Shrimpanzee Live at IAG 2-2-07

Ok, this is my first attempt at posting about and sharing some music. Don't worry Mr Man! This is my band! (not that it really matters now that the music industry is on it's last leg...)

Shrimpanzee is/was a bit of a conceptual group i put together back in early 2003. it wasn't a proper group by any means at that point. it was mostly just me with special guests including Joe Blanchard (who wrote many great songs... i hope he's still writing!), Daniel Cowlin (of Trick of Shadow, Frankenhead fame), and to an even lesser extent, my son Andrew and Mr Jeffrey Dajos (of Jeff Dajos fame).

This incarnation recorded 3 albums (Shrimpanzee Volume 1, Shrimpanzee Volume 2, and Orange) and hours of other stuff that i didn't really approve of at the time (check back for future ramblings regarding these recordings). A few live-action incarnations of Shrimpanzee surfaced in 2004... more on these situations in the future! Stay Tuned!

Anyway, this recording features the legendary 4 piece, live incarnation of the mighty Shrimpanzee featuring myself on guitar, Dan Cowlin on bass, "Oily" Dave Hollingshead (formerly of pioneering gore-metal group Repulsion and later of Pub Life) on drums, and the hyper-kinetic Andrew "Baldy Locks" Turpen (formerly with Dissonance, MuSH, and a huge mess of other projects... more on these fellows later).

We played at It's A Grind coffee house (now independent and dubbed the Mug Shot Cafe) on February 2nd 2007. wow, that was a long time ago! there was no special occasion, just the thursday night open mic (that i still host at the moment). the energy was high, and we were all excited to unleash on an unsuspecting audience what we'd been rehearsing for several weeks.

Of the set we played, only one was an original: Alien Brushfire was originally written by myself in 2003 and featured on the album Orange. At one point, Dan Cowlin helped me add some more parts to make it more interesting (this was in an earlier 3 piece live incarnation of Shrimpanzee... more on that later as well). I am quite proud of this particular rendition. At the end of the song, Andy apologizes for possibly frightening a little girl with his singing and stage antics... it's funnier than it sounds.

This is the most recent incarnation of Shrimpanzee, and we only played 2 more shows after this night (one of them was at Paychecks in Hamtramck opening up for Amandla (project of the ridiculously talented Claude Coleman Jr of Ween) along with local pals the Deetrick Furrys). I don't know what the future holds for Shrimpanzee, but it has become somewhat of an obscure household name (on the internet, anyway), so i don't think I will close any doors regarding this particular projects. It's sort of like a very loyal dog... whatever that might mean.

well, I hope my above ramblings have inspired you to check this out. If you want it, here it is, come and get it! (please let me know if you have any problems with this file... there was a problem,but i think i've fixed it...and remember... this is my first try!!!)