Symphony Orchestra

Rock and roll super group – a group of musicians who are well known in other groups, or simply stars that merge into a single entity, such as comic book heroes X-Men or The Avengers – has a long history in rock music. The super group Blind Faith was formed by guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker giant of Cream, with Steve Winwood in traffic. Clapton also worked with the legendary Allman Brother Duane Allman and super drummer Jim Gordon to Derek and the Dominoes, who took the classic rock album ‘Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs form. “Often

to jazz musicians from different groups (which are great solo artists and their own) will gather and make great music. This is not always the case. Large groups of performers – who used to work alone or be the “star” – can sometimes be less than the sum of their parts, such as collision egos and the group as a bad basketball team, where everyone wants and no one score to pass or play defense. Koko Dozo, is a dream team. Each member of the group, polarity / 1, Rubio and Amy Douglas, is a factor, with the entire group using the skills and talents of each member. Again, there are conflicting egos. Quite the opposite happens, like the members to provide support and encouragement for each other. The group debut ‘Illegal aliens, “Koko Dozo shows that individual and collective expression may merge into one, and – like a good jazz band, baseball team or this year’s Boston Celtic – can be something big nog than the sum of its parts.

[Mark Kirby] What kind of music was played in your homes when you were growing up?

[Polarity / 1] I started with the recordings of my father. My earliest faves were Cab Calloway, Tito Rodriguez and other salsa music, Elvis, James Brown, Chuck Berry, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Then came radio and TV shows like American Bandstand, Soul Train and the Ed Sullivan Show.

[Rubio] My parents were fundamentalists and has gone through this period of fear of having a secular music at home, so for a while ‘we had nothing but this old to with 8 tracks with Pat Boone and Christian album of Bob Dylan. No, I am not making this up. I used to stay nights just surfing the dial on this crappy transistor radio I had and absorb everything I could get my ears.

[Amy Douglas] I come from a family that played instruments. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to parents who liked the music a bit “to have. My father was jazz – Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Brubeck, Duke, Bird and Diz, etc. – so my love of jazz from him and my grandparents. My mother was a big fan of artists like Carol King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Jim Croce and Elton John (still one of my personal heroes, until now). He was also a big fan of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Philly soul, and everything Gamble and Huff touched, from Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes to the Spinners and everyone in between. She loved black music in general. Rolling Home was also strong growth, Aretha Franklin, who was my first influence on the opening of my head and wailing away, and Stevie Wonder, who was one of my biggest influences of all.

[Mark Kirby] What incident or moment in your passion to perform or otherwise get into music?

[Polarity / 1] When I was in high school I discovered Brazilian music, Appalachian folk, Eric Dolphy, 16th century Japanese court music, Bob Dylan and Mahavishnu Orchestra. My thing with Dylan made me buy a guitar, so I could get my anger at the hardships of life on earth. Within weeks I was stupid to protest songs about important political issues I never bothered to read and write.

[Rubio] I had a passion for music until I remember. I used to go nuts even if a child apparently. I started lessons at age four. When I was 11, I made a decision to formally dedicate to music. I was classically trained on piano and organ as a child. As a teenager I started heavy metal and prog rock and things like that.

[Amy Douglas] I think growing up as a child in 1970 served as a constant source of inspiration and as a catalyst. Alone to play music continuously for my parents, “and then on television or radio, it seems that almost everything has affected me. But if I narrow down to a few moments to choose, I’d say Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life,” Chaka Khan to see the Soul Train, seen everywhere Bowie on TV, hearing all the Beatles album, and much more important, listening to Led Zeppelin, my favorite band of all time. Among the TV shows Soul Train, Midnight Special and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, there was no shortage of good stuff to draw. I think the combination of all this stuff heard as a child was like a bomb. Sure, I take almost all my visual cues from Donna Summer, P-Funk and Chaka.

[Mark Kirby] Describe your musical background. Do you formal study in school? Or take lessons?

