The Show(case) Must Go On!

A A A Comments Thursday, Jun 19 2003

...continued from page 22

YO, FLACO!
NOMINATED IN HIP-HOP
During the past several years, Yo, Flaco! has gotten so much attention for winning or placing highly in several best-unsigned-band contests that its music has sometimes gotten lost in the shuffle. As a result, some people who think they know what the band sounds like from turning an ear to Goin' At It and Bring the Battle On, a pair of discs unleashed in late 2001, may be very wrong.

"We were listening to a lot of jazz at that time, so when I listen to those albums, I hear a lot of Wes Montgomery, a lot of Thelonious Monk," says Yo guitarist Brandon Martin. "We're still listening to a ton of jazz now, but I think we're listening more to hip-hop -- and the band fuses a lot of other genres, depending on what different bandmembers bring in. The scale is always fluctuating back and forth."

Mark Farina

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That's as it should be, considering the number of folks in the Yo, Flaco! Team: Martin is joined by bassist Wes Coplen, keyboardist Matt Piazza, drummer Seth Murphy, trombonist/conch-shell player Adam Bartczak, saxophonist Ethan Raczka, and Neil McIntyre on the microphone. Despite the size of this on-stage contingent, Martin feels that the act's disparate elements mesh in a cohesive way whether they're playing for hometown dwellers who've supported Yo, Flaco! since the '90s or out-of-towners who've discovered the band during one of its frequent tours.

"With as many hours as we've spent in a van together, all of our influences have melded together," he says. "Now they all come from the same place." -- Roberts