Anthony Joseph & The Spasm Band - Rubber Orchestras (Heavenly Sweetness) info | mix 1 | mix 2
Bio Ritmo - La Verdad (Electric Cowbell) info | mix
Charles Bradley - No Time For Dreaming (Dunham/Daptone) info | video
Garage à Trois - Always Smile but Stay Evil (The Royal Potato Family) info | interview
Lucas Santtana - Sem Nostalgia (Mais Um Discos) info
Mr. Chop - Switched On (Now-Again) info & discography
Ocote Soul Sounds - Taurus (ESL) info | remix
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra - World Of Funk (Ubiquity) info | interview
The Greg Foat Group - Dark is The Sun (Jazzman) info | interview | mix
The Natural Yogurt Band - Tuck In With... (Now-Again) info | mix | interview

Mushroom / Pat Thomas
(Interview by Mr. Moo, for Paris DJs - summer 2011)

Mushroom, the only one worthy of a well-deserved name, is a very potent band...

Originally from The Bay area, home of the freaks, this rather instrumental combo channels every style there ever was in progressive music: californian psychedelic, electric jazz & funk, kraut-rock, afro-beat, avant-garde, ragas, garage, british folk & jazz, soul, prog & space-rock.

Read the in-depth interview
Download Mr. Moo presents Mushroom mix pt.1

Paris DJs Soundsystem presents Steven Bernstein - A Trumpet's Life pt.1 (MP3 Podcast on www.ParisDJs.com) 2011-08-31 I distinctly remember discovering Steven Bernstein's incredible trumpet playing and arranging through one of his bands, Sex Mob and their album Din of Inequity, which included some John Medeski featurings and hard-to-believe covers of Prince, John Barry, Paul McCartney and a few others. It was the end of the 90s and France was as lost musically as it is today, with musical ignorance reigning supreme. Things have been slowly evolving thanks to independent medias such as Paris...

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey - The Race Riot Suite
(CD/2xLP/Download) Kinnara Records/The Royal Potato Family, 2011-08-30

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey will be releasing at the end of this summer their 21st album release entitled The Race Riot Suite on Kinnara Records in partnership with the Royal Potato Family. The Race Riot Suite was written by Chris Combs for the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey quartet (Brian Haas piano, Chris Combs lap steel, Josh Raymer drums, Jeff Harshbarger bass) plus horn quintet. In January 2011 the band recorded the piece at Tulsa's hallowed Church Studio with guest horn players Jeff Coffin (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, Dave Matthews Band), Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob, Levon Helm), Peter Apfelbaum (Hieroglyphics, Don Cherry), Mark Southerland (Snuff Jazz) & Matt Leland (a founding JFJO member).

Amazing US keyboard player Marco Benevento is living up in the country with frogs and snakes and the Woodstock moon, workin' on a mad genius new studio album to be released sometime late next year!! In the meantime, lots of shows are on the horizon (check out the complete entry to this free track to access the full tour dates). Marco sent us this free track for the collaborative Paris DJs mix #300 but missed the spot by just a few days... It's a Galt McDermot cover, you've heard the original already in the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair AND it's been sampled many times. It should get...

Grayson Capps - The Lost Cause Minstrels
(CD/Download) The Royal Potato Family RPF 1107 , 2011-06-07

Grayson Capps‘ fifth studio album, The Lost Cause Minstrels, is set for release June 7 on Royal Potato Family. The 11-track effort finds the Mobile, Alabama-based singer-songwriter coming of age. This doesn't mean, however, that his often unholy tales of the Southern Gothic have lost any of their sting. Quite the contrary, Capps' Tao-tinged, philosophical reflections-revealed deep inside songs shuddering with spit, stomp and snarl-are as potent as ever. Listen no further than Highway 42, No Definitions and Rock N Roll to hear that Capps cedes no quarter. It's just that this time his bark and bite is more accepting of the unanswered questions mucking up the universe, while country soul textures and gospel harmonies ease the raw edges. The Lost Cause Minstrels is the highly anticipated next chapter from one of the finest Southern troubadours of the day.

