The Sheep Fiends are simply the best group of musicians that I know.
I feel truly blessed to have the ongoing opportunity to make so much music
with this entertaining bunch. I would describe The Sheep Fiends as an
attempt to recalibrate a balance and a demonstration of a more immediate
social approach to music. The Sheep Fiends, like Jackson Pollock or Neil
Cassidy, bring a sense of the immediate, transient and spontaneous
subconscious into a modern musical form.
Considering The Sheep Fiends improvisational approach to composition, one
might expect the resulting music to degenerate constantly into chaos, going
nowhere, destination zero. Yet it contiues to delight me when a great song
manifests from the nowhere aether. We do not rehearse our songs as we only
play them once. If anything, this is our hook.
The Sheep Fiends project began just a few years before the internet, let
alone YouTube, became a thing. We live amongst the first generations where
the recording of music has even been possible and I appreciate having been
amongst the first to be able to explore the freedoms provided as technology
makes it easier to inexpensively record and share music.
As many musicians have been involved with The Sheep Fiends over several
decades, there are always a wide variety of genres being explored, though I
notice increasing gravitation towards more progressive rock sounds. The
Sheep Fiends Fiends explore a wide range of emotion, both light and dark.
Music being the cathartic expressions reflecting immediate dreams, joys,
hopes, concerns, worries and despair.
I do not find it surprising that a band like The Sheep Fiends came from
Chicago. Chicago has a rich history of improvisation across jazz, blues,
live comedy like Second City,
and improvisational theatre such as you might find done by
The Neo-Futurists.
Influences of note include: Black Sabbath, Can, Miles Davis, The Flaming
Lips, Genesis P-Orridge, The Grateful Dead, Hawkwind, Jim O'Rourke, The Orb,
Phish, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, The Smiths, The Velvet Underground, Wilco,
Neil Young and Frank Zappa.
The photo of me on this page was taken "On Stage" at the EMP Museum
in Seattle - kind of like playing Guitar Hero on steroids. This is not a
photo of me playing with the Fiends, but I think it is fun.
Enjoy, and remember, feedback is your friend.
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