Electronic Press Kit:

Shiva Me Timbers
a debut recording on CD, vinyl & online from Che Prasad
Release Date: September 22, 2013
Downloadable One-Sheet (right hand click to download)
Press Release (right hand click to download)




“Welcome to the world of Che Prasad. Always thoughtful, strangely amusing and occasionally disturbing.”


“Shiva Me Timbers,” Che Prasad’s first full-length studio recording, is a musical journey and awakening, showcasing his unique perspective and strength as a multi-instrumentalist through an unexpected and irresistible fusion of rock, flamenco, North Indian classical music and sea shanties.

Che Prasad wears many hats. He is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter--adept at guitar, banjo, ukulele and sitar--having studied with several masters, including folk rock guitar with Richard Thompson, sitar with Ali Akbar Khan and flamenco guitar with René Heredia.

He is also a physician specializing in Pathology. It is that training, Prasad says, which sharpens his ability to observe the details of life, examining himself and those around him--sometimes as if under a microscope. Those finely tuned senses, and a deep appreciation for details, bring the unique perspective evident throughout Che’s songs.

In his first full-length studio recording, Che teams up with his brother, Mikie Lee Prasad, as both producer and co-songwriter, tapping more Bay Area talent with blues guitarist, Steve Gannon, drummer, Michael Urbano (Smash Mouth, Sheryl Crow) and keyboard player, Chris Burns (Maria Muldaur).

The recording also features notable performances from Grammy nominated bass player, Kaveh Rastegar, as well as several well known New Orleans musicians, including Big Easy Music Award winners Alex McMurray (HBO Series, Treme), Matt Perrine, Meschiya Lake, and Luke Allen (Happy Talk Band).

With a dose of humor, the everyday and ordinary are brought to life in songs that speak of Che, his family, and the characters he has been fortunate enough to cross paths with. Irreverently blurring several world genres, Che artfully wields rhythms meant for dancing to showcase the instruments he loves, musicians he admires, and stories he has been waiting to tell.

“I have taken the skeletons from my closet and put them to music,” says Che, a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist and pathologist who has spent years looking through the microscope studying human life and death. “For my debut album, I robbed the shallow graves of my memory and have given new life to ghosts from my past, present and maybe even future in the form of songs.”

“Shadows From the East,” a sitar-based song about Che’s American mother and Indian father, is the album’s centerpiece. “It focuses on their struggles with different cultures,” he says. In “You Were There Too”—the closest thing to a love song on the CD—a “ne’er do well” longs for his woman to be with him on his misguided adventures. The amusing “Jeffrey Burglar” is an ode to someone who dared cross him. “Only Teasing” shines a light on a sometimes uncomfortable family tradition, and features performances from four generations of his family. All dissect real-life experiences and interesting characters, but with a brilliantly warped sensibility.

Che Prasad debuts Shiva Me Timbers Sept. 22 with a matinee CD release party at The Starry Plough in Berkeley, CA.

Print Quality Pictures & Screen Shots (right hand click to download)