Insomnia Features Us On Daily Dose

 Insomnia Radio  

A few insomnia-stricken elves are still working on their labtops in the dark here at IR, tiny USB powered Christmas trees twinkling whilst trying to get the last bits of quality music out for the masses in 2013. Today they’ve wrapped up a song from a familiar artist who was working hard at the end of 2013 to get this gift to your ears.
For the last five years, California Bay Area dream-pop favorites, SENTINEL, have recorded and released a holiday cover song for their fans, which we’ve had the privilege to showcase on our feed – always bringing good cheer for the holiday and winter solstice! Luckily we were graced with another great parcel in our mailbox this year.
This years excellent selection was inspired by the Doris Day cover of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and was written originally by Hugh Martin Jr. in 1944. Sentinel’s version was recorded in East Oakland, 2013 with song engineered by Dennis Bestafka. The Album cover photography is by Enrique Baiz.
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Download Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

 

Little Indie Blog Feature

Hello my lovelies! 

Sentinel Xmas tune got featured on a Little Indie Blog, out of the UK! 

http://littleindieblogs.blogspot.com/2013/12/december-20-2013-ten-christmas-crackers.html?spref=tw

Happy Holidays to you & loved ones!

Merry Little Christmas ~ Holiday Single 2013

This song was inspired hearing the Doris Day cover of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, originally written by Hugh Martin Jr. in 1944. Our version was recorded in East Oakland, 2013. Song engineered by Dennis Bestafka. Album cover photography by Enrique Baiz.

TOP 20 in the Bay Area !!!

Sentinel was selected once again this year for 

LIVE 105’s ANNUAL NOT SO SILENT NIGHT local band contest!

We’re looking for an unsigned Bay Area band to open up Night one of this year’s NSSN 2013 holiday concert! One lucky local band will score a gig of the lifetime and get to open up for the likes of Kings of Leon, Vampire Weekend, Queens of the Stone Age, AFI, Arctic Monkeys and Capital Cities!

Listen to our song "Somewhere Else" and VOTE for us on the bottom of the page. 

One click! 

cbsloc.al/1hQmwqv   

 

Thank you! 

~Sentinel 

Dennis, Tarabud, Billy

Sentinel live in San Francisco 11/6

Catch our live set at Bottom Of The Hill this Wednesday November 6, 2013! 

We open for The Lonely Forest band~  great band from state of  Washington. 

~All Ages Show~ 

$12/door

Live Band Shots from 9/26 in San Francisco

Thanks to NBC Bay Area, City Sounds SF, and Jack Daniels for sponsoring the party and indie bands in San Francisco!

Show in North Beach, San Francisco 9/26

Band App. for Android Phones Out Today!

Hello Android phone users! 

We have our new Sentinel Band App. available for download on 

Google Play! 

Reviews are always welcome! 

Google Play App Store

Show in San Francisco 7/23 !

Sentinel Live Band Pics!

Photo by Luke Ballesteros

Photo by Luke Ballesteros

Photo by Luke Ballesteros

Photo by Luke Ballesteros

Photo by Lisa Altman

UC Berkeley ~ Cal Spring Spotlight Show

Sentinel live band pic at Ashkenaz 

http://calspringspotlight.tumblr.com/

14th Annual Oyster Fest Competition On Now

Sentinel is in the running to play at 14th Annual 

Oyster Music Festival at Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate 

Park, San Francisco on Saturday, June 1, 2013 11am-

6pm. We would open for DEVO. Please vote for us! 

Only three clicks away!

http://pulse.sfstation.com/thelineup2013/

Jango Airplay Interview !

Jango interview

Airplay Band Of The Month - Sentinel

Meet our newest Band Of The Month,  a talented 3 piece Indie-pop band from Oakland, CA. We've interviewed this trio, and came to learn how they've mastered a truly original  sound. Get to know Sentinel, what inspires them, how they connect with their fans, and what they've got planned for the future!




Describe your sound in one sentence?
Dreamy and transportive Indie-Pop, driven by lush female vocals, hopeful guitar melodies and fashionable drum grooves.

What inspires you to make music?
Making music and art in general is an escape into the romantic and poetic realm that keeps us human, youthful and spiritual.

Name three people who have influenced your music, and tell us why- Living or dead:
Cocteau Twins' overall sound is unworldly beautiful, and they justify alternate ways in which the rock format can be approached. Depeche Mode's songwriting and use of counterpoint is top tier, and they have amazingly cross over format from Euro-Melancholia to American R&B. U2 is a perfect example of dedication to one another in a band, not to mention their passionate catalog of amazing anthems. Essentially, all three of these bands have been huge influences for us for over 20 years.

How do you connect with fans and get them involved in your music?
Besides the obvious modern Social Media, we like to hand CD's and Merch directly to fans from the stage, we're still indie enough to mingle in the crowd before and after our sets, and above all we just love meeting people and hearing what they like; you never know what might inspire you.

What do you like the most about Radio Airplay?
We love the interactivity between the listeners and our music, which really get's fans more involved and supportive of music in general. We have the most varied and global audience listening to our songs through Radio Airplay. It is really a wonderful thing. 

Do you have any recent or upcoming projects you'd like to share with us? Tell us about it.
We recently counted up all the demos for possible new full length album, which is mounting up to over 50 darn good ideas. We have released a few singles since our full length For Days Deep (2010), but needless to say, we're overdue for a full length release, or three. We'll definitely be narrowing down and wrangling all that in for a new album around the Fall of 2013.  