[Polarity / 1] When I was 14 I bought a plywood guitar with a book of songs chords diagrams had, and then I I started writing my songs. A few years later, I took some lessons and learned to make major and minor seventh chords so I was a bit ‘jazz and bossa nova flavor to add to my songs.
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I have a semester at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, a move that was strange was that I could not read music and my brains are not functionally connected to ‘formal learning. But I could write notation a bit “and tried to prove I was worthy Berklee by hot-dogging the homework projects – like scoring an arrangement of Monk’s” Epistrophy in 7 / 4, “which nobody could play. album that was rescued a few years ago when I saw 7 / 4 thing for Pete McCann and Gregg Bendian to play “Muntoni Revenge” on polarity / 1 “Speechless.” nailed it pretty fast. What was good about the year at Berklee was that although I can not learn a normal way, [with] what they were throwing at me, I was able to sort of “see” all these concepts as agreed schedule features and voicing. Everything came in handy much later, when I unexpectedly very complex things without “knowing how” and be taken seriously. In that sense, I had a very real musical training.

[Rubio] I took lessons until I was 16, mostly classical music. When I was younger, we have a deal where I got free lessons in exchange for benefits Kawai, their instruments on display in malls and conventions. Because of this I had a training performance as well. With my 17th birthday I played full time with bands and earning my keep.

[Amy Douglas] I started making music since he was six years old. I discovered I could sing when my elementary school teacher, my mother a letter saying, “Ask said Amy to try before you sing.” My grandmother taught me first piano, and from there I took lessons. From 6 th grade on, I was one of those disgusting “Music Concert Big School Kids . I began to study music theory in the medium and I had a lot of credit by the State of New York, won the Louis Armstrong and scholarships Study Eubie music and then he went to jazz theory and composition studies at New York University. UUUUUUGH. < , br />
[Mark Kirby] What were some of your first musical experience?

[Polarity / 1] My first experience with traveling in the middle school were great antidotes for bad looks and bad conversation-starting skills. Making music was okay, except for a period that I had a real lesson about where my strengths and weaknesses were. My songs started in folk and rock. Then you jazz and funk. I would then like elements of the late John Coltrane, Mingus and Mahavishnu bring. So I created a group containing all of the jazz guys instead of folk-rock that is more [cool ly] – except that I was not that type of player with that kind of training. Since my only interest was for the guitar songs, I had chops and could not do much on instrumentals the other guys were writing. It was a serious jazz / metal guitarist. So I shot out my band. It triggered a movement in a radically different direction, where I had to start from scratch and what my creative process was a commitment to this and get in my way yet to discover. And with that kind of focus, I discovered that many different things I really well with my personal vision and the method and developed big chops them.

[Rubio] It’s been a rough 11 to 16, because I really had to disappear into a hole and Hibernate to switch from organ to piano, and will live at all during that period. It was a clear case of withdrawal. My first few rock bands were rough, too. I was nicknamed “Wendel” because this was the first Gomer Pyle TV show’s name. I’m sorry to say that when the name fit perfectly. I was more than a little naive. “I am very grateful for that time, however, because I learned very quickly.

[Amy Douglas] I got my first live pro at age 12 and did my first Pro Session on 13. I told my parents that I wanted to go school. From then on it became darker. My first concert was at a dinner, a club on Long Island Pro. One of the dishes of steak and shrimp, I sang a mix of classic jazz standards and disco. It was an explosion.

[Mark Kirby] Describe your individual musical journeys of the first bands to Koko Dozo.

