Banyan (band)
Encyclopedia
Banyan is an art rock
/alternative rock
band with heavy jazz
, funk
, and punk
influence, based in Los Angeles
, California
.
The leader and co-founder is Stephen Perkins
, who first played drums for Jane's Addiction
(1986–1991, plus later regroupings), and then for Porno for Pyros
. He co-founded the group with David Turin
. The core members of the band are Nels Cline
on guitar, Willie Waldman on trumpet and Mike Watt
on bass. Mike Watt also sings on some Banyan songs. Both Mike Watt
and Nels Cline
generally play only West Coast dates and at various times the band has had Rob Wasserman
on bass and Clint Wagner on guitar fill in when they are unavailable. Saxophone players Steve Mackay
and Herman Green, guitar player Calvin Newborn
, and bass player J. D. Westmoreland
have also joined the band during select live shows.
Los Angeles artist Norton Wisdom paints on a wet-erase board while the band plays, and the imagery he creates interprets the music much in the same way that lyrics might. To see the band in more than one performance, you will see some images that recur and some that are new, since the songs are compositions whose structure remains the same while there is also a large amount of improvisation
, in the jazz tradition.
The first EP featured Money Mark
as keyboardist labeled as the Freeway Keyboardist. The first album was engineered by the Dust Brothers
at their studio and produced by Turin and Perkins.
Notable guest appearances on the second album Anytime at All include Flea, John Frusciante
(both from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
), Martyn LeNoble
(Perkins' former bandmate from Porno for Pyros
), Rob Wasserman
and Buckethead
.
For their third album Live At Perkins' Palace
(named after the fact that it was recorded at Perkins' home studio, not after the live performance venue of the same name), the band reduced itself to a four-piece unit of Perkins, Watt, Cline, and Waldman.
Steve Kimock
sat-in with Banyan during their August 26, 2007 performance at the Riverview Music Festival in Chicago, IL.
In liner notes and personal conversations, members of the band cite Igor Stravinsky
and Miles Davis
as influences.
Art rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
/alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band with heavy jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, and punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
influence, based in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
The leader and co-founder is Stephen Perkins
Stephen Perkins
Stephen Andrew Perkins is an American musician and songwriter. A drummer and percussionist, he currently plays with Jane's Addiction and Hellflower....
, who first played drums for Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell , Dave Navarro , Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins . After breaking up in 1991, Jane's Addiction briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001, both times...
(1986–1991, plus later regroupings), and then for Porno for Pyros
Porno for Pyros
Porno for Pyros was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1992, following the initial break-up of Jane's Addiction...
. He co-founded the group with David Turin
David Turin
Emit Bloch is an American guitarist, songwriter and journalist.Emit Bloch is known for low fidelity recordings. Born to George L...
. The core members of the band are Nels Cline
Nels Cline
Nels Cline is an American guitarist and composer, currently the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco. David Carr of the New York Times describes Cline as "one of the best guitarists in any genre."-Career:...
on guitar, Willie Waldman on trumpet and Mike Watt
Mike Watt
Michael David Watt is an American bassist, singer and songwriter.He is best known for co-founding the rock bands Minutemen, dos, and Firehose; , he is also the bassist for the reunited Stooges and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan as well as many other post-Minutemen...
on bass. Mike Watt also sings on some Banyan songs. Both Mike Watt
Mike Watt
Michael David Watt is an American bassist, singer and songwriter.He is best known for co-founding the rock bands Minutemen, dos, and Firehose; , he is also the bassist for the reunited Stooges and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan as well as many other post-Minutemen...
and Nels Cline
Nels Cline
Nels Cline is an American guitarist and composer, currently the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco. David Carr of the New York Times describes Cline as "one of the best guitarists in any genre."-Career:...
generally play only West Coast dates and at various times the band has had Rob Wasserman
Rob Wasserman
Rob Wasserman is an American bass player, who has played with a wide variety of musicians including David Grisman, Lou Reed, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Bruce Cockburn, Van Morrison, Rickie Lee Jones, Brian Wilson, Elvis Costello, Mark Morris, Aaron Neville, Chris Whitley, Studs Terkel, Pete Seeger,...
on bass and Clint Wagner on guitar fill in when they are unavailable. Saxophone players Steve Mackay
Steve MacKay
Steve Mackay is an American tenor saxophone player, best known for his participation on The Stooges' second album Fun House.-The Stooges:Mackay was familiar to The Stooges from his work in Detroit's avant-rock pioneers, Carnal Kitchen...
and Herman Green, guitar player Calvin Newborn
Calvin Newborn
Calvin Newborn is an American jazz guitarist.-Career:He is the brother of pianist Phineas Newborn Jr. , with whom he recorded between 1953 and 1958. They also formed an R&B band, with their father Phineas Newborn Sr. on drums and Tuff Green on bass...
