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Gutbucket

Gutbucket is a free-range band. The seven-year-old New York quartet is not only equally comfortable playing in front of 900 sweatily pogo-ing teenage skate-punks, a crowd of stoned jamband freaks, or on an anarchist German art collective houseboat, but most importantly, their music fits right in.

Flitting from hard rock to Latin to thrash to klezmer and back, often within the space of a few bars, the group veritably attacks their music with the kind of ferocity usually reserved for punk, despite having earned their jazz bona fides. "We’re all pretty serious about rock," says saxophonist Ken Thomson, "and not just a token throwing-in of some different tunes. It’s something intrinsic to who we are as people. We’ve all had training in jazz, but we’ve moved outside that world into the rock world, to try to actually bring something new to that."

Though the band might seem rooted in the genre exploding of avant-squonk (their 2001 debut, InsomniacsDream, was released on the Knitting Factory house imprint), their shift to louder sounds began with their controversially-titled Dry Humping the American Dream (released in 2003 in Europe on the legendary Enja label and in 2004 in the US on Bang on a Can's acclaimed Cantaloupe label). It was an easier move than it might at first seem • bassist Eric Rockwin claims to have learned every Paul McCartney bassline by heart before his father humbled him with a Ray Brown CD. Guitarist Ty Citerman was "into everything that was Hendrix and Van Halen and Led Zeppelin." And drummer Paul Chuffo learned to play by mimicking The Who’s Keith Moon.

It’s only fitting, then, that the band initially came together as Ty, Ken, and Paul looked to expand their musical horizons at Columbia University’s WKCR, where Ty had a late-night radio show and Paul was the self-admitted "crazy guy in the corner smoking cigarettes and writing papers." After playing together for four years in the soul-jazz Ex Caminos, the three split off in 1999 to form what would become Gutbucket. Introduced through a friend, Eric and Paul found an instant rhythmic rapport, and the band was born. Four months later, they debuted before a packed house at Manhattan’s Baby Jupiter.

Gutbucket set to work building their all-important live rep, gigging first throughout Manhattan, before spreading across the collegiate markets of the east coast. The release of Dry Humping the American Dream and their full scale US rock club/art gallery/bar touring introduced them to their new "favorite places" -- San Francisco, Santa Fe, Hattiesburg, MS, and Wichita, KS. The band also hit the US festival circuit, including Seattle’s heralded Earshot Jazz Festival, New York’s Winter Jazz Festival, and played the colleges of Brandeis, Colgate, U. Missouri, and more.

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457
Interview

Gutbucket: Cascades and Collisions

Read "Gutbucket: Cascades and Collisions" reviewed by Gordon Marshall


Over its 12-year career, Gutbucket has resituated its various musical parts like the pieces of a Rubik's cube. The elements of that cube, the sonic strains, have remained similar--an amalgam of fuzz rock, jumpy jazz, post-serial classicism--but its panoply of shifting color has been redeployed in unique ways on each of the Brooklyn-based quartet's five CDs, starting with an emphasis on improvisation but gradually incorporating greater degrees of composing. It is not that it never arrives at ...

399
Album Review

Gutbucket: A Modest Proposal

Read "A Modest Proposal" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


This multitasking quartet offers a sense of newness to the jazz realm by crossing borders and taking an aggressive, raucous and well-rehearsed stance. In theory, the band should capture the attention of the young and thoroughly hip, along with the adventurous music aficionados who yearn for a sense of musical excitement.

Gutbucket rocks the house as it aligns avant-garde metrics with snazzy jazz, and jazz-rock, while also integrating hardcore rock with an in-your-face mode of attack. Ty Citerman's ...

163
Album Review

Gutbucket: Sludge Test

Read "Sludge Test" reviewed by Abe Pollack


The members of Gutbucket have never been satisfied with the moniker “jazz quartet," nor have they wanted to fit in with stereotypical rockers. Their sound, if it had to be categorized, should be filed under noir-jazz, or maybe klez-rock, but most likely squawk-thrash. This ambiguity shines in their third full-length album, Sludge Test. The record has moments of guitar-driven speed metal followed by abrupt changes to odd-meter funk beats, while Ken Thomson's signature raspy tone conjures up ...

193
Album Review

Gutbucket: Sludge Test

Read "Sludge Test" reviewed by John Kelman


Ken Thomson, who manages the contemporary classical-focused Cantaloupe Music label, lives a double life playing saxophone for Gutbucket, a quartet whose influences primarily come from jazz and rock. That might seem oddly out of place, but Cantaloupe's output has been surprisingly diverse. Recent releases range from Alarm Will Sound's refreshing reinterpretation of Aphex Twin on Acoustica (2005) to various Bang on a Can projects, including a new look at minimalist Phillip Glass' 5ths (2004) and a Burmese collaboration, Meets Kyaw ...

168
Album Review

Gutbucket: Sludge Test

Read "Sludge Test" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Gutbucket might be the possessed grandchildren of bandleader Spike Jones, except that in the three CDs they have produced, I've yet to hear a gunshot. This modernized version of the blender band has been done before by groups such as Naked City, Blood Duster, and Mr. Bungle, but not nearly as well. Like Spike Jones, this quartet is dead set on entertainment. Maybe they are more a modern Raymond Scott or Carl Stalling soundtrack to Ozzy Osbourne's life. ...

217
Live Review

Gutbucket at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater

Read "Gutbucket at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater" reviewed by Andrew Durkin


Gutbucket Barnsdall Gallery Theater Los Angeles, CA April 18, 2005

Someone recently hipped me to Joel Dorn's comment that “You haven't heard Monk until you've seen him. I must admit that I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to the sound / vision distinction. Although I love live jazz, I have always tried to “tune out (so to speak) the visual information of a live performance. There is a level of concentration ...

