"Jewlia Eisenberg (1970/1 - March 11, 2021) was an American singer, composer, bassist, educator, and cantor. As founder and bandleader of Charming Hostess she coined the term "Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly"[1] to describe her genre of music which spans an eclectic range of styles.

Originally from New York City, Eisenberg became an integral member of the San Francisco Bay Area and the New York Downtown music scenes in the 1990s.

Her music was both physical, using voices, vocal percussion, handclaps, heartbeats, sex-breath, silence, and also intellectual, exploring such topics as Bosnian genocide in Sarajevo Blues (2004) and the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin and his Marxist muse in Trilectic (2002). Both of these works were released on John Zorn's Radical Jewish Series on Tzadik.

She was commissioned from such sources as by the Sloan Foundation and the Goethe Institut SF and has received numerous awards, including: Trust for Mutual Understanding grant for collaboration with poets in ex-Yugoslavia, the Puffin Foundation grant for her Red Rosa project, a Katzenstein Fellow for collaboration with experimental architects and engineers as an Artist-In-Residence at MIT, a Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production Fund Grant for 'The Grim Arithmetic of Water, with aerial dance choreographer Jo Kreiter, a Goldman Fund Tikea Fellow for project-based radical film and music work with youth, and a Weisz Fellow for field research and recording among Jewish women in the Gondar region of Ethiopia. Eisenberg enjoyed a retreat as part of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in October-November 2006."

"I specialize in experimental, traditional, and improvisational approaches to viola and violin; creative songwriting; and using my voice expressively in both narrative and non-narrative modes. I add depth, space, and complexity to my performances and compositions using electronic processing, looping, and effects.

In summer 2018, I will be an artist in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts in California. In 2015-2016 I was the violist/backup vocalist for international tours with respected songwriter and composer Julia Holter, and I have also toured extensively since 2003 with Carla Bozulich, Vienna Teng, Ramon & Jessica, Beth Custer, and Real Vocal String Quartet. I have performed solo or as bandleader throughout the U.S. since 2010, and in addition to many collaborations I have recorded three albums of original music: Who Do You Suppose You Are? (Contraphonic, 2010), Songs 4 Violin + Voice (2012), and The World is in the Work (August 2017) As an original member of Real Vocal String Quartet, I recorded two albums and toured with the American Music Abroad program. Ramon & Jessica, my songwriting/composing duo with Jesse Olsen Bay, has released three full length albums and an a cappella EP.

I graduated from the Wesleyan University M.A. program in Composition 2015, and I recently co-wrote new musical, Sweet Land, which premiered in May 2017 at History Theatre in St. Paul, MN. Ramon & Jessica's adaptation of The World is Round, a 1939 children's book by Gertrude Stein, was staged in a May 2017 workshop by Berkeley's Just Theater."

"Since settling in San Francisco in 1997, Canada-born trumpeter/improviser/composer/songwriter Darren Johnston has collaborated and recorded with an extremely diverse cross-section of artists. His interests rotate around composing instrumental music, writing songs, and performing all styles of jazz, experimental and purely improvised music, as well as traditional music of the Balkans, Greece, and Macedonia.

He has performed and/or recorded with luminaries such as ROVA Sax Quartet, Fred Frith, Myra Melford, Ben Goldberg, Matt Wilson, Mark Dresser, Marshall Allen, and many others.

As a composer, he has written for jazz and/or non-idiomatic improvising groups, big bands, string quartet, and even a multi-generational choir, with songs based on a collection of immigrant letters. He has written for dance companies such as Amy SeiwertÕs Imagery, Deborah Slater, Axis Dance, Robert MosesÕ Kin, Liss Fain, and others, as well as for dance films."

"Nils Frykdahl is an American musician, most known for his work with the bands Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Idiot Flesh. He is also a member of the bands Free Salamander Exhibit, Faun Fables, and Darling Freakhead, and used to be a member of Charming Hostess. Along with bandmates Carla Kihlstedt and Dan Rathbun, Frykdahl is active with the performance company Ink Boat.

He is also the voice of Tigtone in the 2014 animated short, The Begun of Tigtone. He also reprises his role as the titular character in a 2019 Adult Swim animated television series, Tigtone.

He holds a bachelor's degree in music from UC Berkeley, which he received in 1989."