Translator (band)
American rock band
Translator is an American rock band from San Francisco that had success during the 1980s. The group created a sound that spanned updated British Merseybeat and stripped-down punk-like rock to psychedelia. Inspired by the Beatles, Cream and 1960s California folk rock bands such as the Byrds, their guitar-based music had wide exposure during the early 1980s on non-commercial campus radio and new wave music stations. The group's stripped-down music and sometimes ironic and unsettling existentialist lyrics sound today like they may have been a precursor to alternative rock.
History
The four-piece band was formed in Los Angeles in 1979 when singer/songwriter/guitarist Steve Barton linked up with Larry Dekker on bass and Dave Scheff on drums. A second singer/songwriter/guitarist, Robert Darlington, joined soon after and completed the lineup. The combination of two talented songwriters and an energetic rhythm section became the key to their success.
Translator then relocated to San Francisco where they were signed to Howie Klein's independent label, 415 Records, on the strength of the demo tape they sent to college radio station KUSF: the loose and rambling yet laconic "Everywhere That I'm Not" has remained the band's signature tune. The song was featured on Translator's debut album Heartbeats And Triggers, which was recorded with producer David Kahne. As a result of 415 Records' national distribution arrangement with Columbia Records the debut album received strong promotion and became an underground and College radio hit in 1982.
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This entry incorporates text from “Translator (band)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.