Self-produced and recorded live in Los Angeles at the Carriage House in Silver Lake, the album was engineered by Sheldon Gomberg (Rickie Lee Jones, Living Sisters) and mastered by Gavin Lurssen (Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams). Radio Free Silverlake named Television City one of L.A.'s best new albums of 2010 and said, "Thanks to Pappademas' considerable talent at telling whole stories in single songs, the record has a cinematic quality that's quite unforgettable."
Drawing on influences like Brian Eno circa Here Come the Warm Jets and Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, Pappademas, bassist Dave Relic, guitarist Mike Corwin, and drummer Justin Polimeni, frame each story using L.A.'s hills and boulevards as the backdrop. Guests from the L.A. experimental orchestra Killsonic (Pappademas was a member of the accordion section) add bass clarinet, bass trombone, baritone sax, and trumpet, rounding out the cinematic, 70s, live-in-the-room sound of the record.
Born in a Checker cab in front of Lincoln Center in Manhattan, Pappademas grew up in San Francisco, attended Berklee College of Music, and then moved to Austin, where she fronted the band Hurts to Purr whose song "Matinee" from their self-titled album, appeared on the CBS drama "One Tree Hill".
Pappademas returned to California and released a solo album, 11 Songs, which was featured in Electronic Musician Magazine. The San Francisco Bay Guardian likened Pappademas's sound to "Joni Mitchell meets Raymond Carver at a piano bar." After a 20-city tour promoting 11 Songs, Pappademas settled in Los Angeles. The LA Weekly has recommended several of her live performances at venues like Hotel Cafe, The Mint, and The Bootleg Theater, calling her "one of this town's finest lyricists."
