Macpodz bring mayhem to Mac's
Lansing State Journal 1.24.08 Halloween concert for Women's Center Saturday, October 27, 2007 Roger LeLievre, The Ann Arbor News An impressive roster of local music talent will be on stage at the Michigan Theater on Wednesday for a show benefiting the Women's Center of Southeastern Michigan. Organized by members of Ann Arbor-based rock, jazz and funk quintet the Macpodz - and in particular its manager, Matthew Altruda - the event also includes the Ragbirds, Jamie Register & The Glendales, My Dear Disco, Andrea Moreno-Beals of Breathe Owl Breathe, Niki from Seven Chakraz, an Earthworks music collaboration, breakdancers and more. "It's all privately funded by the Macpodz,'' said Altruda. "We are using the money we made as a band to put this together. We rented the theater ourselves.'' Since the show is Halloween night, a costume contest will kick off the event. Those interested should show up at 6 p.m. in costume. Altruda said he hopes the show will be successful enough to become an annual event. "This is one of the greatest nonprofits in Ann Arbor no one knows about,'' he said. Showtime is 7:30 p.m.; cost is $15-$50. Tickets are on sale at www.ticketmaster.com. Details: 248-645-6666. The Rise of The Macpodz by Elyssa Pearlstein JULY 2007 ANN ARBOR CURRENT "Disco bebop" -- if you haven't heard of this musical genre, you have now, thanks to rising local band the Macpodz. Jazz and rock invigorate the irresistibly catchy songs of the Macpodz. The styles of visionary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and unusual rock composer Frank Zappa heavily influence the band. A performance of a "roller rink" remix of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker's "Dewey Square" marked the official moment the band conceived their signature sound. Bassist Jesse Clayton says that they are creating "a new and unique sound." Other members include trumpeter and flugelhorn player Ross Huff, bassist Brennan Andes and percussionists Nick Ayers and Griffin Bastian. Some bandmates acquired noteworthy performing experience prior to joining the Macpodz. Andes, the band's founder, spent a decade playing in the local jazz and folk scenes, touring nationally with Smokestack, known as the "Jam Giants of Ann Arbor." He met Huff at the University of Michigan School of Music. The pair collaborated to compose a piece performed by the U.S. Armed Forces Tuba and Euphonium Ensemble in Washington, D.C. The quintet's first gig was backing poet John Sinclair in early 2006. Lately the Macpodz attract music fans like flies. The band is also bracing to tuck a few large Midwest music festivals under its belt, including Hookahville Music Festival in Legends, Ohio, which draws about 20,000 people. Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, Illinois was a destination in June. An East Coast tour starts in September. Fortune is laying its golden hand on the Macpodz. The band recently hired a manager and its members are moving to a point where the band is their main source of income. The band released its debut album, Genius Food for Super Heroes, in January 2007. The Macpodz play TC's Speakeasy, 207 W. Michigan in Ypsilanti, on Friday, July 6 at 10 p.m. Tickets are $5 ($10 under 21). The band also plays the Blind Pig, 208 S. 1st St. in Ann Arbor, on Friday, July 20 at 9:30 p.m. Tickets for this show are $7 ($10 under 21). For more information about the band, visit http://www.themacpodz.com on the Web. The Macpodz band cutting loose - 3-25-07 By Roger Lelievre - News Arts Writer If you don't know about The Macpodz, then you're missing the latest Ann Arbor band busting loose on the music scene. Their sound has been described as "disco bebop,'' and with good reason. "We took Charlie Parker and John Travolta and merged them,'' singer/bass player Brennan Judging from their debut CD, "Genius Food For Super Heroes,'' he's right on the money. The first song, "You Got Me,'' is an old-school rump-shaker with hot, '70's-style horns. Dizzying time signature changes abound. By the time the title song - an extended instrumental romp - rolls around, it's clear The Macpodz are a whole new breed of jazzy cat. Besides Andes, The Macpodz are Jesse Clayton (keyboards, vocals), Griffin Bastian (drums), Nick Ayers (percussion, vocals) and Ross Huff (trumpet, fluegelhorn). Andes, Ayers and Clayton are Ann Arbor natives; each is an experienced musician, with plenty of time spent in other hometown bands (Andes played with Smokestack and Huff was a part of Descent of the Holy Ghost Church). Surprisingly, given the band's visibility, the members have only been playing as The Macpodz since last year. "We played at a house party in February 2006, no one had really met each other individually. ... We got together, played four or six hours that night, we got this whole place dancing. ... We thought, 'This is really hot - we've got to roll with this,''' Andes recalled.The name? It has nothing to do with Apple computers or iPods. Andes said his nickname once was B-mac. Pods refers to orca whales, "which just happened to be hip.'' A whale is pictured on the cover of the CD. And the Z? "The letter is completely underlooked,'' said Ayers. "And it looks cooler on a flier than an S does.'' Positive reviews are rolling in. "The