Category: Concerts

#fb2e2e

Posted on

GWAR with Battlecross, Silenmara, Daybreak Embrace

GWAR is a satirical thrash metal/punk band formed in 1985-1986 by a group of artists and musicians at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. The band is perhaps best known for their elaborate sci-fi/horror film inspired costumes, raunchy lyrics, and graphic stage performances, which can consist of scatology, sadomasochism, necrophilia, paedo-necrophilia, beastio-necrophilia, fire dancing, fake pagan rituals, mock executions/mutilations, and other controversial violent and political themes. GWAR was, for a long time, on the leading edge of shock rock, going as far as appearing on Jerry Springer in character and in full costume during the mid-1990s.

The band was the result of the collaboration between Hunter Jackson and Dave Brockie, then the singer for a punk band called Death Piggy. Jackson was working on a movie at the time the two met. The movie, entitled Scumdogs of the Universe, featured a plot involving terrifying intergalactic barbarians. Jackson and Brockie combined their ideas, re-named the band Gwar, and have been performing as ghoulish intergalactic warriors ever since. Their costumes are generally made of foam latex, styrofoam, and hardened rubber. It should be noted that the costumes they are wearing actually cover very little with the rest of their bodies being accentuated with makeup. They further their production in concert by dousing, spraying, and at times nearly drowning their audiences with imitation blood, semen, gore, and other bodily fluids. All the fluids are made of water and dye that washes out easily. It is rumored that corn syrup or a similar product has been used as a thickener.

Another trademark of GWAR’s live show is their mutilations of celebrities and figures in current events. Victims of GWAR’s antics have included O.J. Simpson, George W. Bush, Paris Hilton, and many others. The band also makes frequent references to political and historical figures, fantasy literature, and mythology. For instance, the song “Whargoul” makes reference to Minas Morgul, a setting in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books; and the title of their sixth album, Ragnarok, comes from Norse mythology.

GWAR, though by no means a small-time band, have not enjoyed as much mainstream recognition as many other bands. Around the time of their second album (Scumdogs of the Universe), they enjoyed a fair deal of success, due in part to Beavis and Butt-head. After that, however, GWAR’s popularity waned and they were even featured on the VH1 program “Where Are They Now.” Though not at the peak of their popularity, GWAR was recently invited to play on the Sounds of the Underground tour, which was very well received.

Gwar were, at one time, banned from performing in their home city of Richmond, Virginia due to their raucous stage performances. During that time they would appear in their home town under the pseudonym Rawg and play sans costumes. The ban was later lifted and the band can now play in Richmond again in full gory attire. GWAR was banned earlier in North Carolina for obscenity reasons (Brockie was arrested for wearing his “Cuttlefish of Cthulu” prosthetic penis; this incident was the inspiration for GWAR’s America Must Be Destroyed album). Band members and associates often have cookouts at their house, dubbed “Gwar-BQ’s.” The video for “Saddam a Go-Go” from This Toilet Earthappeared in the hit movie Empire Records. Gwar was/is primarily a band of former art students, and this is reflected in the obscure references made in some of their songs. Gwar fans are known as Bohabs or Scumdogs.

The origin and meaning of the band’s name has been left intentionally vague by its members, although the most widely accepted explanation (though false and denied by the band members) is that GWAR is an acronym for “God What an Awful Racket!” One rumor states that the name may have come from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel Watchmen, in which a poster reads, “Pink Triangle LIVE at the Gay Women Against Rape Benefit Concert.” Other unsubstantiated rumors state that GWAR! is the sound monsters make in old horror movies, or that a fan at a club yelled “You should call your band…” and vomited before he could finish, making a sound close to the word GWAR. A final possibility, and the most viable as of yet, coming from sources close to the band suggests strongly that the name comes from the answer David Brockie gave to Hunter Jackson when asked what the band should be called. David Brockie simply responded with a mostly unintelligble word and isolated a single sound out of the rubble therefore creating GWAR.

