The Pimps of Joytime
The Pimps of Joytime
If you have yet to encounter the Brooklyn-based band, The Pimps of Joytime, prepare to take a funky ride! The PJT’s live events and recordings have captivated fans all across the country, as they have begun writing their own success story, show-by-show, and track-by-track.
Bandleader Brian J is a charismatic and soulful visionary, whose well-crafted songs invite the listener to enter a world of infectious dance grooves and indelible melodies. Spending formative years in New York City, New Orleans and Los Angeles, Mista J honed his craft, becoming an accomplished live performer, multi-instrumentalist and producer.
In 2005, Brian began to assemble a group of righteously soulful vocalists and musicians to assist in bringing to life the musical concept that would become The Pimps of Joytime. The band’s diverse sound and spirited attitude is strongly influenced by the Brooklyn DJ culture and live music scene from which they emerge. Recent collaborations with legendary artists Cyril and Art Neville of the Neville Brothers and Roy Ayers have helped vitalize the band’s connection to its roots.
Over the course of the past five years, The Pimps have evolved into a road tested and audience approved groove machine. They have excited crowds at over 100 club dates and festivals in 2012 alone, and are on target to exceed that volume in 2013. The exponential growth of the band’s fan base can be partially attributed to an artful blend of musical styles, including elements of afro-beat, salsa, rock & roll and electronica. Brian J’s classic songwriting and the band’s undeniable swagger on stage consistently energize dance parties wherever they appear.
In 2011, The Pimps of Joytime released their second studio album, “Janxta Funk!” through the boutique label Wonderwheel Recordings. With a steadily increasing repertoire and a passionate following of music lovers nationwide, the time was right to fortify their organization. The wall of their Facebook page is constantly receiving enthusiastic posts from fans from around the globe as word of mouth further carries news of this fresh new arrival.
The Pimps of Joytime are poised to bring their audacious sound to savvy audiences around the planet. Their forthcoming third studio album coming this fall will be a new chapter in the book of the Funk and a testament to the fact that real music is alive and kicking!
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Moon Hooch
Moon Hooch captured the imaginations of thousands with its infamous stints busking on subway platforms and elsewhere in New York City: two sax players and a drummer whipping up furious, impromptu raves. This happened with such regularity at the Bedford Ave station in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that the band was banned from playing there by the NYPD. The trio’s subsequent tours with They Might Be Giants, Lotus, and Galactic as well as on their own have only broadened the band’s appeal. Wherever Moon Hooch plays, a dance party soon follows.
Hornblow Recordings and Palmetto Records are now proud to release Moon Hooch’s second album, This Is Cave Music, on Sept 16, 2014. The title refers to the term Moon Hooch coined to describe their unique sound: like house music, but more primitive and jagged and raw. Horn players Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen do this by utilizing unique tonguing methods, or adding objects — cardboard or PVC tubes, traffic cones, whatever’s handy — to the bells of their horns to alter their sound. Not to be outdone, drummer James Muschler gets swelling, shimmering sounds from his cymbals, and covers the head of his snare with a stack of splash cymbals to emulate the sound of a Roland TR-808 drum machine’s clap.
Wilbur was raised in Massachusetts, and Muschler in Ohio; McGowen grew up in several different European countries. The three met while students at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, and they found in each other a common work ethic and holistic philosophy. Moon Hooch are committed to environmental and agricultural sustainability, and they’re such fans of Michael Pollan’s groundbreaking The Omnivore’s Dilemma that they visited the farm that Pollan profiled in the book, Polyface Farms, in rural Virginia while on tour in 2013. Moon Hooch literally caused a stampede when they set up and played their song “Tubes” in the pasture as cattle swirled in the background. (The trio lived to tell the tale, and the “Cattle Dance Party” video has been viewed nearly 200,000 times and counting on YouTube.) Muschler also maintains a blog called Cooking in the Cave (cookinginthecave.net) where he chronicles the band’s vegan tour-van culinary endeavors — it’s amazing what these guys can do with a hot plate.
While their self-titled first album, which cracked the top 10 of Billboard’s Jazz Albums chart, approximated the band’s acoustic approach to dance music, This IsCave Music takes their cave music hybrid further into electronic and pop music realms with synthesizers, post-production work, and even singing added to the mix. “We aren’t trying to do it for the sake of reaching a wider audience,” McGowen points out. “We are doing it because it’s where our passion has evolved to. This album is a culmination of that.”
Listening to this music, it’s easy to become emotionally invested. It may not always prompt you to strip off your clothes, but the emotional impact on both the musicians and their fans is visceral and undeniable.
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