About
The Box Set Authentic Collective is built around a core of eight longtime musical collaborators who really, really like one another’s songwriting. We record whenever enough of us get together in the same place. When we can’t, we record at home and share our work via the internet or snail mail. We believe that technology has empowered amateur musicians to make music of distinction. We believe that we own what we make, which gives us the right to give it away. Our highest ideal is to keep making music we love, and always to make it better than it was before. We have our roots in Chicago and branches that span from Los Angeles to London.
Most of us played in and around Chicago in the bands Shovel Choir, Tart, and the Velmas. By 1999, all three had split and their members had relocated across the U.S. We got sick of wishing we could be in a band together every time we heard one of the others’ new songs. Guy Crundwell announced that going forward, we were together in a band, geography be damned. He envisioned us trading 4-track cassettes. New Yorker Rick Karr and Chicagoan Steve Zimmers moved the project into the digital era, helping everyone decide which songs to rehearse and play together at a real session at Chicago’s late Stroppy Studio. Joy Gregory flew to her old hometown from Los Angeles, Rick and Guy flew in from the East Coast, and Mark Venn astonished everyone by coming in from London. They linked up with the Chicagoans -- Zimmers, John deMouplied and Michael Sankowski -- and recorded eight songs. A few months later, Matthew Neill Sharp joined from California, contributed his beat-editing and remixing skills, as well as a few songs. Subsequent sessions took place in Chicago and New York. In 2003, Guy launched the first BSA Songwriting Contest to provide fodder for future albums. The first BSA album, Peace in the Middle West, is slated for a 2007 release.