On Sunday March 23, 2014, Brockie was found dead in his apartment by a band member. According to police, Brockie was found deceased and sitting upright in a chair. Foul play, drugs, and suicide have been ruled out as causes of death and they will await word from a medical examiner on the cause.
Gwar’s management confirmed the reports of Brockie’s death on the official Gwar website at 4am on March 24, 2014. In an official statement released later that day, Gwar’s manager Jack Flanagan said “It is with a saddened heart, that I confirm my dear friend Dave Brockie, artist, musician, and lead singer of GWAR passed away at approximately 6:50 PM EST Sunday March 23, 2014. His body was found Sunday by his band mate at his home in Richmond, VA. Richmond authorities have confirmed his death and next of kin has been notified. A full autopsy will be performed. He was 50 years old, born August 30, 1963. My main focus right now is to look after my band mates and his family. More information regarding his death shall be released as the details are confirmed.” News of Brockie’s death spread quickly with many of his fellow musical peers and bandmates responding through social media.
Mike Bishop, former member of Gwar, was one of the first to confirm Brockie’s death. Bishop said “Dave was one of the funniest, smartest, most creative and energetic persons I’ve known. He was brash sometimes, always crass, irreverent, he was hilarious in every way. But he was also deeply intelligent and interested in life, history, politics and art. His penchant for scatological humors belied a lucid wit. He was a criminally underrated lyricist and hard rock vocalist, one of the best, ever! A great front man, a great painter, writer, he was also a hell of a bass guitarist. I loved him. He was capable of great empathy and had a real sense of justice.”

Posted on

Falling In Reverse and Attila

Falling In Reverse

Fronted by former Escape the Fate frontman Ronnie Radke, Falling in Reverse is a post-hardcore band based out of Nevada. The band was formed by Radke while he was serving time in Nevada’s High Desert State Prison for a 2008 parole violation. While imprisoned, Radke recruited guitarists Derek Jones and Jacky Vincent, drummer Ryan Seaman, and bassist Mika Horiuchi to help him realize the musical vision he was creating in his head while behind bars, meeting with his bandmates during visiting hours and spending the rest of his time writing. After serving two-and-a-half years of a four-year sentence, Radke was released in late 2010, and the band set to work on their debut, bringing the driving, melodic sound to life in 2011 with the release of The Drug in Me Is You. Radke and co. returned to the studio in 2012 to record their sophomore release, Fashionably Late. Released in mid-2013, the album saw the band adding hip-hop and electronic elements to their original post-hardcore sound. Heavier and more screamo-oriented, the band’s third studio long player, Just Like You, followed in early 2015.

 

Attila

Party-hearty death metal rockers Attila formed while in high school in their hometown of Atlanta in 2005, around the core of founders Chris “Fronz” Fronzak (vocals) and Sean Heenan (drums). The band played parties and festivals in and around Atlanta. Their first long-player, 2007’s Fallacy on Statik Factory Records, has been an underground favorite since its release. Their second album, 2008’s aptly named Soundtrack to a Party, was also issued on Statik Factory; it garnered the same praise as its predecessor. Attila’s popularity on the death metal scene is due in part to creating their own ironically named subgenre called “Party Death Metal.” Rather than take themselves seriously — as nearly every other practitioner of the hardcore punk-meets-extreme metal prowess called death metal is wont to do — Attila take a lighthearted, laid-back party animal approach, writing utterly ridiculous lyrics to accompany their fast and furious thrashing. The band has toured with Arsonists Get All the Girls, See You Next Tuesday, Chelsea Grin, American Me, and We Are the End. The band’s personnel changed considerably during its formative years and finally stabilized in 2008 with Heenan and Fronz, bassist Paul Ollinger, and guitarists Nate Salameh and Chris Linck. Artery Recordings was formed by the partnership between Artery Management and Razor & Tie, who’d heard about Attila via Chelsea Grin. Label boss Mike Milford saw them perform on the Grand Slam tour in 2009 and signed them. Rage, their debut recording for Artery, appeared in 2010. Produced by Joey Sturgis (We Came as Romans, the Devil Wears Prada), Outlawed arrived in 2011, followed in 2013 by About That Life. The band’s sixth studio long-player, the Sturgis-produced Guilty Pleasure, arrived the following year.

 

Posted on

Motion City Soundtrack and The Wonder Years

When Motion City Soundtrack formed in Minneapolis in 1997 there was a sense of fun that threaded through everything that involved the band. That youthful glee, the feeling that everything was exciting and anything was possible, has been inevitably dampened over the years. On their sixth album,Panic Stations, MCS found that feeling again. The process of creating the new songs, which open a new chapter in the band’s storied career, was based on instinct and openness, a methodology that resulted in a buoyant, impassioned record.

“When we were all younger it was like we just wrote and made music,” frontman Justin Pierre says. “We would get together in the practice space and just start playing. Somebody would start and everyone else would join in. And we started overthinking everything slowly over time. This was about trying to forget everything we’d learned and going back to the fresh, new feeling. Once the music is written and recorded, you can get back to the other, more complicated aspects of being in a band.”

