The Dodos

The Dodos are an indie folk band which formed in San Francisco, California, United States in 2005. They consist of Meric Long (vocals, guitar), Logan Kroeber (drums) and Keaton Snyder (vibraphone, percussion). The Dodos began playing music together in 2005, when Meric Long, who had been gigging steadily in San Francisco as a solo singer-songwriter, was introduced to Logan Kroeber through a mutual friend. Dodo Bird EP Long self-released a solo EP titled "Dodo Bird" in February 2005 which featured percussion by Kroeber on some tracks. Long and Kroeber continued to play music together. Beware of the Maniacs The duo released the 2006 album Beware of the Maniacs, which was self-released under the "Dodo Bird" moniker. In support of the album, Long and Kroeber toured relentlessly for most of 2007. The band began to receive critical attention and developed a growing fan base. Fans began referring to Dodo Bird simply as "The Dodos", and the band decided to change their name accordingly. Visiter In December 2007, the Dodos were signed by Frenchkiss Records and they released their second album Visiter in March 2008, to critical acclaim. In an April 2008 interview in the L.A. Record, Long revealed the origin of the name of Visiter. "The reason it’s misspelled is because it’s from a drawing this kid gave us. We played a show for a bunch of kids in South Central L.A.—Dorsey High. A friend’s sister [Barbara Lempel] is a special-ed teacher there, so we went down there to her class and we played for the kids and it was super fun. Then it came to the kids asking us questions and then one of the kids came up to us and he gave us a drawing with that written on it. The drawing is the cover actually of the album, and just—I dunno we liked it. Actually we used all of the drawings that the kids made in the artwork on the album. It was definitely a fun, interesting venture for us. We’d never played for kids before—we didn’t know what to expect but they were clapping and dancing." Time To Die Their album Time to Die was released for digital download on July 27, 2009 in the UK and July 28, 2009 in the US. The physical LP release was on August 31, 2009 in the UK and September 15, 2009 in the US. Joe Haener was replaced by Keaton Snyder during live performances. The Dodos are known for using an alternate instrumental approach. Logan Kroeber plays on a drum kit without a bass drum, playing often on the rims of the drums, and also uses a tambourine taped to his shoe. During live performances they have a third member playing a vibraphone, a drum and two cymbals placed on each other (like a hihat). Meric Long plays mainly acoustic and semi-acoustic guitars during performances, but he also owns a Springtime and a Tafelberg drum guitar built by Yuri Landman.