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Album Review

Gutbucket: Dry Humping the American Dream

Read "Dry Humping the American Dream" reviewed by John Kelman


With a name like Gutbucket and an album title like Dry Humping the American Dream , one might expect a certain amount of irreverence--and one would be right. Gutbucket is nothing if not counter-culture, but for all their anarchist leanings they are actually a group of talented players who have chosen to combine rapidly-changing movement form reminiscent of early Zorn with a punk attitude. But don't let their chaotic, occasionally head-banging style fool you--these players are influenced as much by ...

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Recording

Gutbucket - Flock (Cuneiform, 2011)

Gutbucket - Flock (Cuneiform, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Another band that skirts the divide between jazz and rock 'n' roll is the Brooklyn based outfit Gutbucket, whose intricate jazz based arrangements are infused with punk rock energy. Gutbucket consists of Ty Citerman on guitar, Eric Rockwin on bass, Ken Thomson on saxophones and Adam Gold on drums. Gutbucket's music isn't as much based around the traditional improvisational nature of jazz as tightly wound arrangements and strong powerful music that hits with a visceral wallop. In a sense this ...

159

Recording

Gutbucket - Flock (2011)

Gutbucket - Flock (2011)

Source: Something Else!

By S. Victor Aaron According to Wikipedia, a gutbucket is “a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator." There was even a “gutbucket blues" style of music that was played by those jug bands of long ago. And so since we're here to talk about a band called “Gutbucket," this is a band of hillbillies in overalls sporting a washtub bass, banjo and mouth harp playing mid-20th century Appalachian music, right? Couldn't ...

138

Event

Gutbucket, The Suite Unraveling and Afuche Play Zebulon on Tuesday, March 9

Gutbucket, The Suite Unraveling and Afuche Play Zebulon on Tuesday, March 9

Source: Michael Ricci

Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 8pm, Free

Zebulon 258 Wythe Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11211

(Wythe Ave. between Metropolitan and N. 3rd) L train to Bedford

Tuesday, March 9, 2010, three of Brooklyn's most inventive ensembles perform at Zebulon in Williamsburg for a night of explosive, original music. The three groups are bound by an aesthetic of 21st century composition infused with jazz-based improvisation: featuring overdriven electric guitars, squonking horns, pounding drums, and a ferocious and ...

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Performance / Tour

Genre-Busting New Yorkers Gutbucket to Tour Europe, 2010

Genre-Busting New Yorkers Gutbucket to Tour Europe, 2010

Source: Michael Ricci

GENRE-BUSTING NEW YORKERS G U T B U C K E T TO TOUR EUROPE IN JANUARY 2010 You can see the promo mailing with links to all the clubs here The meat of the matter is here: Gutbucket's Winter 2010 European Tour Dates: Saturday, January 16 jazzclub minden minden, germany Sunday, January 17 club hanseat salzwedel, germany Monday, January 18 GIG hannover, germany Tuesday, January 19 dumont aachen, germany Wednesday, January 20 workshop aachen, germany ...

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Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: Jazz Attack, Greg Osby with Willie Akins, Wee Trio, Gutbucket, Niu Jazz Ensemble with Benny Golson, and More

Jazz This Week: Jazz Attack, Greg Osby with Willie Akins, Wee Trio, Gutbucket, Niu Jazz Ensemble with Benny Golson, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

It's the beginning of a couple of busy weeks for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with plenty of competition for the time, attention and dollars of music fans from a number of touring musicians as well as local acts. In particular, this weekend's lineup features several stellar saxophonists playing in a variety of musical contexts, from smooth jazz and R&B to post-bop to big band. Let's go to the highlights:Tonight, the 2009 edition of the popular ...

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Music Industry

Gutbucket to Play Friday, April 10 at Mad Art Gallery

Gutbucket to Play Friday, April 10 at Mad Art Gallery

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

The eclectic NYC-based band Gutbucket (pictured) is coming to St. Louis on Friday, April 10 to perform at Mad Art Gallery.Gutucket's Web site describes their sound as “punk/jazz kerzoom music" that is “destroying walls between art-rock, avant-squonk, and mathed-out prog," while the Boston Globe said that the band “blends free jazz, hardcore rock, oddball time signatures, and other elements into a cacophonous, humor-laden sound all its own." You can hear some samples of Gutbucket's music on their MySpace ...

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Event

Gutbucket at Zeitgeist in Cambridge, MA on June 9th

Gutbucket at Zeitgeist in Cambridge, MA on June 9th

Source: All About Jazz

s u b c o n s c i o u s c a f @ ZEITGEIST / SPACE 186 186 Hampshire St. Inman Sq. Cambridge, Mass. 02139 617.876.6060 ~ ALL AGES ~ www. zeitgeist-gallery.org

Friday, 9 June 2006 / 8:00 - 11:00pm / $12 or b/o

rob chalfen & subconsciouscafe new chamber music presents

raging from Brooklyn it's

GUTBUCKET! http://www.gutweb.com/,http://www.pitchperfectpr.com/a_gb.html

GUTBUCKET ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Flock

Cuneiform Records
2011

buy

A Modest Proposal

Cuneiform Records
2009

buy

Sludge Test

Cantaloupe Music
2006

buy

Dry Humping the...

Cantaloupe Music
2004

buy

Insomniacs Dream

Knitting Factory
2002

buy

InsomniacsDream

Gut Records
2001

buy

Head Goes Thud

From: A Modest Proposal
By Gutbucket

Videos

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