Panic Stations was recorded in June of 2014 after MCS finished touring on their last album, Go. The band had begun writing the music while on Warped Tour, initially just for fun, and eventually found themselves with a collection of songs. There was no preconceived vision or theme, just the underlying goal to create music the band enjoyed playing together in one room. To help capture the energy of MCS’ live show, the band enlisted producer John Agnello, who’s helmed albums by Dinosaur Jr., Jawbox, Walt Mink and Sonic Youth.

“John made records that caught our attention decades ago and have continued to inspire us to this day,” Matt Taylor says. “From the first conversation that we had with him we were excited and intrigued by his energy and ideas. He was able to remove us from our comfort zone and encourage us to track our album live in two short weeks.”

Agnello suggested the band record the tracks for the album live – something the band had never done before. “Even fans have said we sound better live than we do on record,” Pierre says. “So we decided to try it and capture that kind of feeling. We rehearsed the shit out of these songs. We knew them and we played them over and over again. We recorded them in 14 days, which is the shortest amount of time we’ve spent on a record.”

That experience, which took place at Minnesota’s Underbelly North recording studio (formerly known as Pachyderm Studio where Nirvana recordedIn Utero), was like a catharsis for the band, liberating them from any stagnancy that has built up in the past few years. “Going forward I hope to record everything live,” Pierre notes. “It was so much fun. And there are lovely mistakes that happen – they sound so good you just want to keep them.”

The final album, named after nautical structures that act as warning posts in the oceans, centers on not overthinking, something Pierre and his bandmates have a tendency to do. The singer wasn’t necessarily trying to convey anything specific in his lyrics, which are typically insightful and narratively wry. Instead, he wrote whatever came to him and then looked backward to see what topics arose. Many of the songs reference water and the ocean, and there is an overarching idea of letting go and not being immobilized by your own thoughts. Pierre also drew on an array of literary influences in his lyrics. Rollicking number “Heavy Boots” pulls from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and A Million Little Pieces, and if you listen closely to the album familiar aspects from pop culture are apparent.

The music itself is invigorated and propulsive. “Lose Control” builds into an intense, emotionally raw chorus that mirrors Pierre’s plea to relinquish control while “TKO” pares the music down to its lively rock ‘n’ roll core, focusing on the deft combination of guitars and rhythms and revealing the fervor of MCS’ live performance. “Over It Now,” a raucous standout, amps up that performative energy, reminding fans of the band’s infectious enthusiasm for the stage, which the band bought on tour recently for their successful 10 year anniversary tour of Commit This To Memory.

Panic Stations is as exciting to listen to as it was for the musicians to make. The feeling of their renewed pleasure for the craft resonates through each note and lyric, leaving you just as inspired as they sound. “We realized this is so much fun,” Pierre says. “We’re just having fun again. It’s not that we weren’t before, but everything seems so fresh and new on this album. I feel like Go is the end of one thing and Panic Stations is the beginning of another, and it’s exciting to get to open the next chapter of Motion City Soundtrack’s career.”

Posted on

99 Jamz Uncensored starring DJ Khaled

Khaled was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He is of Palestinian descent and lives in Sunny Isles, Florida.  Currently, he hosts the weeknight program TakeOver on Miami-based urban music radio station WEDR with fellow host K. Foxx; Khaled states that he has worked for the station professionally since 2003. Early in his career he dj’d for a south Florida regional station Power 96.5 FM. In 1998, Khaled worked as a “sidekick” for Miami rapper Luther Campbell for Campbell’s Friday night WEDR radio show The Luke Show.  In his albums, Khaled usually provides “shoutouts” that assert his representation of “the ghetto” and urges people to listen.  From 2004 to 2006, Khaled assisted in the production of the hip-hop albums Real Talk by Fabolous, True Story by Terror Squad, All or Nothing by Fat Joe, and Me, Myself, & I by Fat Joe.  Many of DJ Khaled’s songs are known to entice the listener by hip hop chanting his name before the song starts. Khaled represents the Kendall area of Miami. He is currently engaged to Nicole Tuck.

Posted on

Vital Remains

Created in 1988 by guitarist Paul Flynn, Vital Remains’ first line-up of guitarist Butch Machado, vocalist Mike Flynn, bassist Tom Supkow, and drummer Chris Dupont. Searching for better musicians, they added guitarist Tony Lazaro and vocalist Jeff Gruslin to the band. From there the band became a driving force in the local death metal scene. Lazaro and Flynn shared the writing duties in these early days.