Marco Benevento - Bene Live April 2011
(Free Digital Live Compilation) The Royal Potato Family, 2011-04-28

Have we ever told you how much we loved Marco Benevento keyboards playing? Many times over? Yeah you might be right. To sum it up one more time, there's been John Medeski and now there's Marco Benevento. Musicianship of the highest order!! Today we have FREE MUSIC for you, nine jams culled from Marco's three-day april run a few weeks back in Greenfield, Collinsville and Asbury Park. Big thanks to Clinton "Cleantone" Vandais for recording and mixing this lil' sampler called Bene Live: April '11

Download it free here

Garage à Trois - Always Be Happy But Stay Evil
Featuring Skerik, Stanton Moore, Marco Benevento & Mike Dillon
(CD/LP/Download) The Royal Potato Family RPF 1104, 2011-04-11 (CD/Download) 2011-05-02 (Vinyl)

Garage A Trois was recently described by noted photographer John Margaretten as, "A transformative, punkalectic, pornographic seizure of sight and sound." Few descriptions have ever so perfectly encapsulated the modern day post-rock/freak-jazz super group. A force greater than the sum of its colossal parts, Garage A Trois features Seattle-based saxophonics master Skerik, Brooklyn-based sound-sculptor/keysman Marco Benevento, punk rock vibraphone hero Mike Dillon and New Orleans funky drummer/beat master Stanton Moore. After the success of the quartet's 2009 release, Power Patriot (also the band's debut with Benevento replacing original member Charlie Hunter), Garage A Trois headed to Studio In The Country in Bogalusa, LA (where masterpieces by The Neville Brothers, Stevie Wonder and The Wild Magnolias have been cut) to record with revered engineer/producer Randall Dunn (The Cave Singers, Sun City Girls and Black Mountain). As has become the band's primary focus in its current incarnation, a laser sharp focus was paid to capturing Garage A Trois' sinewy, fourth-dimensional, polychromatic instrumental songwriting. The resulting album, Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil, delivers from track to track exactly as its title boasts.

The Dead Kenny G's - Operation Long Leash
Featuring Skerik, Mike Dillon & Brad Houser
(CD/Download) The Royal Potato Family RPF 1103, 2011-03-15

If the moniker for the combustible punk jazz trio The Dead Kenny G's doesn't say it all at first glance, one listen to their new album Operation Long Leash quickly makes intentions clear. Saxophonist Skerik, bassist Brad Houser and drummer/percussionist Mike Dillon are committed to musical subversion of the highest order. Exploring a muso obsession of musical styles and sonic colors, The Dead Kenny G's have both the courage and the chops to realize their wildest aural visions. One moment they draw inspiration from punk legends The Minutemen, the next finds them embracing the spirit of jazz giant Rahsaan Roland Kirk and still another speaks to the pull of indie rock progenitors Deerhoof; yet all the while sounding purely DKGs. To further that extent, it's not just music informing the trio's voice, but a keen understanding of political conspiracy in American history. The album's title, Operation Long Leash, comes from the clandestine CIA operation in the late ‘40s to fund Abstract Expressionism as a means for Western culture to undermine the rigid, confined and conformist ideals of the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War.

Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet - Live At The Triple Door
(CD/Download) The Royal Potato Family, 2010-05-25

Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet follows up the release of their classic 2007 studio album Husky with the perfect companion piece, Live At The Triple Door. Multi-tracked at the venerable Seattle jazz venue, the band winds their way through seven torrid performances, including a rendition of Nina Simone's Mississippi Goddamn and a re-working of Sarah Vaughn's The Mystery Of Man, adapted from the poetry of Pope John Paul II. Long a staple of the Northwest music scene and a revered underground jazz cult figure around the world, tenor saxophonist Skerik adds yet another jewel to a one-of-a kind discography that includes acclaimed works by bands ranging from Garage A Trois to Critters Buggin to The Dead Kenny G's. Featuring Skerik (Tenor Saxophone), Craig Flory (Baritone Saxophone, Clarinet), Hans Teuber (Alto Saxophone, Flute), Dave Carter (Trumpet), Steve Moore (Trombone, Piano, Electric Piano, Bells), Joe Doria (Organ) & John Wicks (Drums)