finesse with which the band capers through its protean repertoire plays a large part in unifying 'Genius Food' ... the playful character of the band's performance, even when delivering a serious political message, is downright inspiring,'' wrote the local music Web site www.celestialbiscuit.com. More telling, Andes said, is the band's ability to draw a crowd that led to the upcoming Blind Pig booking on what is traditionally a big music weekend in Ann Arbor. "The Macpodz are at the vanguard of the new wave of dance trance ex-jam bands in Ann Arbor,'' said Jason Berry, who books shows at the Pig. "They've been around less than two years, but are already filling the place up on a regular basis, and at any time of the year.'' Since the band's show is Saturday night of Hash Bash, don't be surprised if there's some sort of musical tribute to the event. "I was thinking of doing 'I Love You, Mary Jane,' some Rick James,'' Huff said, maybe joking, maybe not. John Lennon's "John Sinclair'' "would also be cool,'' Andes added. Detroit Free Press, Martin Bandyke Quintet Performs Cool Fusion The stunningly impressive debut from this Ann Arbor quintet should have major appeal for jazz lovers and those who just love to dance. Founding member Brennan Andes, who plays base in the Macpodz, has been an integral part of the A2 music scene for the past decade. For a time, he recorded and toured with jam band Smokestack. Andes, keyboardist Jesse Clayton and percussionist Nick Ayers backed up poet-musician John Sinclair early last year. Then they added drummer Griffin Bastian and trumpeter Ross Huff to complete the Macpodz lineup that's been knocking audiences out with its propulsive, soulful, self-described "disco bebop" sounds. On "Architeuthis" the quintet handles tricky 5/4 and 7/4 time signatures with absolute confidence and ease and simply roars through more straight-ahead tracks "Oh Shizzney" and "Ascention". With the style of Frank Zappa and fusion-period Miles Davis, the bands leaves you breathless on "Rock Em Sock Em Robots" and "Followaduby," Both of which feature super-tight ensemble playing. One listen to "Genius Food for Super Heroes" and you'll instantly understand why the Macpodz already are drawing big enthusiastic crowds to their shows even though they've been together barely a year. Celestrialbiscut.com Macpodz - "Genius Food for Super Heroes" Album Review Overall Rating: 8.4 Lyrics: 7.6 Melodies: 8.1 Arrangements: 9.4 Thematicity: 8.1 Originality: 8.5 Production: 8.8 Chances are that if you reside anywhere near Ann Arbor you've hear of Macpodz (the band contains a Descent of the Holy Ghost Church alumnus in trumpet player Ross Huff and frequently appears on the same bill as the much-lauded Ann Arbor Afro-beat act Nomo), but may not quite know what to make of them. For one thing, the band doesn't really sound anything like Nomo or the Descent (though they're far closer to the former than to the latter), but rather an amalgam of Tortoise or Don Caballero with acid jazz; for another, their performances have often been wildly experimental, featuring hour-long set-lists comprising at most three songs, six-minute introductory passages consisting of a single sustained note, and so on. For this reason, I really didn't know what to expect when the band finally dropped a recording this December. It's difficult to deny that Macpodz are phenomenal musicians, but their work isn't always particularly accessible, and I had worried that the band might go out of its way to make their debut particularly vexing. Genius Food for Super Heroes, however, dispels and trepidations I might have had: the band has taken great pains to make their experimentation approachable, and the structures of both the individual tracks and the album as a whole seem designed to welcome rather than confuse. Not only are there are genuine pop songs here, but there's also a wealth of material whose experimental nature is no impediment to one's appreciation of it. There are three reasons that Genius Food for Super Heroes is likely to appeal even to those who aren't normally into avant-garde jazz. The first is that the album is structured so as to draw the listener into its experimentation by degrees. The album begins with its poppiest selection, "You Got Me," which features a memorable dance groove and a strong vocal melody (it's also one of only four songs on the album that contain vocals of any sort), moves into the Millions Now Living Will Never Die-inspired "Oh Shizzney, and establishes a rapport with the listener before unleashing the likes of "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots" or or "The Puzzle." The second reason for the album's appeal is that that is that despite its jazz and Afro-beat influences and penchant for experimentation, the band makes sure to emphasize its ties to rock music, which are most evident in Griffin Bastian's drum lines, which recall Don Caballero's both in their driving feel and in the complexity of the snare and ride-cymbal work. It's not only in the rhythm section where the band's rock sensibilities rear their heads either: there's also "Ultra Pneumono Silicone," one on the most uncharacteristic tracks of the record, which takes most of its cues (in terms of both songwriting and production) from Radiohead's