Soon after their formation, the band released a pair of demos (1989’s Reduced to Ashes and 1990’s Excruciating Pain) which led to a contract with French label Thrash Records, who in turn released the single The Black Mass in 1991. Shortly after the release of the single, which proved to be the band’s first and only release with the label, the band signed to Peaceville’s subsidiary, Deaf Records. A pair of releases followed for thePeaceville label, 1992’s Let Us Pray and 1995’s Into Cold Darkness. However, after poor distribution and a lack of promotion from the label, the band requested that their contract be dissolved. At this stage, in 1997, the band’s founder, Paul Flynn left Vital Remains.

Two years later the band signed a two-album deal with French label Osmose Records. In order to complete the line-up . Dave Suzuki was brought in. This led to the release of 1997’s ‘Forever Underground’. VITAL REMAINS toured throughout the states in 1997 and overseas this year being held reign as ‘The Fassest Metal band on Stage with Unbelievable Wind-mills of satanic fury” by Metal Maniacs Magazine. and 2000’s Dawn of the Apocalypse, the latter of which marked a significant step towards a new, heavier sound which would become more prominent on their following albums.

Vocalist Thorns (Timothy Donovan), who had handled vocal duties on Dawn of the Apocalypse, was soon fired from the band. Joe Lewis explained in an interview, “We liked what he had to offer as a vocalist but we were not happy at all with his activities outside the band that included drugs and alcohol. We did not want to let these problems interfere with our band so we fired him. But we were happy with his performance on the album. He did do a great job with the vocals.” Thorns’ dismissal from the band led to the addition in 2003 of Deicide frontman Glen Benton on vocals along with original member Tony Lazaro on guitars and Dave Suzuki on drums, and lead guitars. The band’s first album with Benton, 2003’s Dechristianize, was released to much critical acclaim. The band’s next album, released in 2007, was Icons of Evil. Vital Remains also put out its first live DVD, Evil-Death-Live, the same year, in Europe on 9 July, and in the US on 31 July through Polish label Metal Mind Productions.

Since Dave Suzuki’s dismissal from the band, Vital Remains have been touring endlessly with frequent lineup changes for five years, with original member Tony Lazaro and bassist Gaeton “Gator” Collier being the only two members remaining in the band and keeping it as active as possible. Tony has stated in several interviews in 2012-2013 that he’s been writing lots of new songs and has “two albums worth of material”. In October 2014, Vital Remains announced they were seeking a lead guitarist, again delaying new album’s release to 2015, and were also joined by new drummer James Payne (ex Hours of Penance).

Toronto based Dean Arnold age 18, of Primal Frost ( Vocalist and Guitarist) has become the lead guitarist of the band. Vital Remains will be on tour from May 7th through April 19 with lead guitarist Dean Arnold. The band’s tour will be at places such as Chile, Brazil and U.S.A.

The band has started the writing process and will record the new album after their European summer tour. The new work should be published in October/November 2015.

Posted on

Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime with Sun-Dried Vibes

The phenomenon known as Sublime, arguably the most energetic, original and uniquely eclectic band to emerge from any scene, anywhere, ended with the untimely death of lead singer, guitarist and songwriter Brad Nowell in May of 1996. But encompassing the sense of place and purpose long associated with Sublime’s music, Badfish, a Tribute to Sublime continues to channel the spirit of Sublime with a fury not felt for some time. What separates Badfish from other tribute bands is that they have replicated Sublime’s essence, developing a scene and dedicated following most commonly reserved for label-driven, mainstream acts. Badfish make their mark on the audience by playing with the spirit of Sublime. They perform not as Sublime would have, or did, but as Badfish does!

