Eli Zephier & Jim Groth at Latitude 44
I am a transplant from Norway residing in the US. Growing up I studied music from age 7, and then majored in music at Heimdal High School in Trondheim, Norway.
In between all the theory, history and classical training, high school also meant parts in musicals, doing jazz ensembles, choral and chamber music, learning to play 3 instuments...and that's just a fraction of what was our curriculum...not counting any of the projects we came up with on our own!
In 1990, I crossed the pond to attend college in the US. I finished a BA in Theatre, but never went home thanks to a guy I met in Psych 110.
For most of the 90's, I fronted the alternative rock band Algernon. We played lots of places like the infamous Pomp Room, and shared the stage with acts like The Harvesters, House of Large Sizes, Kory and the Fireflies, Search For George, G.B. Leighton, Tim Mahoney, Janitor Bob And the Armchair Cowboys, and The Cartwright Brothers, to name a but a few. The Pomp Room became a parking lot, and Algernon kept going until we lost our drummer to a Norwegian redhead he had to marry. (So he ended up in Norway, but I'm still on the prairie...:-)
More recently I have spent 4 years with Signs Of Life, a folk-rock outfit.
I presently play with the Sock Orphans (with Svein, Ben and Julie) and we're sometimes billed as Eli & Svein, depending on the constellation of talent at the time...
I have also done about a dozen weddings, half a dozen jingles, and backup vocals for local acts like The Harvesters, Damian Marchand and The Scarbrough Affair.
This summer, I was a street musician in downtown Sioux Falls, playing at Latitude 44 and Michelle's, courtesy of DTSF, and loved every minute.
The audio samples in the music player are: "Building Something Good" which is a jingle I did for Media One/Dave Scarbrough, "It's Simple" and "I think I" by Algernon/Chez Tschetter, and "Painter", which is a rough draft of a song with lyrics by me and music by Svein Ola Sjovold.Thanks for stopping by! Eli
