|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
At the heart of Peninsula rootsy-rock band Effie Zilch is the deep connection between longtime friends Steve Wyreman and Evanne Barcenas.
“The sort of magic between our partnership is, we have very different sensibilities in terms of what we bring to the table,” Barcenas said. “I don’t know if it’s the confidence of being older and wiser but we are pretty open with each other. There’s a lot of trust in the music partnership and the making of the music.”
The duo’s latest release, “Multitudes,” which came out recently via East Palo Alto’s Redtone Records, is a collection of songs that started percolating while Barcenas and Wyreman were on the road in recent years, touring with friend and Redtone label mate Miko Marks.
“Whenever we were home it was like this frenzy to get out the music that was circulating in our heads,” Barcenas said (so much music, in fact, that she said a second batch of songs from this period will be coming out soon).
“It really felt like we were chasing time in a way, because there was so much material that had been built up in our travels, and that’s ‘Multitudes.'”
They’ll celebrate the new record’s release with a show at the Guild Theatre on Jan. 24, and donate the proceeds of the concert to Los Angeles fire-relief efforts.
“Many of our musician friends are there and we feel called to do that,” Barcenas said.
Effie Zilch’s sound, showcasing Barcenas’ soulful vocals and Wyreman’s masterful guitar and keyboard skills, takes influence from classic rock and roll, country, folk and blues.
“All those things walked such a close line in the 1960s. We’re drawing from a little bit of that era, with a few modern twists, because we are contemporary people living in the modern age,” Wyreman said. “I’m not, like, a throwback artist or anything like that, but I think it was just whatever we were gravitating towards, what we thought sounded cool or interesting.”
Wyreman “is a bit of a forensic musicologist,” Barcenas said. “Steve’s record collection is something to behold.”
The duo’s songwriting process varies from song to song, with Barcenas sometimes coming to Wyreman with lyrics and a melody ready to be fleshed out, for example, while sometimes he’ll have a chord progression and hint of a vocal part that needs her magic touch.
“It is an absolutely pure collaboration,” Barcenas said.
They also value authenticity over perfection.
“With technology, there’s so much capability to make everything perfect, but a lot of what we love about music is that human element,” she said. “Multitudes,” “sounds like who we are, not what we can make ourselves be. There’s a rawness that I think more and more is speaking to me, as far as art is concerned.”
The two first met in the 1990s as music-loving teenagers. Barcenas, a Menlo School alumnus, recalled meeting Wyreman, who went to Menlo Atherton High School, in a hallway.
“Steve was carrying his faded yellow Strat,” Barcenas said. “He started playing and I was, like, ‘Oh my God! Well, I have to play music with him.'”
It was the start of a beautiful friendship – and a fruitful musical relationship. The two were soon playing in coffee shops and dive bars around the Bay Area, but their paths diverged after graduation. Barcenas headed to UCLA to study theater, while Wyreman embarked on a thriving full-time musical career, working in L.A. and New York with the likes of Rihanna and John Legend and touring with The Rolling Stones and Mary J. Blige. He even won a Grammy Award for his songwriting work on Leon Bridges’ “Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand,” and was nominated for a second.
Meanwhile, after a few years of playing music in SoCal, Barcenas “had a colossal freakout. I was a young girl in L.A. kind of being told to be something that I wasn’t. I kept getting really close and then not getting anywhere,” she said. “I cased up all my guitars and put them under my bed and didn’t take them out for a while.” She moved back up north and ended up working in tech, became a mother of two, and then returned to Menlo School as a performing arts teacher.
But Wyreman hadn’t given up on Barcenas and their musical chemistry.
“He kept knocking on my door and asking what songs I had, and I kept saying, ‘I don’t have any, Steve; leave me alone!'” she said with a laugh. But eventually, when she attended a session of another band Wyreman was working with, she was ready to give music another chance.
With both band mates living on the Peninsula again, Effie Zilch (the band name comes from the mythical muse of the late, great San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen) has been going strong ever since, releasing multiple original albums and collaborating with other Redtone artists. They’re also part of the blossoming artistic scene at Feldman’s Books. In fact, one of their recent music videos, “One Hundred Years,” was directed and produced by Feldman’s store manager Aidan Stone, filmed in part at San Francisquito Creek and also at owner Jack Feldman’s home.
“We’re fortunate to have the Guild, and be a part of Feldman’s with our fellow thinkers and makers and readers,” Barcenas said.
At the Jan. 24 show, Effie Zilch’s lineup will include Barcenas on vocals and acoustic guitar; Wyreman on lead guitar; Redtone founder Justin Phipps on piano and harmonica; Will Baldocchi on drums, Josh Lippi on bass; and Kate Lamont and Kyle Tkatch on backing vocals. Special guests will include Tiffani Marie of Artelia Green, who recites poetry on the Effie Zilch track “Unsung Pages,” Lee Bob and The Truth, and TK Rhodes (Tkatch and Lippi), with Lamont also performing one of her own songs. Ladera-raised musician Megan Keely will open the show. Her father, Bert Keely, Wyreman noted, taught him guitar years ago. “It all goes back,” he said.
“Our philosophy of music at this point is, so many of our friends are incredibly talented. We’re so lucky to play with them. Whenever we get a chance to play, it feels like family. We wanted to make that concert feel like that,” Barcenas said. “A tribute to the music we make and the people we make it with.”
Effie Zilch’s record release show is Jan. 24, 8 p.m., The Guild Theatre, 949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park; $34.76; guildtheatre.com.
Menlo Park sends Citibank’s ‘jarring’ branch remodel back to drawing boardMarch 24, 2026 2:58 pm