Posted on

Kamelot with Dragonforce

Thomas Youngblood founded KAMELOT and quickly released their debut album Eternity. The press praised the album as one of most promising debuts of all time. The successor Dominion hit the stores, with an opus that was even more diverse and varied than the debut. Later on KAMELOT’s video ‘The Haunting’ and ‘March of Mephisto’ became huge hits on YouTube and prompted the band to launch their own YouTube channel, aptly titled KamTV.  KamTV’s initial launch hurled the band into YouTube’s top 10 music channels and #1 Metal Channel, transcending all genres. With the release of The Black Halo, KAMELOT started on a headliner tour in Europe, North American, Japan and Brazil, with countless festivals around the globe.  Following the hugely successful album, KAMELOT released their first live DVD, called One Cold Winter’s Night. The DVD was heralded by the press and fans alike and set a new standard for DVDs in the genre. Subsequently, KAMELOT presented themselves more sinister and soulful but have now returned to the melodic aspects of their multi-layered sound with the album, Silverthorn.  Silverthorn went directly to the top, debuting at the #1 position on Amazon’s Heavy Metal Chart! Along with this amazing accomplishment, KAMELOT also impacted major charts in other categories including the #9 position on Billboard’s Hard Rock Chart, #24 on the Rock Charts, #79 on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart, as well as appearing on multiple international charts.

It’s astonishing to realize that DragonForce now have a history going back 15 years. But such is the pace at which music and life move these days that what was seemingly a highly promising young British metal band just yesterday are now an established full force on the scene. In fact, their reputation is such that anything new from this lot is regarded as a landmark moment in the ongoing story of metal. But DragonForce is a revelation, one that will surely prove them to reach another level of achievement. The band is full of command, energy and vitality.  They have strength in depth and breadth. Sophistication allied to an attention to detail that goes beyond what’s been done before.

Posted on

Matt and Kim with Deaf Poets

Brooklyn indie dance duo Matt and Kim just released New Glow, the band’s latest full length album.  Matt and Kim, aka Matt Johnson (vocals/keyboards) and Kim Schifino (drums), get things rolling in their exuberant style with a performance lyric video for the song “Get It”: Three minutes and seven seconds of heaven for anyone who has, or hasn’t yet, seen Matt and Kim’s legendary live shows.  With New Glow, the duo who love hip-hop and pop have made an album of undeniably catchy beat-driven anthems with hooks that just don’t stop and just won’t leave your head. “The best era of music is right now and I believe we’re doing our best work yet.” says Matt.  “Anyone who has seen one of our shows knows we love any style of music you can have fun and get wild to. I’m not sure we were able to put that diversity on any of our albums the way we did on New Glow. While there are definitely songs that will feel familiar to people who know our stuff, there are also songs like “Get It” which have always been part of who we are but went unrecorded to this point. We helped edit a lyric video for “Get It”, using live footage from a handful of festivals and shows we played in the last couple years. Going through that footage really made it hard to believe how lucky we are to have the best f**king job in the world.”  The two met while attending Pratt Institute and quickly became known for their thunder-punching, melodic mix of indie and dance music. Right off, Spin said “there truly is no sound these two won’t use to support their almost religious commitment to spreading huge grins,” while Pitchfork described their quality as “melody so happily jerky and rhythms so dangerously spastic that you can practically hear paroxysmal crowds pogo-ing madly…Johnson sings, and thousands of other kids in his zip code (and others like it around the country) feel like he’s describing their Saturday nights.”  Previously, Matt and Kim’s video for “Lessons Learned,” in which they strip naked in Times Square on a very cold February day, won an MTV Music Award for “Breakthrough Video.” All the while they toured the globe, becoming the go-to band for raw exuberance, bombastic beats, sing-along refrains and dance-ready anthems on larger and larger scales. They’ve performed at many, many major music festivals including Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Coachella, Firefly, Summerfest, Big Day Out, Fuji, V, Pukkelpop and Ultra.

Posted on

Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation

As one half of electronic music pioneers/producers Thievery Corporation, Rob Garza has been at the forefront of music and has traveled the globe performing, remixing, djing, recording, and composing.

Since Garza’s recent move to San Francisco, he has begun a re-exploration of his love for electronic music and beats focusing on Nu-Disco and Deep House, while keeping very groove-oriented and outer-national based rhythms. Recently he has been djing and remixing, taking things to an even more spaced out and trippy level.

Two years ago, Rob started fielding requests from all manner of musicians to remix their material. He began honoring those requests as a labor of love and opportunity to explore new directions with his creative output. After amassing more than a dozen remixes, Garza decided to compile the tracks into one single collection.

“Remixes” showcases Garza’s mastery as an electronic musician and reveals his passion for left-of-center dance genres. “There was a lot of experimentation in coming up with these remixes, and they very much reflect what I’m drawn to as a DJ,” says Garza. Kaleidoscopic, but intensely groove-oriented, the 12-track album represents a dizzying number of sounds from all corners of the music world, unified by Garza into a lush, shimmering soundscape.

