Born into a family of Azorean exiles fleeing the Salazar Dictatorship (Portugal, 1932- 1974), Mark Matos was birthed in the San Francisco Bay Area just weeks after the leftist Carnation Revolution deposed Salazar's Estado Novo. Matos was raised in the large Portuguese immigrant community in California's Bay Area and Central Valley, where his father and grandfather founded one of the Bay Area's first Portuguese marching bands and were instrumental in bringing Portuguese Fado musicians to the Bay Area. Matos' father had been drafted into Salazar's doomed African Colonial Wars in 1966 and left Angola, Africa in 1969 a committed pacifist and bound for San Francisco, CA. As a child Matos' first exposure to music came listening to his father's radio show, which aired on a small Portuguese radio station in San Jose, CA. He later would wear the grooves off of his uncle's copy of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, before discovering the Beatles, Willie Nelson, The Grateful Dead, Caetano Veloso, and The Velvet Underground. Shortly after graduating high school, Matos hitchhiked out of town, searching for life and music in the American Wilderness. Inspired by the beat generation, the following decade was spent on the road; washing dishes in Alaska, cold in Boston drunk tanks, amongst slack key players in Hawaii, countless couches in Seattle's Capital Hill, all the while honing his craft, sharpening his philosophies, finding his voice.
By 2003 Matos had settled in Tucson, AZ where he became an active force in Tucson's lo-fi music scene and began playing as Campo Bravo amongst the likes of Howe Gelb, Andrew Jackson Jihad, and his long time collaborators, the Golden Boots. After the release of Goodbye, Oklahoma (KEEP Recordings, 2006), He hit the road, with band in tow, supporting the Lowlights (Darla Records) on a national tour. While on tour in Madison, WI, doses of LSD were administered and Matos abruptly changed course, deciding to leave Tucson, disband Campo Bravo, and return to his native Bay Area, the spiritual birth place of psychedelic rock 'n' roll, political punk rock, and the beat generation. He spent the next two years putting a band together, writing for various publications, and losing old habits. Matos' star continued to rise and with the formation of Mark Matos & Os Beaches, Matos and band began to garner rave reviews from the San Francisco Chronicle ("exhilarating"), The Bay Guardian, and The Owl, which called the band "Definitely one of the highlights of Noise Pop" in their review of 2009's Noise Pop Festival, leading to the band signing with the eclectic upstart, Porto Franco Records. The debut album from Mark Matos & Os Beaches, Words Of The Knife (Porto Franco Records, 2009), was recorded at San Francisco's Closer Studio under the watchful eyes and ears of Eric Moffat (Mark Eitzel, The Dwarves) and features contributions from Matt Adams of the Blank Tapes, Dave Mihaly (last seen backing Jolie Holland), Ben Riesdorph, and Tom Heyman (Court & Spark, Chuck Prophet). Matos has performed with the likes of Smog, Okervill River, Howe Gelb, Akron/Family, Mother Hips, Black Heart Procession, Scout Niblet, and Neko Case, amongst many others. He remains one of the primary suspects in a 1998 Alaska eco-terrorism case, though due to a lack of evidence, no charges have ever been filed.
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…shrink me down again