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Becky Stark

• Tonight In Rock: John Fogerty, Amazing Baby, LA Ladies Choir, Citay

  LAist - Found Jul. 2, 2009 Jennifer Tefft w/ She Wants Revenge, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The LA Ladies Choir (with Becky Stark, Eleni Mandell & more), Great Northern...

• Tonight In Rock: TV on the Radio, Kimya Dawson, Eleni Mandell, Becky ...

  LAist - Found Apr. 14, 2009 Becky Stark will be playing tonight at Largo at the Coronet's Little Room | Picture via Lavender Diamond's Myspace Our Pick: Becky Stark & Friends

• The Decemberists' duke of 'Hazards'

  Minneapolis Star Tribune - Found Jun. 18, 2009 ... guest vocals on the album are along for the tour, too: Shara Worden, aka My Brightest Diamond, and Lavender Diamond's singer, Becky Stark.

• Decemberists play their new concept album in its entirety

  Boston Globe - Found Jun. 11, 2009 ... as other Decemberist favorites, guests like Robyn Hitchcock, Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond will be... Decemberists heat up Hub - Boston Herald The Decemberists are all in - Boston Globe Explore All

• Decemberists spin a literary, operatic tale

  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Found May. 30, 2009 Guests Becky Stark and Shara Worden reprise their roles from the album as the maiden Margaret and the Forest Queen.

• Decemberists let listener fill in blanks

  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Found May. 27, 2009 It's part of the fun, if you're into that.' With its elaborate plot line and guest artists - Becky Stark from Lavender Diamond and Shara Worden...

• The Daily Distraction: June 3

  EyeWeekly.com - Found Jun. 9, 2009 3. The Decemberists Prove That Heart Still Rocks, Man With the help of two crazy diamonds (Becky Stark from Lavender Diamond, and singer...

• Concert review: The Decemberists at The National

  Richmond Times Dispatch - Found Jun. 6, 2009 ... lights used for dramatic effect, the band, joined by Shara Worden (as the jealous forest queen) and Becky Stark (looking a bit like Glinda the...

• Decemberists hit a theatrical note

  North Jersey.com - Found Jun. 5, 2009 The part of Margaret is sung by Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond. Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond sings the darker part of the Queen.

• Concert Review: The Decemberists, 5/26/09, Fillmore Auditorium, ...

  Blogcritics.org - Found May. 31, 2009 ... his talented and versatile band and guest vocalists Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) and Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond) played it...

Becky Stark extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Becky Stark
Background information
Birth name	Rebecca Ann Stark
Born	1980 Culver City, California, U.S.
Origin	California, U.S.
Genre(s)	indie rock, folk, punk
Instrument(s)	Vocals |Drums | Guitar | Tambourine
Years active	2004 - present (Lavender Diamond)
Label(s)	Matador, Rough Trade, Cold Sweat
Associated acts	Mystical Unionists Living Sisters The Decemberists

Becky Stark is an artist, singer, songwriter and entertainer from Los Angeles, California. She is the voice of the band Lavender Diamond. She was raised in Maryland where she began performing as a child. At the age of 13 she travelled to the former Soviet Union as part of a U.S. State Department- Sponsored Peace Mission, a travelling musical about peaceful ecology. For four years in junior high school she was the co-host and head reporter for the weekly children's television news magazine KIds' Point of View Television-KPOV'TV - a half hour show broadcast weekly between the WWF and the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. At 18 she starred in the feature film Willa, An American Snow White for PBS. Throughout high school she studied classical singing and learned an extensive repertoire of classical, popular and jazz songs.

She studied Comparative Literature (English and Russian) and Art/Semiotics at Brown University. In Providence she was part of the Fort Thunder art movement and formed a theater troupe with artist and filmmaker Xander Marro. The two created a travelling operetta called Birdsongs of the Bauharoque, a fairytale fable about peace coming to planet Earth. They toured the U.S. and Canada for two months with their punk puppet opera.

After college she became a full-time student at the Merce Cunningham Dance Conservatory in Manhattan where she studied modern dance. Seeking a warmer climate she moved to Los Angeles and became immersed in the music, comedy, film and cabaret scenes. She performed a comical variety of jobs including magician's assistant. She appeared in High School Record- an underground favorite at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. In the film she plays the teacher of students from the LA bands No Age, Mika Miko, Silver Daggers and others. She has created and performed numerous folk story operettas, including an adaptation of the Little Match Girl. She appeared in the original production of acclaimed New Wave opera visionary Ruth Margraff's The Cry Pitch Carols.

She is considered a luminary of the new folk movement and the LA underground punk/noise scene. She has performed extensively as a solo artist and leader of the Lavender Diamond band. She has shared a bill with Miranda July, Jenny Lewis, David Byrne, John Waters, Dave Eggers, yeah yeah yeah's, Decemberists, Beck, The New Pornographers, Devendra Banhart and hundreds of others. She has been compared to Linda Rondstadt, Joni Mitchell, Karen Carpenter, Julie Andrews, Kate Bush and Lucille Ball. She has received widespread critical acclaim, appearing in the November Vanity Fair "Folk Music Heroes" portfolio by Annie Leibovitz on the page between Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins. In addition to her work with Lavender Diamond she sings with The Living Sisters, a folk trio with Eleni Mandell and Inara George from the Bird and the Bee.

The 2007 Lavender Diamond album Imagine Our Love was released on Matador and Rough Trade Records. A film to accompany the album is currently in production in IMAX format with director Maximilla Lukacs and art director Alia Penner. The film is an extravaganza featuring Busby Berkeley- style dance numbers, animation and interplanetary ballet.

In 2008 Stark wrote the Songs of the Believers for the upcoming film City of Ember starring Bill Murray, directed by Gil Kenan and produced by Tom Hanks. The film is a post-apocalyptic-action-adventure story for children. In the film Becky plays the Songmaster. She also stars in an upcoming short film version of a short story from Miranda July's book "No one Belongs Here More Than You." Based on the story, "Birthmark", the short is called "White Light". Kim Gordon and Liz Goldwyn also star in the film directed by Alia Raza. ¹

Stark appeared onstage as the musical guest in Daily Show creator Ben Karlin's new variety show, singing with Zooey Deschanel and accompanied by okgo. She is creating a new musical comedy variety show with Jim Drain, Miranda July, Jennifer Johnson, Paper Rad, Peter Glantz, Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio and many other artists.

She is co-author of the Peace Comics with cartoonist Ron Rege, Jr., the drummer in Lavender Diamond. She and Ron Rege have a band together, The Mystical Unionists.

She appears as a character/vocalist on The Decemberists' 2009 concept album The Hazards of Love.² She and the band performed the official live debut of the album at the 2009 South by Southwest Festival.³ She plays the character Margaret and sings on the tracks "Won't Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)","Isn't It a Lovely Night?", "The Abduction of Margaret", and "The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)."

Interviews

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Becky Stark

• Article on Becky Stark in New York Times
• Stark interviewed for cover article in Arthur magazine
• Associated Press interview in USA Today
• Becky Stark and Miranda July interview each other for Anthem magazine
• New Yorker article

References