What the hell is a Slapbak?!?! Is it violent, like a smack down of retaliation? Is it sexual, like the sting of one good love tap to the ass? Is it musical, like the nostril-flaring splank of bass string to fret board? Or is it rebellious, like a middle finger to The Establishment for trying to dictate that genres and creeds never mix? If you checked E - all of the above - then you just copped an all-access pass to the hickory-smoke hideout of the stank funkiest band in the land... Slapbak!
Slapbak is the brazenly category-defying love child of singer/songwriter Jara Harris, who also happens to play drums, bass, guitar and keyboards extremely well. Hes a Mission Viejo native who has painstakingly nurtured his rainbow-shaded band through the sunniest of times to the pitch-black bleakest. This racially and sexually mixed sextet of funk-rockin show-stoppers has morphed through several permutations of membership to arrive - in 2005 - with both the master plan and the master band. The result is Slapbak's latest album, The Key: 16 tracks of cranium crushing grooves twisted up from the best that soul, metal, hip hop and the elusive "other" have to offer.
Slapbak is lead singer/bassist Jara Harris, guitarist Jeff "J-Rok" Harris, drummer Jeremiah and turntablist DJ Ruffnek. Jamming in a circle with all members facing each other, they push each other to dizzying heights of intensity. Leader Jara rocks the center, concealed by a cap as he effortlessly sings and serves his bass a serious thumpin. J-Rok wrings blistering runs and righteous rhythms from his axe. Ruffnek telegraphs beat back-up on a digital pad to his left while scratchin up a desert storm with his right. Jeremiah straight body slams his kit with a 2-n-4 you can set a Swiss watch to. As an impenetrable cipher, Slapbak hammers out a funk fortified force field thatll knock the uninitiated to its knees!
(Summer 2006)
Copyright © 2005 Slapbak. All Rights Reserved
EPK
SlapBak live at the Temple Bar 2007
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