Biography
Magic Crayon was formed in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1999.
Cesar Zanin and Marco Costa started playing in the basement of Cesar's place, with guitar, bass and drum machine. Soon after, via an announcement in the Popkiss e-mail group, bassist Gilberto Custodio Jr comes in to the basement's jams.
Inside Alternative bar (in Sao Paulo) Cesar asked drummer Fabio Barbosa to join the band, and after choosing the name Magic Crayon, the four went to studio.
With Marco singing and Cesar playing the guitar and singing the backing vocals they used the first sessions in the studio to compose about 10 songs.
Shows in Sao Paulo, Goiania, Brasilia, and they decided to record what woud become their self-titled ep.
Everything (except the drums) was recorded in the Cesar's living room with a portastudio and a PC, by then as a trio because of the departure of Marco.
Slag label helped to distribute the EP and IndiePages (north-american indiepop directory) offered a space in its own domain for the official Magic Crayon website www.indiepages.com/magiccrayon.
The band was asked to do shows in the south of Brazil (Porto Alegre and Curitiba), but Fabio could not travel with the band. Then Ricardo Seboso came in to substitute him.
They recorded an acoustic live version for Love Doesn't Happen That Way at Unisinos FM, when they were interviewed there the day before the Porto Alegre show.
Back in São Paulo they played more shows with Ricardo on the drums and recorded the Gaye's Let's Get It On version during a rehearsal, which was later used for the Valentine's day tribute album by 123 indiezinhos recs.
Megssa Fernandes (invited to be the main vocalist by Cesar and Gilberto minutes before the Porto Alegre gig) and guitarrist Paulo Vera (invited by Megssa, later) joined the band, Fabio Barbosa re-joined and they started to rehearse.
Quickly they composed many songs and attempted to record most, in the same way they did before: drums in a proper studio and the rest in Cesar's living room.
They released a 5 track cdr-ep under the name "Whatever You Say Is A Lie (So Fucking Romantic)".
Then many more gigs, a video-clip for Air Guitar Man, interviews, reviews and participation on CD/cassete compilations by foreign labels (from Italy, England and Japan).
By this point the members were highly envolved with other projects (both in music as in life), and as a result the band split up (but never formally), in 2004.
Cesar went to live in Italy in 2004 and lived there until 2008, when he moved to the UK; he has an individual musical project called Walden/Zanin, and formed 3 bands in Brighton and Hove: Barins, In Cases and Hallo Driver. Fabio played the drums in several bands like Gasolines, Transistors and Modulares. Paulo played the guitar in P.O.S.T.. Megssa sings and plays in The Luos and lives in Scotland. Gilberto had a fanzine called Esquizofrenia and now runs a record shop in Sao Paulo called Locomotiva. Ricardo runs a studio and plays in Os Espectros. Marco lives in Canada.
Magic Crayon was invited to do a show in the USA in the summer of 2009, so Cesar Zanin tried to reform the group. Zanin's Magic Crayon is the electronica/indiepop-oriented one man project formed in Brighton and Hove, UK, in order to present Magic Crayon's songs in a different format for a 14 show tour in the USA and Canada.
Cesar (Walden/Zanin) sung and played instruments as ukulele, electric guitar and keyboard/programming (computer). Larry Barin of Sursis, Cesar's son (real name Lauro Zanin), joined in for the American tour, playing ukulele.
In July 2010 Zanin's Magic Crayon went on tour again, this time in Europe: http://woodland.blogspot.com/2010/05/woodland-european-tour-2010.html
Magic Crayon was reformed in 2011, when Cesar Zanin has moved back to Sao Paulo, after having lived for almost a decade in Europe and then backpacking for almost a year in 9 countries of the Americas. The line-up featured original members Fabio Barbosa and Gilberto Custodio Jr.
Mariana Cetra, ex-member of Fotograma, joined the band playing accordeon, melodica and singing.
They played some shows in Sao Paulo and recorded new material (unrealeased so far).
In 2013 Magic Crayon opened all the four shows of Beach Fossils Brazilian tour.
Carlos Costa came in to replace Gilberto Custodio Jr playing the bass.
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