Photo Copyright Rebecca McBride

The Secrets of Family Happiness are: Dusty Jermier (bass), Armon Kasmai (Guitar), and Lila Thirkield (drums). Based in San Francisco, this trio mix guitar loops recorded live on stage with overlapping rhythms of guitar, bass, and drums to form a carefully layered soundscape. Melodies weave in and out, sometimes adding to make heavy, rich and dark textures, and sometimes creating mellow and ambient atmospheres.

The Secrets often collaborate with Point Blank, a collective of women photographers, known for their projected images. Slides of landscapes, cityscapes, county fairs, and people blend with the looped rhythms, melodies and noise, producing a thoughtful and reflective blend of images and music. The Secrets and Point Blank have collaborated on several shows, including a tour of the West Coast and Southwest in the summer of 2004.

The Secrets have also written original scores to the silent films of Maya Deren and Germaine Dulac. These scores were performed live at The Mad Cat International Women’s Film Festival in 2003 and 2004.

The Secrets of Family Happiness can be found either playing local San Francisco music venues such as The Make-Out Room, 12 Galaxies and The Eagle or performing at art venues like New Langton Arts or local film festivals. Currently they are writing songs for their second album, working on an original score for Gretchen Hildebran’s new documentary film In God’s Country, planning some West Coast shows for summer 2005, and playing locally in San Francisco.