OK Computer and yet meshes with the rest of the album's compositions. Of course the reason Macpodz get away with such departures as this and "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots" (for my money, the album's best individual number) is that they carefully set themselves up for it early on in the record by starting with catchy, straightforward pop and progressively diverging further and further from it as the album progresses. By the time a piece like "Genius Food for Super Heroes II," with its introspective feel, undulating bass interludes, myriad time-signature changes, and trumpet hooks that sound like something out of The Buena Vista Social Club, rolls around, it seems par for the course. The amazing thing is that none of these stylistic excursions sound forced: the finesse with which the band capers through its protean repertoire plays a large part in unifying Genius Food—and believe me, "caper" is the right word: the playful character of the band's performance, even when delivering a serious political message, is downright inspiring. The third reason why Genius Food for Super Heroes is likely to turn heads is that it's just so damn well-arranged, and furthermore well-produced (which is a pleasant surprise, given that the band engineered and mixed it themselves). From the trumpet licks on "Followaduby" to the gliding bass and trap-set rhythms of "Oh Shizzney," Macpodz's execution is flawless; Jesse Clayton's keyboard work employs a diverse range of tones and textures without ever missing the mark; and the auxiliary percussion lines, when they arise, are well-integrated into the mix. The lyrics, while not anything terribly riveting, aren't anything to scoff at either (it's actually refreshing to hear a band referring to circulated material espousing their own opinions as propaganda), and there's really nothing glaringly out of place on this record. It does an admirable job of guiding the listener through the rabbit holes that make up its bewildering sonic landscape. Lush, daring, and despite it all incredibly solid, it's a wonderful record and a more accessible one than I ever could have imagined. Arborweb.com & Ann Arbor Observer The Macpodz "Jazz for Dancing" We invented this style called disco-bebop," one of the Macpodz tells the crowd during a Blind Pig show not long ago. There's a lot more to it than that, but if you have to sum up the Macpodz, you could do worse than that description. The name points to the group's unique accomplishment: they've gotten people dancing to jazz again, and that hasn't happened for quite a while. The Blind Pig crowd dances, bobs, and claps, led into the music by long introductions that add layers of rhythm as a piece develops. The beat can go from disco to rock to funk to the place where soul and rock rhythms met in the early 1970s in the music of Sly and the Family Stone, and some of the music veers into irregular meters. The crowd isn't fazed. "If you can get the time signature of that, you win a prize," says one band member, keeping the crowd physically engaged with funk bandleader calls like "I want everybody in the place to get real low." Over the rhythms go jazz lines from trumpet, keyboards, and occasionally flute. The harmonies are dense, the rhythms angular, the tone sharp and edgy. The jazz element is serious: this isn't jazz improvisation slipped in around the edges of dance music, but fast, furious stuff. This band challenges its audiences while making them dance, and that hasn't happened for a while, either. To pull that off, the group inserts doses of retro sounds. A parade of 1970s effects goes by in the music, awakening immediate recognition in anyone who was around to hear them the first time. Jesse Clayton's keyboard array is loaded with vintage instruments of the era, and there's a lot of Miles Davis's jazz-rock fusion in the music. In fact, with those big dance beats, the Macpodz seem to be trying to pick up where Davis left off when death cut short his attempt to reconnect jazz with popular dance music. But this is not a retro act or a group of fusion revivalists. I went to hear the Macpodz again at the Neutral Zone, where the young people dancing and crowding the stage were more than a decade away from being born when some of these sounds came around for the first time. The high energy level, the driving quality of the music is of today, not of the cosmic-quest 1970s, and the strong following the Macpodz have among local kids makes a good reason to check them out all by itself. Surprises keep on coming in a Macpodz show, and no two pieces are alike. Trumpeter Ross Walker blows a blast on a giant seashell, and the celebratory mood of the crowd gets deeper as the evening turns into morning. The music of the Macpodz has the feeling of something limitless, as jazz ought to when it's good. And there are very few places other than Ann Arbor, with its strong tradition of jazz playing among young people, where the band could have arisen. Something uncommon and valuable is happening here. The Macpodz are at TC's Speakeasy on Saturday, February 3; at the Blind Pig on Friday, February 9; and at a benefit for the Behnke family at the Pittsfield Grange on Friday, February 16. —James M. Manheim |
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