[Polarity / 1] I started writing songs until I joined the SIM (Studio for each Media) department at Mass Art (Massachusetts College of Art) when I Cage, Xenakis , George Crumb, Joan LaBarbera, Steve Reich and others to discover. I took a decision not about the melody, harmony and rhythm in a way that seemed to songs or jazz. And because I am also an artist at that time, the art scene locations planned for this new direction. So my visual stuff and music writing, but I re-channeled into performance art and experimental theater and choreographers to compose. I also formed a vocal group called Impact entirely improvised performance voice, that voice changed in abstract words, free association lyrics sounds, rhythms and harmonies. Then I moved to New York and am obsessed with the groove. I studied African percussion, samba band played and it was one thing hip-hop with rapper DAV called Medicine Crew. Hip-hop was an easy transition because I was already in loops and collages, but in an abstract way, and my job performance poetry in a rap format. I was always in my throat since I was little – funk, salsa, African percussion, calypso, samba and reggae. A few years later I returned to songwriting and all that stuff together into songs and electronica when I Polarity / 1 was. And that led to film scoring and cooperation with Audioplasm Rubio, which led to Koko Dozo. And recently I circled back to the art world, scoring the Battery Dance Company and Quorum Ballet from Lisbon.

[Rubio] My first band I was in a state ruled with iron fist of the absolute tyrant and it was a real awakening. Those times were also very funny, of course. After a few years in my hometown of Winnipeg, Canada, I moved to Toronto for six years before coming to New York in 1997. I done just about every type of concert you can think of at that time, both live and studio.

[Amy Douglas] I had my constant gigging in bands ranging from funk rock. I was part of a group of artists known as the center of the “scene” Gay Corp.. I was [also] a part-time member of the band Squeezebox – Squeezebox recently a movie about this year’s Tribeca Film Festival – in fact my 20s or traveling, doing sessions or suspension by drag queens and getting into trouble.

[Mark Kirby] How the three of you meet and come together?

[Rubio] I had met Polar in 2003 through a mutual friend, a drummer named Curtis Watts, with whom we had a mutual interest in samba. We went out and began to work sporadically. In the autumn of 2005 we decided to study Polar complete redesign with my help and work on their projects. flourished, in our working together on some things in production, especially the soundtracks for documentaries, and a collaboration called instrumental Audioplasm.

[Polarity / 1] Rubio and I work for the album Heavy Meadow at the same time was working with Amy in her show “Red Hot Mama. He suggested that the three [of us] to come together to see if we can come up with something interesting.

[Amy Douglas] I had a show called “Red Hot Mama,” which was a rock vaudeville show, and I had hired Rubio keyboards, and we really have them. When the show folded, he introduced me to Polar, the two of them had a project called Audioplasm. I’m so glad Koko Dozo than anything I’ve ever done. We have together a super hot summer day in 2007 and realized we had a great capacity for incredible music based on our collective passions and influences that a dedicated group of Brazilian music, Afrobeat and Latin music to bottom, so we had a nice Brewin stew “for the time we started writing songs.

[Mark Kirby] How the name Koko Dozo get?

[Amy Douglas] At the risk of harm to me of myself a pat on the back, I had the merit of. my ex-friend had mentioned a project to bring advanced and threw Koko Dozo as a process name. When we think of names , I threw out there, and the boys were. I think it’s great. [my] ex-boyfriend has done so little to me while we were together, [so] at least he gave the band a great name. < , br />
[Mark Kirby] What is the concept of the band?

[Amy Douglas] ’s really great. First, the people forced to practically have to really listen to what we do and to help citizens who were indulged in and was reduced to a kind of lowest common denominator grow back some brain cells. Music is obviously a lot of fun, puts you in the mood te do some serious dancing and there is more than a healthy dose of silly swirling around in the mix. But actually hear the words and the feeling of general questions that we strijden the address and be doen in our songs, ranging from our distrust of our government, for the polarization of the culture in our home in New York City and a lot of other things. Our musical idea is to shrink the world, the Internet has made the world a smaller place and we wanted a way together to merge the cultures, languages, styles and influences in a way that reflects life in New York City, but rely on a truly global audience.

[Rubio] In Generally, Polar operates and how the drum and percussion elements. I come with ideas harmonics, most things play keyboard / bass-like tracks and mix. Amy is the voice of the project and manages melodies. Of course there is much overlap. There is a song that I arranged and produced (Boomchi). Polar and I each have a solo voice (“Kokodozonomics” and “the heart”, respectively). There are songs where Amy has the structure of rope and played keyboards. Polar is a very powerful and always push the envelope. Amy is very melodic and the tendency to make things that are catchy and mass appeal. I am a bit “in the middle.

