OTiS & Freak Tent @ Sherlock’s, April 3r

As printed in the Showcase...
Backstage Pass:
Local Bands To Watch...Oct 28, 2004...
Otis Never fails. Audiences look puzzled when Otis takes the stage. There's Ryan McCall behind the drum kit, which is cool. And Frank Ferko stands with bass in front of a microphone, which is fine. But where's the guitarist? There has to be a guitar player, right? Well, no. Otis smashes conventions by playing out as a duo, just drums, bass and vocals. "We like the attention it gets," said Ferko. "The incredulity of people is funny. They don't understand what we're doing. They're like, "How can you do that?" And then we start playing, and they're like OK." Otis plays high-energy, stripped-down, hard-edged funk/rock that's so tightly constructed the group doesn't need a guitarist. Especially addictive: the hook-laden, fast-talking' "Nightmare of the Yeti" from their "Otis" CD, which proves they don't need guitars. "The guitar might be able to fit in here and there, but it'd be hard," Ferko said. "We've jammed with a couple of people where they tried to play with us, and there's just not many gaps. It's not that we're so amazingly good. We just learned how to play with each other and fill in a lot of gaps that would normally be there without guitar. It'd be almost redundant to have a guitar player in a way." Otis plays all originals, which also helps. When it comes to songwriting, Ferko said their unusual, rhythmic bass/drums approach is more freeing than restrictive. "It's not limiting at all," he said. "I like to think of ourselvesas uncontainable, in a way." It's working so far. Otis was accepted into Cincinnati's Midpoint Music Festival this past summer, and also won over fans during the Battle of the Bands at Sherlock's in early 2004. Ferko talked about the group --er, duo-- with Showcase.
HOMETOWN: Erie.
BAND MEMBERS: Frank Ferko, bass & vocals. Ryan McCall, drums.
THE INSPIRATION: Ferko and McCall started jamming together in 1996, after they met at the phone company (then GTE), where they both worked. They went through guitarist after guitarist before finally deciding to play with no guitar strings attached. "It happened by default, but it's also kind of by choice," Ferko said.
THE SOUND: Funkabilly. With just drums and bass, you were expecting metal? Cincinnati's City Beat described Otis as "Tenacious D on a funk trip, Stanley Clark doing stand-up." Ferko liked that. "Our songs are a little bit weird, on the humorous side," he said.
INFLUENCES: Les Claypool and Primus, Stanley Clarke(Ferko); Kings X, Dream Theater, Rush (McCall).
CDS: "OTIS,"(self-titled), the White Album, and Stroke of Genus, avaliable at shows and at Media Play. Also avaliable: "Linus," a trio with Ferko and McCall and a guitar player!
WHAT'S IN YOUR CD PLAYER RIGHT NOW?: "Nothing. We don't listen to CDs" said Ferko. "There's not much out I like, but I do like The White Stripes, Matthew Good from Canada, and Chevelle a little bit, and Beastie Boys. Ryan pretty much listens exclusively to satellite radio."
BAND YOU'D MOST LIKE TO OPEN FOR: "Freekbass," said Ferko, and not just because Otis gets to do so Friday at Forward Hall. They both played during Cincinnati's Midpoint Music Festival. "He's awesome. He puts on a hell of a show," Ferko said.
HOW DID YOU PICK OTIS FOR A BAND NAME?: "It's a name my father use to call me when I was a kid," Ferko said. "And because of the name thing in the elevator. Every time you ride in the elevator, you'll think of us maybe."
-Dave Richards
FOR MORE BAND PROFILES, visit www.rockerie.com. Click "The Scene" and "Local Bands to Watch."
From December 6th, 2007, Erie Daily Times, Showcase:
OTIS' FINAL FRONTIER
The Erie duo's motto: 'We play what you're afraid to imagine.'
BY: DAVE RICHARDS [email protected] [more details]
The band's motto sounds vaguely arrogant: We play what you're afraid to imagine. But bass player Frank Ferko of Otis says it's true. Instead of relying on covers or playing hand-me-down grunge, Otis creates an original aural universe all its own.
"Basically, what it means is we play what we're interested in playing," Ferko said. "It's a way of stating we're different, and we do stuff that's so completely different you really have a hard time understanding what it is until you hear it."
What they play is funky, hard-hitting, shape- and time-shifting progressive rock, which is remarkable considering most gigs feature just Ferko on bass, Ryan McCall on drums, and no guitarist. That said, Will Seline, a guitarist from Conneaut, Ohio, will join them for tonight's show at Sherlock's.
"Technically, we're still a duo, but we had Will play with us at the last Sherlock's show and it went well," Ferko said. "He's about the only one who fits with us, the only one who gets what we're trying to do."
With Otis introducing guitar to the mix -- and Ferko on six-string bass -- their evolving sound delves deeper into prog rock and is moving further away from Primus and funk-a-billy territory.
"Ryan has always been a more progressive-minded drummer. He listens to more of the progressive metal ... where there's odd time signatures and several different genre changes throughout the songs," Ferko said.
Case in point: "Dancing on the Tympanic Nerve."
"That's an off-time extravaganza," Ferko said. "That goes through about four different musical genres, but for some reason it works. It's just weird the way it fell into place.
"It goes from progressive, with the beginning, the tapping bass part, and then it goes into a funk breakdown, then back into the tapping thing, and a breakdown again. The third verse is where we hit the '70s funk riff. They all blend together, I'm not sure how we did it. It's kind of Ryan and his madness."Otis' friendship with funk/bass marvel Freekbass guided them to Cincinnati's well-regarded Midpoint Music Festival. They performed there from 2004-06, earning raves from Cincinnati City Paper's Mike Breen.
"They're the world's smallest prog band, but they fill the space inventively with explosive percussion and flamboyant, string-rattling bass playing, topped with the quirkiest of vocals and song structures that keep you guessing at every turn," he wrote.
Otis opens tonight at Sherlock's for Ill Fated, a Pittsburgh rock band influenced by Guns 'n Roses. Talk about an ill-fated double bill. Ferko has no fear.
"We're two completely different bands," he said, "just teaming up and having fun."
The skinny
Otis, Ill Fated will perform tonight at 10 p.m. at Sherlock's, 508 State St. Admission is $1. For more on Otis, visit www.myspace.com/otiserie.
Battle Of the Bands 2006 Tangent Magazine Then there was Otis, Erie’s resident machine-gun bass-drum duo. You really catch say Otis’ songs are catchy. Rather, they are more impressive. Frank Ferko’s bass work was flat-out bonkers. He strummed, slapped, plucked, pecked and killed his six-strong monster, creating a bubbling, gurgling, echoing and piercing sound. And all the while, he squealed nonsensical lyrics into the mic. That unfortunately took some spotlight away from Ryan McCall, who set the pace to the Ritalin-fused tunes. Of course, their stage presence was close to nil, which didn’t matter much because most people are home at that hour on a weeknight. But Otis isn’t really about packing a house, waving hands in the air, inciting crowd surfing and the like. Otis is a band to watch as opposed to being a band you mosh to. But the mosh option is available because some of Otis’ guitar-less tunes rocked harder than bands with three guitars. The Primus comparisons are obvious, and Otis probably hates hearing that. But it’s not that bad of a comparison when you go for a different and better sound using half the instruments of a normal band.
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