner, Tani has constructed a repertoire of rye humor and romantic ruminations.
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