For Garza—who’s devoted much of the last 18 years to creating the richly textured, endlessly innovative electronica that’s defined Thievery Corporation —there’s a certain freedom in the limitations of remixing. “When you’re making original music, there’s more exploration involved and you never know what’s going to come out of it,” he says. “Remixing is more like piecing a puzzle together —I look at the elements that grab me, then pull the track apart and reconstruct it into something new.” In remixing Tycho’s “Ascension,” for instance, Garza zeroed in on “these cool, ethereal arpeggios I was grooving on,” stripped those notes away, deepened the beat, and ended up creating a blissfully hazy track that’s nearly trance-inducing.

Garza delivers infectious remixes of tracks by deep-house DJ Miguel Migs (“The System”), Afro-Peruvian/electronica act Novalima (“Festejo”), Latin-influenced neo-soul act AM & Shawn Lee (“Promises are Never Far from Lies”), dancehall veteran Sleepy Wonder (“World Citizenship”), ambient musician Tycho (“Ascension), and electro-chanteuse Shana Halligan (“True Love). Also featured are Garza’s remixes of Gogol Bordello’s “Through the Roof and Underground” and Federico Aubele’s “No One”—as well as a reworking of Thievery Corporation’s fiery, Afrobeat-infused “Vampires” with San Francisco-based collective Afrolicious.

For inspiration in his puzzle-piecing, Garza heavily mined the dance styles and sub-genres he’s discovered through DJ-ing in his newly adopted hometown of San Francisco over the past few years. “When I first came to San Francisco, I got more into the dance scene and also started spending a lot of time in Mexico, where there are some great DJs coming through,” says Garza. “There’s so much going on in terms of people taking influences from all these different genres—like house and dub and new wave and disco—and putting it all together in a way that’s very new and original and inspiring to my own music.”

Posted on

Periphery with Nothing More, Wovenwar, Thank You Scientist

Periphery is an American progressive metal band from Bethesda, Maryland formed in 2005. The band is known for their heavy, modern, almost futuristic, and progressive sound that includes polyrhythmic patterns and soaring melodies. They are regarded as one of the pioneers of the djent movement in progressive metal.

The band consists of vocalist Spencer Sotelo, guitarists Misha Mansoor, Mark Holcomb, and Jake Bowen, drummer Matt Halpern, and bassist Adam “Nolly” Getgood. Periphery released their self-titled debut in 2010 and their follow-up, Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal, on July 3, 2012. On December 3, 2013 Periphery released a teaser for their EP/mini-album “Clear”, which was released on January 28, 2014. All Periphery material is self produced by the members.

Posted on

Official Jam Cruise 13 Post Cruise Show featuring Lettuce with Break Science

After celebrating their 20th anniversary as modern day rulers of old school funk, the Brooklyn-based juggernaut Lettuce is not showing any signs of slowing. Having blown up stages from coast to coast last year, ranging from The Fillmore in San Francisco to Terminal 5 in NYC, Bonnaroo to Pemberton and all points in-between, Lettuce is poised to continue their rapid growth throughout 2014/2015.

“We’re more together and set to crush than ever before,” says drummer and chief songwriter Adam Deitch of the all-star group that he and his accomplished band-mates cut their teeth with back in their Berklee School of Music days. That much history, along with the A-list crop of projects that each member has taken on away from Lettuce, gives the group a bottomless well of musical ideas and unrivaled chemistry—in fact, referring to themselves as a band of brothers. “I was in a practice room at 16 with these guys, and it all clicked,” says lead bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes. “We all felt rhythms in similar ways. We were all about the pocket from day one.”

“People tend to look at funk as a one-trick pony,” says Deitch, “but we aim to smash those limits by drawing on a range of styles that can be traced from the early ’60s through the early ’80s, incorporating plenty of modern hip-hop sensibilities—heavy bass, kick and snare—along the way. Having evolved and refocused, without ever dropping the beat, Lettuce is getting ready to take audiences to the cosmos with a high-octane Fall tour. “Lettuce is like a Learjet that wasn’t getting clearance from the tower,” says Jesus. “But we’re done just rolling around on the runway.” They’re not asking for permission, so put your tray tables in their full, upright and locked position. This plane’s itching for lift off.

Lettuce released a limited edition ‘45 featuring “Don’t Be Afraid To Try” with singerAlecia Chakour (who is also touring with the band) this March, and are recording a new full-length record this fall.  So be on the lookout for new music and a guaranteed PARTY!