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Vagrant Records Recording Artists
The Goats
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Releases - "The Goats" (Released July 2005)
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Up from the ashes of several historic Seattle bands rise
(Note:Not to be confused with the critically acclaimed hiphop group of the same name.) A Little (Pre) History The Goats originally consisted of Ed Portnow on drums, Micheal Dowers on guitar/theremin, Art Behrman on bass, and Jim Sadler on keys and samples. Ed comes from solid punk back ground. He was a primary motivating factor in the infamous metal/punk/artcore band, the Dehumanizers, Ed also has been in The Manatees. Michael (a rock star of the Seattle folk scene) joined Ed in The Manatees in 1999. Sometime in 2003, they simply ran out of energy and dematerialized. He and Ed agreed to continue to meet and work on a series of tunes that Michael had been developing over the years. This would become The Goats. Currently, Micheal Dowers has since moved on to other things, but he was replaced by Coby Jackson in 2005. Some Revisionism Lead singer, guitarist, and alleged songwriter Coby Jackson arrived in Seattle in 1999 chasing an MFA in creative writing, which he has yet to hunt down and subdue. He began playing guitar in order to be able to teach his infinitely more talented son. He purportedly started writing songs a few years later, and was accosted by Ed one day in 2005 while sitting on the hood of someone else's car, strumming his cheap guitar. In the meantime... Ed played with his jazz band, The Bastards of Jazz and the side project with label owner Erik 4-A called Monkeys With Machine Guns. This is how Jim Sadler came on board. He joined The Goats in the late summer of 2004 after being in many Seattle bands including Vis-sVis, Sex Therapy, The Flyin' Saucers, Go Man Go, The Deep End, The Mercury Four he also currently plays with The Soul Proprietors About that same time, Art Behrman a very long time freind of Ed's, had been doing time in the indie rock/pop/emo ghetto. Art has been in early line ups of the art-rock bands Engine Kid, Bare Minimum, Fairgrove, and Tableland. Thru the years he's played shows with the Jesus Lizard, The Spinanes, Crain and Shiner. He would be the final peice of the puzzle and make The Goats line up complete. The band now consists of; Continuing our Story... In November of 2004 The Goats entered Studio Litho with engineer Floyd Reitsma (Dave Mathews, Supersuckers, The Manatees), who is another long time friend of Ed, at the sound board. They recorded basic tracks in two days and completed overdubs at staggered times over the next two weeks. The Goats are very proud to be featuring the sublime art work of Jim Woodring (Bill Frisel, the Grifters) on the cover. Currently they are working on new material recorded at Studio V for future release. The Goats believe that this Music is made by people who have to make music for the sake of making music. It is both Art and Enjoyment wrapped into one cool package for your listening pleasure. Q: What exactly IS a Goat? A: A goat is a stubbornly omnivorous herbivore. A goat is the traditional sacrifice to an angry god. A goat is something belonging to someone that can be got. A goat is very tasty. But most importantly, a goat is a single member of a band called The Goats. Q:Alright, smartass. What kind of music do The Goats play? A: The Goats began as sort of an instrumental jazz rock band, but have rapidly become something a little harder to define. Goats songs reflect the deep roots connecting the different branches of American music. We strive to take elements of traditional, blues, bluegrass, folk, and rock and then filter it all through a deranged pop sensibility. Every Goat song is like a paper clip‹just ever so slightly bent. Q: When did the Goats first form? A: Well, billions of years ago a tiny particle weighed trillions of tons and was very, very hot. It exploded, sending a shower of energy, matter, space, and something called ³chi² outwards. After millions of years of cooling, some of this material coalesced into The Goats. The rest became the Dave Matthews Band. Q: That explains a lot. Just who's in The Goats? You got a bass player? A: What kind of half-assed emo band do you think we are? Of course we got a bass player. Art Behrman's played in the Seattle area since 1985. He's proud to have participated in the bands Pat Riot, DSML Mach III, Engine Kid, Bare Minimum, Kaz and the Pony Mob, Butterknife, Fairgrove, Table Land, Vegas In Flames, Americantabby, Andrea Maxand and both incarnations of the Goats. He looks forward to continuing his service to the World through music and dreams of one day having a dog named Messiah. Q: Uh-huh. You say you WERE an instrumental band. So who you got doing that caterwauling you call singing? A: Lead singer, guitarist, and alleged songwriter Coby Jackson arrived in Seattle in 1999 chasing an MFA in creative writing, which he has yet to hunt down and subdue. He began playing guitar in order to be able to teach his infinitely more talented son. He purportedly started writing songs a few years later, and was accosted by Ed one day in 2005 while sitting on the hood of someone else's car, strumming his cheap guitar. In moments he turned into a Goat and the rest, as they say, is history... Q: So this Coby dude is the dude writing your songs? A: No, those duties are shared by the Coby dude and the other songwriting dude, the Jim dude. Keyboardist and songwriter Jim Sadler has been musical since childhood. He played in his first rock band in 1973 (he was six months old at the time). His main influences back then were Greg Rolie, Jon Lord, Ian MacLagan and Keith Emerson. Since then he's played keyboards, guitar & bass for Mercury 4, The Soul Proprietors, The B*Hives, and spent his spare time cobbling together home studios, recording unpopular music, and refusing to grow up. Q: Any chicks in the band? I DO like the ladies. A: Almost. You see, Mo Tucker was this really cool drummer for The Velvet Underground... Q: WTF! You got Mo Tucker? A: Calm down, calm down. We DON'T have Mo Tucker. But Mo Tucker was a chick, and we can dress our drummer up as a chick if we get him drunk enough‹same thing. Ed Portnow started playing drums in grade school and by sixteen was playing at clubs. At nineteen Ed went on his first U.S. tour with seminal punk band The Dehumanizers, going on to make several albums with them and tour extensively. Since then, Ed's recorded and/or performed with many other bands and artists (U2, Soundgarden, Butthole Surfers, the Circle Jerks, The Ventures, Link Wray), including most recently The Manatees and The Bastards of Jazz. Q: Couldn't you have just said your names and been done with it? A: How dare you! We've had it with all these questions! Q: Dude. FAQ. A: Well, FAQ you, too! Q: (sigh) |
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