EASY STAR ALL-STARS
BAND BIO FEB 09

Combining musical versatility, instrumental prowess, beautiful vocal harmonies and a superb rhythm section, the Easy Star All-Stars have established themselves as one of the top international reggae acts since their live debut in 2003. They rock every crowd they play for, whether it’s to thousands at festivals or hundreds at club gigs and private events (like the wedding of NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s daughter). Thanks to their best-selling tribute album releases, Dub Side of the Moon (2003) and Radiodread (2006), as well as Until That Day (2008), an original EP, the Easy Star All-Stars have built a growing, dedicated fan base throughout the world, bringing together fans of reggae, classic rock, dub and indie rock into one big family. Their newest release, Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band, due in April, tackles the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in complete reggae fashion.

Originally formed in 1997 for Easy Star Records’ earliest recordings, the Easy Star All-Stars existed mostly as a studio entity until releasing Dub Side of the Moon in 2003. The group, which operates as a collective with a rotating cast of musicians and singers, was put together by Easy Star co-founders Michael Goldwasser, Eric Smith and Lem Oppenheimer. These three have directed and managed the band ever since. Goldwasser, as producer, musical director, arranger and guitarist, has been the man behind just about everything the All-Stars have done in the studio and on stage. He’s the one who spends months transforming songs by Pink Floyd, Radiohead and the Beatles into reggae tracks. As a producer, he has maintained a delicate balancing act by making albums that rock fans can embrace, without alienating the notoriously demanding hardcore reggae audience. Previous to 2003, the band made regular appearances in New York City, backing reggae legends Sugar Minott and Johnny Osbourne, and providing the live backbone for a celebrated tribute to Augustus Pablo. It wasn’t until Dub Side of the Moon’s tremendous success that a touring version of the band was assembled.

The other members of the Easy Star All-Stars, past and present, read like a who’s who of New York’s reggae, ska, dub and jazz scene. The core of the touring band has remained largely intact since 2003: Ras I Ray (bass, vocals), Ive-09 (drums), Kirsty Rock (vocals), Jennifer Hill (saxophone, flute) and Buford O’Sullivan (trombone). Menny More has handled deejay vocals since 2006. The current touring line up is filled out by Elenna Canlas (keyboards, vocals) and Shelton Garner Jr. (guitar, vocals), with either Justin Filmer or Marcos Ferrari handling dub engineering and sound. The band also rotates in Abou Diarrassouba (drums), Matt Bauder (saxophone) and Joanne Williams (vocals), depending on the tour. Other members of the collective—including vocalists Tamar-kali and Stephanie McKay, Groove Collective’s Jay Rodriguez, Antibalas’s Stuart Bogie, reggae legend Ranking Joe, trumpet player Pam Fleming (of the Burning Brass), deejay Dollarman, guitarist Junior Jazz, and keyboardists Ticklah and Jeremy Mage—all continue to make appearances or toured extensively with the group at one time. Michael Goldwasser still joins for occasional gigs, but spends most of his time in the studio working on the band’s musical output and his own outside productions for artists such as MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Corey Harris and Israel’s Hatikva 6.

The Easy Star All-Stars—in any combination of members—have been a resounding success. The band has played at major festivals and headlined shows in over 20 countries on 5 continents. Their worldwide album sales have surpassed 250,000 units since 2003, with Dub Side of the Moon spending over 5 years on Billboard’s Reggae Chart. MOJO picked Dub Side as the second best cover album of all time. Radiodread spent almost 2 years on Billboard’s Reggae Chart and earned praise from the members of Radiohead themselves.

 


Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band

The Easy Star All-Stars’ albums Dub Side of the Moon (2003) and Radiodread (2006) have become two of the best selling reggae albums of the decade, each developing a massive grassroots following that has helped spread word of this unique band. The band has played in over 20 different countries and is scheduled this year to make their first trips to Australia, Japan and Russia. They’ve graced the stage at some of the world’s premier festivals, and in 2009, they will make their first appearances at Glastonbury, the 59th Annual San Remo Festival (televised on Italian national TV), and the East Coast and West Coast Blues & Roots Festivals in Australia. With so much on the horizon, including the band’s latest entry in their tribute album series—Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band, a reggae re-imagining of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album—due in April, the Easy Star All-Stars’ story is about to get even more interesting.
The focus of the Easy Star All-Stars has always been on the process and the music itself, not the nightly re-creation of a frozen moment in rock history. First, Easy Star co-founders Eric Smith, Lem Oppenheimer and Michael Goldwasser make the decision on which album will get the Easy Star treatment. Then, Goldwasser, the producer, musical director, arranger and guitarist for the group, painstakingly transforms arrangements of the source material into reggae style; the goal is a musical melding at the genetic level, not just a parody with a summery beat. The band itself, which operates as a collective, with a rotating cast of musicians and artists contributing, also has plenty of original music (check out Until That Day, an EP released in 2008). The individual band members are involved with outside projects, from solo albums to producing other bands to being side men and women for a diverse group that includes Glenn Branca, Dennis Leary, the Toasters, Antibalas, Inner Circle, Monty Alexander, Everlast and others. The collective personnel of the Easy Star All-Stars brings these disparate talents to the mix, combining inventiveness with instrumental excellence and pure fun to make each album and every show something much more than just a cover album gimmick. 
Having tackled the dark complexities of the human condition on Dub Side of the Moon and the depths of the human/computer/alien psyche on Radiodread, basing the next album in the series on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is both a logical choice and a departure of sorts. While it is widely credited as being one of the first concept albums (and therefore the stylistic predecessor of Dark Side of the Moon and OK Computer), Sgt. Pepper’s stands apart from both of those albums in that it is basically a collection of major-key pop songs, however odd they may be. Thanks to the first two albums, fans may associate the Easy Star All-Stars with the darker side of minor-chord reggae, but they will soon discover just how good the group can be when handling brighter material. ESLHDB also gave Goldwasser the chance to stretch out his arrangements, finding ways to emulate the ground-breaking production of the original. As with the first two albums, Goldwasser stayed true to the lyrics, melodies and chord changes of the songs, envisioning as if the songs had been written by Lennon/McCartney (and Harrison), but had been recorded in Jamaica under the influence of reggae.
“With Dub Side, we translated Gilmour’s guitar solos into more traditional reggae elements, like a deejay toasting,” explains Goldwasser. “On “Paranoid Android,” [from Radiodread] we transformed heavy guitar solos into trombone lines. Here, we went in the opposite direction. We embraced rock elements such as guitar solos, as well as conventional string sections, and more exotic instruments such as sitar and tabla. In doing so, we pushed the boundaries of traditional Jamaican reggae, just as the Beatles had stretched popular music when they made the album in the first place.”
As with the previous records, Goldwasser brought in a who’s who of reggae, dub and dancehall greats to contribute guest vocals. Steel Pulse, Matisyahu, Michael Rose (Black Uhuru), Bunny Rugs (Third World), Ranking Roger (English Beat/General Public) and Luciano are the most recognizable names; longtime Easy Star collaborators Sugar Minott and Frankie Paul continue their powerful associations with the group; U Roy (a founder of deejay toasting), Max Romeo and the Mighty Diamonds are among the other veteran guest artists sure to generate anticipation amongst staunch reggae fans. Members of the Easy Star All-Stars, including Kirsty Rock, Menny More and Junior Jazz, finish out the impressive list of lead vocalists.
“This process was made all the more interesting by these artists’ lack of familiarity with the songs,” says Goldwasser. “They knew the Beatles, but most knew the hits and didn’t know ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ or ‘Within You Without You.’ This added newness to each interpretation that was essential to making these songs work on their own and not just as cover songs.”  
The members of the collective that Goldwasser tapped for this project included the main rhythm section that had supplied the music for Dub Side of the Moon: Victor Axelrod, a.k.a. Ticklah (keyboards), Victor Rice (bass) and Patrick Dougher (drums/percussion), augmented by Eddie Ocampo, who was one of the band’s main drummers from 1999-2000. Also involved were active touring members of the Easy Star All-Stars, including Ras I Ray (bass, vocals), Ive-09 (percussion), Jennifer Hill (saxophone), Buford O’Sullivan (trombone), Pam Fleming (trumpet), and Tamar-kali (vocals). Goldwasser began arranging the album in August 2007 and recording commenced in May 2008, with overdubs layered in at Goldwasser’s and Ticklah’s studios and from Victor Rice’s home base in Sao Paolo, Brazil (where Radiodread had been mixed in 2006).
Now that the record is almost out, Goldwasser and the Easy Star All-Stars are looking forward to bringing the new material to the stage, as that always adds nuances and twists to Goldwasser’s arrangements. Plus, they can look forward to a favorite game of the band’s fans: suggesting albums to tackle in the coming years. “We’ve got a short list of finalists at this point,” says Goldwasser. “But part of the reason it takes us years between each of these is that we spend so much time analyzing every prospective album. It drives us a bit crazy, but we get a good record in the end.”

 

http://www.myspace.com/easystar

Here is a E card for Easy Star All Star

You can view and download it here:

http://liamkirtley.com/easystar/

in the folder is a video that you can download by right clicking and saving file as...

it's called EASY_STAR_SGT_PEPPERS_WEB.mp4