A three piece band — two dynamic and innovative sax players and a drummer who can run a baseline beat through a crowd and drive a feverous pitch from even the most hardened audience — Moon Hooch. If you haven’t heard them, you haven’t heard a new sound in the music scene that’s still being developed… still being written, still being created… they have not reached their crescendo and yet they launch each performance with a musical climax that sustains itself straight to the end, leaving their audiences spent, exhilarated, exhausted, euphoric like addicts looking for their next high while still tripping off their current experience.
This is a group that made a name for themselves on the subway platforms of New York City and is now touring coast to coast. What I can tell you about their sound is this — Recording technology can’t capture its energy, its vibrancy or even come close to squeezing their distinct sound and dynamic range onto tape or press it into a CD… Hear them live or miss the experience all-together, but know that you’ll have forsaken a new wave in music that will vibrate and rush your soul.
From their website: www.moonhooch.com
"Horn players Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen do this by utilizing unique tonguing methods, or adding objects — cardboard or PVC tubes, traffic cones, whatever’s handy — to the bells of their horns to alter their sound. Not to be outdone, drummer James Muschler gets swelling, shimmering sounds from his cymbals, and covers the head of his snare with a stack of splash cymbals to emulate the sound of a Roland TR-808 drum machine’s clap.
"Wilbur was raised in Massachusetts, and Muschler in Ohio; McGowen grew up in several different European countries. The three met while students at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, and they found in each other a common work ethic and holistic philosophy.”
As one writer noted on their website, "Listening to this music, it’s easy to become emotionally invested...the emotional impact on both the musicians and their fans is visceral and undeniable.”
All photographs, Copyright 2014 John Whalen