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Counting Crows are by far my favourite band. They manage to blend absolute poetry with good, honest rock music. Not that trendy "nu-metal" crap - classic rock - the sort of stuff The Band and The Rolling Stones would be playing if they were around today (well, OK, so the Stones are around today, but they're a bunch of has-beens now).
They're also not afraid to throw a few acoustic and/or piano-driven tracks onto their albums.
For the record, Counting Crows are David Bryson (rhythm guitar, dobro, backing vocals), Adam Duritz (singer, main songwriter, piano), Charlie Gillingham (keyboards, Hammond organ, harmonica, accordian, acoustic guitar, backing vocals) David Immergluck (mandolin, pedal steel, lead guitar, backing vocals), Matt Malley (bass, piano, backing vocals), Ben Mize (drums, xylophone, backing vocals) and Dan Vickrey (lead guitar, backing vocals)
The six-piece band first burst onto the scene with the catchy Mr Jones in 1993. This (and their relentless touring for nearly 2 years) helped their album August and Everything After dominate the charts, staying in the Billboard Top 200 for an epic 93 weeks, reaching a peak of #4. (They recorded the album before Dan Vickrey and David Immergluck had joined the band. Vickrey joined in 1993 and Immergluck joined in 1999)
Counting Crows were soon on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and pretty much every other music publication worth its salt. Duritz did not adjust to fame easily and had a breakdown towards the end of 1994. He started tending the bar at Johnny Depp's club The Viper Room, but it wasn't long before his songwriting fingers started to itch.
After two unannounced shows at The Viper Room, the band went into the studio to record Recovering The Satelites with producer Gil Norton, who had previously worked with The Pixies.
Compared to August and Everything After (which sold over 7 million copies), Recovering The Satelites sold badly - only 2 million copies in the states - although it still performed reasonably in the charts, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. The hit single from the album was A Long December but other the singles from the album, Angels of the Silences and Daylight Fading did not fare so well.
After almost 2 years touring on the back of Recovering The Satelites, the band laid back to take a break before working on their new album. When it became apparent that their third studio album was going to take longer than expected, they released a double live album - one disc was from their appearance on VH1's "Storytellers" and was a lovely cut-back acoustic set, featuring versions of songs that were very different from the original album recordings. The other disc was from their appearance on MTV's "Live at the Ten Spot" and was a bloody, raw, electric gig. With no advertising whatsoever, word got around and it sold roughly 500,000 copies.
Finally, on the first of November 1999 (a day later in the States), This Desert Life was released - a more experimental album with the feel (and producer) of Sparklehorse's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. The album's first single Hanginaround got a lot of airplay on some American radio stations and made it to the Top 10 (although it only peaked at #38 in the UK).
It was about this time that the Crows picked up their seventh member, David Immergluck, who had played as a session musician on all of their albums, but had never toured with them.
After a marathon tour through the USA, Canada, Europe and South Africa, the band teamed up with +LIVE+ for a co-heading tour of Canada and the States, starting in July 2000 and ending at the Voodoo Festival in New Orleans during the tail-end of October.
After a few shows across America to test drive some new songs, the Crows recorded their fourth studio album Hard Candy with producer Steve Lillywhite (U2, Dave Matthews Band). The first single from the album, American Girls reached the dizzy heights of #33 in the UK singles charts. At the time of writing, the band are touring on the back of this album.