SAN FRANCISCO (www.vivtheband.com) - San Francisco alternative pop/rock band ViV is about to set off on tour in support of their new album, Flawed.
The tour will take the band through the Northeastern U.S. and back to California through clubs, colleges, high schools, and retail in-stores. Tour dates are shown below. But wait, there's more.
What might be most incredible about ViV is its self-sufficient nature. The band is on its own 10 Toes Over record label, and does almost all of their business in-house (including a street team of 178 members). For this tour, ViV will record 41 shows, acoustically and electrically, as well as one-minute diary entries from the band and crew each day.
Also, there will be exit interviews with fans after each show and recording of the band on radio interviews. The live CD will then be offered with a limited addition companion CD that has the interviews, reviews and some demos that the band records on the road for its next studio album.
Five iPods will also be given away to mailing list members after the tour. On the ipod will be Viv's entire catalog, including some unreleased B-sides and interviews with the band and crew that will not be on the companion CD. Fans can advance order the live CD at a discount only at shows. The Companion 2 CD set will be limited edition release. Fans can also order the concert they attended or part of the concert they attended.
Flawed, the highly anticipated follow up to ViV's 2001 self-titled debut, is already garnering critical acclaim from peers and industry representatives alike. That, and the songs "Friends" and "Shine" are being spun on KFOG in San Francisco as well as Seattle's KEXP. They will also be introducing their music to college radio with the Planetary Group. Last year, ViV had 150 stations playing their debut album and charted in the top 10 on 35 of them.
While the major labels keep merging and focusing on a select few artists, the streets have become flooded with more great bands than ever, and ViV is one of them. While there is a Pete-Yorn-meets-Foo-Fighters current running through their music, there is also a Brit-pop melodic sensibility and a feel-good factor that add dimension to the overall package. There are artists like John Mayer and Norah Jones that have come along in the last few years and have made the jump from average Joe to pop icon. ViV is a band that, armed with a great new record, has that kind of potential.
"But the real surprise was a San Francisco band, the quintet VIV. It played catchy songs with such lavish orchestration it sounded as if there were twice as many people playing. The mark of a great pop band is when a song you've never heard sounds instantly familiar, like some old hit you missed. VIV fired off one after another. The group had the aura of a young U2, Radiohead or Coldplay."-San Jose Mercury News.
