For their third studio recording Other Desert Cities, Bay Station sought inspiration in the Mojave Desert. The 10 songs on Other Desert Cities were written over several week-long writing retreats in Joshua Tree, a desert town adjacent to its namesake National Park. Bay Station co-founders Deborah Crooks and Kwame Copeland use their experiences and impressions of desert life as a springboard for ten new songs that reflect the stark and natural beauty of the desert environment, and detail some of the strange, poetic, and distinctly American stories of its desert denizens, both animal and human.

As they did on their previous two releases, Your Own Reaction (2014 under their former name, KCDC) and Go Out and Make Some (2016 as Bay Station), Deborah Crooks (vocals, principal lyricist) and Kwame Copeland (guitar, dobro, vocals, harmonica) co-produced Other Desert Cities with Mike Stevens. Stevens also played drums, mixed the record, and recorded three of the tracks at his Lost Monkey studio in Hayward, CA. Along with Ben Bernstein (bass) and Steve Waters (guitar, backing vocals), they recorded most of the album at Gatos Trail studio in the Mojave, among the Joshua trees and creosote, with engineer Dan Joeright. Ben Bernstein also recorded and engineered “Fire Song” and “Trickster Moon” at Petting Zoo Studio in Oakland, CA. Upon joining the band in late 2017, bass player Chris Veenstra contributed to several songs on the record, as did guest musicians Michael McNevin (electric and slide guitar), and Joan Reuter (fiddle). The album was mastered by Ken Lee (JJ Grey & Mofro, Bill Frisell) in Oakland. 
Much of the album’s ten tracks depict imagined lives of desert dwellers; from wild coyotes and survivors of a building fire to road-tripping visitors.  “Sleeping Hard Waking Slow” explores aspects of unconditional and timeless love against a desert backdrop, sung from an unconventional point of view. “Look but Don’t Touch” is a straight-ahead rock song depicting the life of a stripper working at an adult entertainment store, while “Sands of Time” doubles down on a recurring theme of timelessness over a dance-worthy, samba-inspired beat. Crooks assumes the narrative voice, in turns affectionate ("Sands of Time”) inclusive and communal (“Everybody’s Business”) and mournful. “You didn’t want salty, you didn’t want sweet, you wanted the edge of that collision," she sings on “Trickster Moon”, at once appreciating a friend’s penchant for extreme experiences and comprehending, in retrospect, how those desires play out in a life cut short. “Bay Station Wiggle” displays the band’s penchant for cutting loose, skirting the edges of surf music in a guitar-driven romp evocative of Chuck Berry.

Other Desert Cities

Bay Station Wiggle

Trickster Moon

Clean Up

Purple

Baja Blues

Everybody´s Business

Sands Of Time

Fire Song

Look But Don´t Touch

Sleeping Hard Waking Slow

Bay Station finds California-based songwriter/musicians Kwame Copeland and Deborah Crooks combining their talents and enlisting the help of several musical compadres to create a diverse form of Americana and rock music. In 2014 under their former name KCDC they released Your Own Reaction; a 10-song collection of Americana and rock drawing on their literary chops and post-punk and twang tendencies. Their follow-up recording, Go Out and Make Some is a true melting pot of Americana, blues, jazz and rock and roll, with songs about love, lust, sandy beaches, dusty roads, wandering holy men, wolf birds and more.  In Spring 2018, they'll release another diverse 10-song collection, Other Desert Cities.

Bay Station Band