Jango: http://www.jango.com/music/Sentinel
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sentineltheband
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/sentineldream
Bandcamp: http://sentineldream.bandcamp.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SentinelDream
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/sentineltheband

Stork Club ShowFlyer

flyer designed by Bill Mowery

Indie Minded Feature!

IndieMinded.com featured us and our new video! WooHoo! 

http://indieminded.com/2013/02/indie-band-spotlight-sentinel/

Owl Mag Review of SENTINEL

http://www.theowlmag.com/discovery/sentinel/

• DISCOVERY
 
• ALBUMS
 
• SHOWS
 
• PHOTOS
 
• FEATURES
 
• FREEBIES

HEAR THIS: Sentinel

January 23. 2013 | By Alberto Santillan






For fans of Captured Tracks, Northern California’s Sentinel are a trio composed of bassist/vocalist Tarabud, guitarist Dennis Bestafka, and drummer Billy Mowery. Creating a beautiful and effervescent take on dream pop inspired by the legendary forebears of U2, My Bloody Valentine, and The Smiths, this band, active since 2000, have numerous albums and singles to their credit. Utilizing a lovestruck New Romantic aesthetic that hasn’t been in vogue since the glory days of MTV combined with the icily beautiful songwriting and vocals of its lead singer, it’s a treat for those who think 120 Minutes isn’t enough.

Based out of Oakland, they’ve been busy playing shows in their native Bay Area lately. Since their first self-released album in 2004, they’ve released a consistent stream of albums and singles. Their latest, last year’s Somewhere Else, is a shimmering delight that demonstrates it’s not just pensive mood music; they have a knack for synthesis, as evidenced by the New Order-ish synths and danceable beats. Make a spot for Sentinel on your next playlist (or more appropriately, mixtape…the kind you have to rewind,
preferably in between an Echo and the Bunnymen B-side and a Beach Fossils track).

RELATED POSTS:

Red House Live Show Flyer

Grammy's Ampliflier

Hello Fans! This is a fun chance to see what becomes of our Grammy's opportunity! All you need to do is click on the link below to see how far we have amplified our sound! Might even get a chance to play at the Grammy's February 10, 2013, if we get enough hits/VOTES!

Sentinel Band Biography

The Singles Album

Sentinel Self-Titled Album 

Sequels & Hunches E.P. 

Kites Without Strings Album 

For Days Deep Album 

Jet Black Single 

Dark End Single 

Somewhere Else Single  

Extended Dance Remix Single 

Biography

Sentinel the band began in the late 1990's as a musical side project on a four track recorder between Dennis Bestafka and Tarabud. The seeds for this sunny-seaside-dream-pop duo were planted living in Southern California. Tarabud contributed the essence of her Colombian vocal roots learned  in singing cumbias; while Dennis contributed his multi-instrumentalist skills and studio training established in Los Angeles, California. With the help of David Johnson on bass guitar, and Brian Miller on drums, the 4 piece played their first show at Que Sera, Sera club, in Long Beach, California. 

In 2000, after only a short time of contributing to the band and playing lives shows, Dennis acted upon a long time personal ambition and enlisted in the U.S. Army Airborne Infantry, seeing it through the War in Iraq. Tarabud relocated to the Bay Area for graduate school. Throughout this time, living on opposite coasts, Dennis and Tarabud wrote music for Sentinel through the mail, by Internet, and on occasion meeting to lay down new tracks in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was stationed. It was an inspirational time even as the nation geared up for a war overseas.  Much of this work can be experienced on The Singles album finally released in 2005, a deeply emotionally haunting compilation. All songs produced on a four track recorder were mixed and mastered on Cubase by Dennis in his home studio. 

Spring of 2004, Dennis returned to San Francisco to rekindle the Sentinel project with Tarabud to a new level, finding musicians to play for live shows, while Tarabud began playing the bass guitar for the band. Very quickly after, they completed a full length album self-titled~ Sentinel (2004), recorded in the home studio and produced by Dennis. This record was officially released on the start-up website that began helping unsigned musicians with distribution ~ CDBaby.com. Also, social media Internet sites like Myspace.com helped spread the word about their music to a worldwide audience.  

Sentinel played their first show in the Bay Area, at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco in Spring of 2005, and continued writing albums and self-releasing their music and video creations. Strongly influenced by their mutual visions of 80's synth and 90's dream pop: Cocteau Twins, Smiths, U2, My Bloody Valentine, Cure, Flock Of Seagulls, Ocean Blue, creating  a long catalog of moods and textures while developing their sound. As the main writers and composers of the band they were very prolific in the following years: Sequels & Hunches, E.P. (2007), Kites Without Strings (2008), For Days Deep (2010), Jet Black Single (2010), Dark End Single (2011), Somewhere Else Single (2012), Extended Dance Remix ~ Somewhere Else (2012). They also released 4  reinterpreting Christmas classics, and made several videos found on Youtube.com. The band was fortunate to have songs played on college radio stations, FM radio stations Live 105 & 10.7 The Bone, and on Internet radio stations like SomaFM & Insomnia Radio.

Currently in 2013, Bill Mowery has been the longest musical member, contributing his expertise in the rhythm section,  playing  drums on several of the above recordings, and overall completing the trio for their live performances. . Social media giants like Twitter and Facebook pages allow Sentinel to share their shows, new releases, and gossip. All official releases can be found on Bandcamp page. Sentinel today continues to play live in the Bay Area, possible West Coast tour to promote their new full length Points of Light, summer, 2015.