[Polarity / 1] We have an attitude of open source music. Between us, we worked almost every category there are gender and feel no urge to limit where we go. Each song has a strong identity, but all sound like Koko Dozo. Conventional wisdom tells us that the way we work will ensure that we never find an audience. But we know that’s bullshit. The post-corporate online music business has done well for people to trust their intuitions about the music they discover. An extraordinary variety of people respond. We are reaching young minds electro, world beaters, dance club, boomers, electronica geeks, and Po-po-Pomo GIMPS gonzoid Noiz hairy-backed life in the basement of the basement on diets of sticky buns and butter and tip Penis jam sandwiches. Parents and children like us. And we write in different languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese) that extends beyond. We also have this whole bargain-basement atmosphere-space that makes things fun.

[Mark Kirby] What is the history behind the Sun Ra-like (a new word!) dress and alien mythology?

[Polarity / 1] Here is the story that we came from space and landed on Earth to exploit its resources – and for reasons that we prefer not to speak. We are the bottom flat universe where you carry around in the alley the day of garbage collection. What happened is the same galaxy where Sun Ra came.

[] Amy Douglas (laughs) Well. . . the word “alien” permeates much of what we do and we want to riff on the term. Alien, as he understands internally, is not feeling comfortable in your skin, feeling out of sync with the world around you, feeling like an outsider constantly. And we decided to really play with words, and we decided that the theme was space “alien suit us wackos pretty well! Also gives me an excuse to wear wigs and glitter, that I feel I was born to do.

[Rubio] We really wanted the fun back into music and madness. Too many projects take themselves too seriously these days, that’s ironic.

[Mark Kirby] Describe the writing, recording and production for this CD. You are all in the same studio at the same time?

[Polarity / 1] Since the works in my studio, I am sure the whole process. In general, Rubio and Amy leave me a track which I think would work for Koko Dozo. It could just be a sketch, almost entirely, or something in between. I would complete text (“Face on the dance floor”, “Kokodozonomics”) or only a vague idea for lyrics that Amy and I work (“Shine”). Or Amy and / or Rubio will be one of my tracks and turn it into a song (“Second Time, “the heart”). Sometimes Amy has a song and I build a circuit around its agreements, melody and atmosphere and help with the lyrics (“Down”). Rubio and Amy wrote “Boomchi” Rubio together and produced the track.

Rubio is the man with his ear to the engine. He comes in when a song is more or less defined and start tweaking things. Then add keyboard solos, bass and sometimes things more harmonically dense keyboard. keyboard parts that I need not big chops. Then comes Amy and vocal tracks. Rubio Rubio and mixed with the big chair. Joe Lambert teachers across Trutone Studios. He did everything on the polarity / 1 too heavy stuff and Meadow. Recently, Amy has played some keyboard parts.

[Rubio] On the recording we were all in general. I personally never definitively record entries when no one else in the room to give me a sense of perspective. Polar done a lot of editing on his own, but often this work has fallen to me. The mixtures were generally Polar and with me, and we roughs were sent to Amy for her input.

[Mark Kirby] What is your live show like? There is a full band?

[Amy Douglas] It’s a full-on party madness! We work as a trio, with the help of our songs and adding live keys and guitar, bass and drums.

[Rubio] I wish I had a live band, but now the conditions and logistics just do not. The three of us lives to perform, however. Polar plays drums electronic, guitar and percussion, keyboards, live sound and we all sing. We use So the versions of songs that are adapted to live shows, what you hear on stage is not necessarily exactly what you feel in the studio version.

[Polarity / 1] Our shows are fun for us, and I suppose the audience to watch grown men who just make funny noises and bounce around like homeless space mutants. Amy wigs and Viking helmet Rubio worth the ticket price. And look at my yarmulke psychedelic death-ray is a life-affirming way to resolve the Sabbath.

http:// www. kokodozo.
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