Shrimpanzee (The Early Years)
Documenting the early years of Shrimpanzee.
15
songs
605
plays
Opening Day (including Gentler Waves) Opening Day (including Gentler Waves)
This is the first song from the first Shrimpanzee album.
Jack In The Pulpit Jack In The Pulpit
one of the earliest Shrimpanzee recordings. 4-track all the way. who would've thought you could record jazz with a drum machine???
Flying Waves Flying Waves
an early collaborative effort: John Moore wrote the music, Joe Blanchard wrote the lyrics.
Catatonic Republic Made Happy Catatonic Republic Made Happy
jamming out with glee for the benefit of our catatonic republic.
Show all (15)
Shrimpanzee (The Early Years) is basically a historical document covering the early recording years of a fantastic band. Many of these recordings were done with minimal equipment and technology.Band/artist history
John Moore (aka johnmoore, E Minor Oswald, etc) started Shrimpanzee in late 2002 as a bedroom project. The earliest of these recordings were done with a Fostex 4-track incorporating live instruments and vocals (and sometimes old computer programs fed into the 4-track... having no proper recording software at the time... ).
These early tracks consist mostly of John Moore alone performing all of the instrumentation, vocals, sound effects, recording, editing, and mixing. Other key players came in gradually, beginning with Joe Blanchard who wrote many great songs including "Spaceship Gentlemen", "I'll Have To Go", "Empty Flask", and "Sarah Jeanie".
Soon, John was joined by Daniel Cowlin (friend since 6th grade, playing in in various projects including Starving Artists... also responsible for coming up with the name "Shrimpanzee"), who contributed guitar, bass, and sound effects.
There were 3 original Shrimpanzee albums recorded in 2003 (!): Shrimpanzee Volume 1, Shrimpanzee Volume 2, and Orange.
A fourth compilation appeared in early 2004 entitled "Shrimpanzee Oddities" which consisted of outtakes and random gibberish.
In 2004, Shrimpanzee began to take on the form of a "proper group" when John and Dan recruited Kevin Wright on drums. This line-up was the first to perform live under the name Shrimpanzee. Within a few short months, Kevin left the group and was replaced by former Repulsion and Publife drummer Dave Hollingshead (aka Oily Dave, Dave Grave, and Oily Grave, among others). This line-up is considered to be the "classic" live line-up of Shrimpanzee by many historians.
Shrimpanzee took a break during 2005, reconvening in early 2006 for some great happenings:
1st- Shrimpanzee was joined by the amazing Andy Turpen (formerly with Dissonance, MuSH, the Midget/Hippo Gag, Uncle Meat, and a slew of other off-the-wall projects) on vocals and sound effects. This group had a massive amount of potential, but with everyone involved living quite far from each other (and eventually out of state), the group sort of evaporated.
Andy Turpen moved to Georgia, helping out with with ex-Uncle Meat cohorts in Zappa tribute band "Ugly Radio Rebellion" (knowing Mr Turpen, he will has a thousand more projects up his sleeve ... Dan Cowlin continued to pursue music with his group "Trick Of Shadow" and has moved operations from Ypsilanti, Michigan to Asheville, North Carolina. He also contributes to the southern branch of Ugly Radio Rebellion alongside Mr Turpen.
John Moore's obsessive compulsive nature has allowed him to take on a list of other projects including Nomeus Music, Uneasys, and his own solo work under the name "johnmoore' (and sometimes E Minor Oswald). The current whereabouts of Dave Hollingshead is known, but what he is up to is a mystery.
Joe Blanchard hasn't been heard from in over a year, but we sincerely hope he is well and continuing to write and record his own original music.
The future of Shrimpanzee is unknown, but it will probably come back. It usually does. We've tried to snuff it before, and it always comes back in some form or another.
Dig it!Have you performed in front of an audience?Shrimpanzee has played live, yes. We loved it, and most of those moments were special. One stand out occasion was when the 4 piece Shrimpanzee opened for Ween drummer Claude Coleman Jr's group Amandla.
Also many great shows at It's A Grind Coffee House (aka the Mug Shot in it's final days...R.I.P.).
Your musical influences
The Beatles, Ween, Mr Bungle, Gong, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, William S Burroughs, John Zorn, and a ridiculously long list of others.What equipment do you use?
Fostex, Fender, Yamaha, Zoom, Ernie Ball, Hewlett-Packard, Peavy, Dunlop, TumsAnything else?
Write your congressmen to get Shrimpanzee back onstage!
Milford, MI
USA
ID
771917
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