, and bass player J. D. Westmoreland
J. D. Westmoreland
J D Westmoreland is a jazz composer and performer.Westmoreland is a multi-instrumentalist mostly playing improvisations and eclectic compositions. Earning a degree in Theory and Composition from the University of Memphis, Westmoreland showcased his talent as a composer being awarded the Smit...
have also joined the band during select live shows.
Los Angeles artist Norton Wisdom paints on a wet-erase board while the band plays, and the imagery he creates interprets the music much in the same way that lyrics might. To see the band in more than one performance, you will see some images that recur and some that are new, since the songs are compositions whose structure remains the same while there is also a large amount of improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
, in the jazz tradition.
The first EP featured Money Mark
Money Mark
Mark Ramos-Nishita aka Money Mark is a producer and musician who has collaborated with the Beastie Boys many times. He also appears on the first Banyan album in 1997 as the "Freeway Keyboardist".-Career:...
as keyboardist labeled as the Freeway Keyboardist. The first album was engineered by the Dust Brothers
Dust Brothers
The Dust Brothers are the Los Angeles, California based, Grammy Award winning producers, E.Z. Mike and King Gizmo , famous for their sample-based music in the 1980s and 1990s, and specifically for their work on the albums Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, Odelay by Beck, and the soundtrack to...
at their studio and produced by Turin and Perkins.
Notable guest appearances on the second album Anytime at All include Flea, John Frusciante
John Frusciante
John Anthony Frusciante is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, record and film producer. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom he had been for a number of years and recorded five studio albums...
(both from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
), Martyn LeNoble
Martyn LeNoble
Martyn LeNoble is a Dutch bassist and founding member of Porno for Pyros.LeNoble started his musical career by playing bass in a Dutch punk rock band when he was 14. In 1989, he moved to Los Angeles and played with the likes of Thelonious Monster and The Too Free Stooges...
(Perkins' former bandmate from Porno for Pyros
Porno for Pyros
Porno for Pyros was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1992, following the initial break-up of Jane's Addiction...
), Rob Wasserman
Rob Wasserman
Rob Wasserman is an American bass player, who has played with a wide variety of musicians including David Grisman, Lou Reed, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Bruce Cockburn, Van Morrison, Rickie Lee Jones, Brian Wilson, Elvis Costello, Mark Morris, Aaron Neville, Chris Whitley, Studs Terkel, Pete Seeger,...
and Buckethead
Buckethead
Brian Carroll , better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music. He has released 34 studio albums, four special releases and one EP. He has performed on over 50 more albums by other artists...
.
For their third album Live At Perkins' Palace
Live at Perkins' Palace
Live at Perkins' Palace is the third record of Banyan, founded by Stephen Perkins. On this disc, Stephen decided to take the legion of musicians from Anytime At All and cut it down strictly to a quartet...
(named after the fact that it was recorded at Perkins' home studio, not after the live performance venue of the same name), the band reduced itself to a four-piece unit of Perkins, Watt, Cline, and Waldman.
Steve Kimock
Steve Kimock
-External links:** at the Internet Archive's live music archive* at the Internet Archive's live music archive* at Internet Archive's live music archive*, San Francisco, April 3, 1999*, Unofficial Fan Forum...
sat-in with Banyan during their August 26, 2007 performance at the Riverview Music Festival in Chicago, IL.
In liner notes and personal conversations, members of the band cite Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
as influences.
Discography
- BanyanBanyan (album)Banyan is the debut album from Banyan, founded by Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros fame, and David Turin. This record is dedicated to Marc Perkins...
(CyberOctave, 1997) - Anytime At AllAnytime at AllAnytime at All is the second album from Banyan, founded by Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros fame, and David Turin. This is a unique record in that it features nearly two dozens players, half of which are well-known. Like their first album, this one is dedicated to Stephen's...
, (CyberOctave, 1999) - Live At Perkins' PalaceLive at Perkins' PalaceLive at Perkins' Palace is the third record of Banyan, founded by Stephen Perkins. On this disc, Stephen decided to take the legion of musicians from Anytime At All and cut it down strictly to a quartet...
, (Sanctuary, 2004)