Born in the backseat of a Checker cab in front of Lincoln Center in New York, Pappademas grew up in San Francisco where she studied piano, writing songs from the get-go. After attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, she began making her way back to the West coast via Austin, Texas. She returned to California in 2005, spent a year in San Francisco and has settled in L.A.
Fans of Pappademas's Austin band Hurts to Purr, welcomed her solo debut 11 Songs, a haunting collection of bare-bones recordings released in 2007. Last year's live shows, most often solo, were a preview of her emerging style as a captivating and soulful performer.
Television City features Pappademas's new band, The Level - bassist Dave Alvarado, guitarist Mike Corwin and drummer Justin Polimeni. Guests from the LA marching band and jazz collective Killsonic (Pappademas was a member of the accordion section) also join in on a few songs.
Self-produced, self-funded, and recorded live in Los Angeles at The Carriage House in Silver Lake, Television City was engineered by Sheldon Gomberg (Rickie Lee Jones, Eleni Mandell, She and Him).
All branches of TV Land are represented in the fourteen songs that swivel from character to character, linked Robert Altman-like, around a central event: a fictional 1970s game show. The fans ("Star Struck"), the studio audience ("Grand Prize Winners"), the producer (("You Don't Think That's) Funny?"), even the spokesmodel ("She Never Turns Her Back") tells us what it's like to be part of the show. Pappademas's writing is as personal as ever and the stories come through in Technicolor clarity.
Pappademas, with The Level backing her, shows her respect for the songwriting, musicianship and production of her influences: Brian Eno, Randy Newman, Elvis Costello, Neil Young, David Byrne and Ennio Morricone. Camping in the wilds of today's pop music, Pappademas narrates with a resonant voice, broadcasting from Television City.