"But if it isn't a band and it isn't a solo artist, what do you call it?"
Perhaps "collective" is a more apt description. Nah, I don't like that, either. Collective. It makes me think of a farm. And "project" is so neutered. It's what kids do on rainy days after school with construction paper and paste and plastic safety scissors ("What nice boys and girls you all are, with your nice, quiet project."). Ah, what the fuck! I don't have to have a name for it, do I? All you need is ears. The music is the music. Here are some of the people who make the music Brahms' 3rd Racket:
Adam Conway is the man.
The voice of B3R, he pulls the words off the page and blows them up in midair, building skyscrapers of meaning from mere consonants and vowels. Adam is certainly one of the most versatile singers I've met. His current & past affiliations include Marvin Tate's D-Settlement, Plushtones and The Punishment, spanning the stylistic universe from funk to art pop to full-throttle metal, his voice like some kind of shapeshifting hydra, morphing personas and idioms at will. He's also an accomplished voiceover artist. If you've ever been seduced by an impossibly dulcet baritone into buying a bucket of chicken or a $60,00 Cadillac, it was undoubtedly Adam who's to blame. You can send the bill to the B3R email address and we'll make sure that he gets it.
Neil Laferty is a six-string monster. Making his B3R debut on Highlights from the Peloponnesian Wars, Neil's
barbed wire solos and crushed velvet
shang-a-langs have added much balls and depth to the B3R palette. The dude paints equally colorfully no matter what the canvas, be it the progressive jazz vibe of the Scott Stevenson Quartet or the sophisto-pop sensibilities of Mabel Mabel. If given one ride in a time machine, Neil would press "1962," where he'd undertake an all-out mission to prevent the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd from ever meeting. He claims he'd do this even if it somehow set in motion a chain of events that would cause him never to be born. All the heart-pounding details shall be yours when you pay a visit to Neil's website, now fully accessible to time-travelers and the severely time-challenged, alike. To enter the portal, please click here:
www.neillaferty.com
Tim Mulvenna is my favorite musician. The guy can do anything. The list of great people he's played with is far too extensive to reproduce here (it would just sound like I'm name-dropping). Suffice it to say he's a lot of people's favorite musician. He played on both B3R CDs, supplying kit, mallets, percussion and a whole battery of hand drums - not to mention his invaluable input on the arrangements and recordings. You can hear Tim's stellar
rhythma-harmo-melodisms in action by checking out The Eternals, a real honest-to-goodness BAND in which Tim owns a 33
% share. Tim has a website, too. Here's how you get there:
www.timmulvenna.com
David Kemper (hey, that's me!) plays bass (well), many other instruments (not as well)
and compulsively records the things his imagination conjures as a tragicomic means of keeping the shittiness of life a safe distance behind him (it's gaining). Prior to being irreparably scarred by a long line of bands-gone-sour, he played with everybody who's anybody (most notably Nobody Who's Somebody and Anybody Who's Nobody). He's rung up quite a tab pursuing Brahms' 3rd Racket and his other artistic ventures, and is now rapidly sinking into a quagmire of indebtedness. He hopes to be fully submerged before the bank repossesses his ass and sells it at auction to a taxidermy college (or before he pukes from having to refer to himself at length in the third person, whichever comes first).
"Okay, Dave. Very cute. Now get serious. Give us the straight dope on why you're so squeamish about making Brahms' 3rd Racket a band. Come on. What's so bad about wearing matching pants?"
Well, shucks, I guess you've got a point, there, Skippy. I'm sure matching pants can be loads of fun. But since I personally don't relish having my individuality smothered beneath a sticky veneer of enforced group identity, I try not to smother anyone else's,
either. We're not the fuckin' Von Trapp Family Singers. I don't expect the people who play music with me to
bleed Brahms' 3rd Racket, to go shuffling down the street together with a big finger wave and a peppy B3R cheer…
So long, farewell, auf weidersehen goodnight!
Adieu, adieu, we're the Brahms' 3rd Racket crew!
I wouldn't ask them to shoulder the stupid debt I've incurred. We don't need meetings. Their Tuesday nights are their own. They can wear any kind of pants they want, or none at all. They've got other fish to fry, other musical stuff happening elsewhere, and that's cool. I write the music and produce the recordings. When I need other people I call 'em up and ask 'em. Yeah, it's not as sexy as five long-sideburned rakes in a rented van with a crate of edible condoms and some glowstick suppositories, but I get things done. Write it down: I get 'em done. Listen for yourself. But listen.
