Moon hooch
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 1:00 pm
I talk about gear more than music on here, and also fall into the trap of mostly discussing guitar-centric stuff when I do.
I thought maybe I'd start posting about some more eclectic stuff and see if people are into it.
Who here has heard of Moon Hooch? I found them 5-6 years ago through their excellent NPR Tiny Desk performance (what a deep well NPR is, I don't think they've ever featured someone who wasn't worth listening to at least once).
They're a sax/sax/drum trio who play stuff on a spectrum between funk, jazz, and dance music. They're all talented but their drummer looks and plays like a man possessed when he gets going and he's got an incredible touch and groove. He can pull back when they're playing unamplified shows with only the two saxes and lose nothing, and he can go nuts when they have a fully miked setup without ever losing the essence of the song.
I figured they might be something some OSG people could get into, especially since they have moments where they kinda channel a "Sonic Youth on saxohones" vibe - getting sounds other than notes out of their instruments, taping traffic cones into the bell of a sax, etc. They also have quite a few songs that really lean into a riff-based structure that you don't always encounter in woodwind-based music.
They're at their best live but also cut some interesting records where they are able to lean more heavily into the effects and electronic side of their sound, even including vocals occasionally. Still, a lot of their studio recordings like this one pretty accurately reflect their live sound, with only some doubling and octave effects added (which they use live too, when they're miked up and circumstances permit).
I won't turn this into a giant list of links - if you liked what you heard in either of the videos above, you'll like anything of theirs you can find on YouTube, Spotify or elsewhere. Happy to point in some specific directions if it's of interest to anyone, though.
I thought maybe I'd start posting about some more eclectic stuff and see if people are into it.
Who here has heard of Moon Hooch? I found them 5-6 years ago through their excellent NPR Tiny Desk performance (what a deep well NPR is, I don't think they've ever featured someone who wasn't worth listening to at least once).
They're a sax/sax/drum trio who play stuff on a spectrum between funk, jazz, and dance music. They're all talented but their drummer looks and plays like a man possessed when he gets going and he's got an incredible touch and groove. He can pull back when they're playing unamplified shows with only the two saxes and lose nothing, and he can go nuts when they have a fully miked setup without ever losing the essence of the song.
I figured they might be something some OSG people could get into, especially since they have moments where they kinda channel a "Sonic Youth on saxohones" vibe - getting sounds other than notes out of their instruments, taping traffic cones into the bell of a sax, etc. They also have quite a few songs that really lean into a riff-based structure that you don't always encounter in woodwind-based music.
They're at their best live but also cut some interesting records where they are able to lean more heavily into the effects and electronic side of their sound, even including vocals occasionally. Still, a lot of their studio recordings like this one pretty accurately reflect their live sound, with only some doubling and octave effects added (which they use live too, when they're miked up and circumstances permit).
I won't turn this into a giant list of links - if you liked what you heard in either of the videos above, you'll like anything of theirs you can find on YouTube, Spotify or elsewhere. Happy to point in some specific directions if it's of interest to anyone, though.