Dhamba8

Back in the early 90s there was a big band stomping around Chicago, Champaign, Madison, MNPLS, Toronto and even New Orleans! When I say BIG I don’t mean they sold tons of records I mean they had a lot of players, 8, 9, sometimes 10. They had ambitious sound that covered a lot of territory and were fearless in their pursuit of music. ............................................................ ...................................................... Dhamba 8's Unreleased EP :In 1994 – 95 Dhamba 8 had a rebirth with an explosion of great songs and a killer line up to boot. Here are a few tracks, never released, that showcase that band which featured Jeff, Lisa, Mike, Ron, Bill, Dave, Dave, Dave and Dave,. ............................................................ ........................................................ A little ancient history (by Tunji, please feel free to edit or expand.) ............................................................ ........................................................A long, long time ago there was a band called The Facades. The year was 1985 and like many new bands they were a group of college students. Yes, you guessed it Architecture students, how original huh? Why do I mention this band? Because a skant 10 years later an idea hatched by 3 of The Facades led to the music you hear here and one of them, Mike Nicholls, was still a major creative force. If I remember correctly the first time I met Mike we got to talking about Fela Kuti. Mike was listening to him and I was stunned that one of my UI classmates had even ever heard of him. It would be many years before we tried to tackle a Fela tune but soon enough we were making music with Fred Brandstrader. I believe it was his idea to put together a band to play at a Thanksgiving Day Party, an annual tradition at the University of Illinois Architecture School at Versailles, France. We managed to scrape together some instruments and bash out classic rock n roll hits like "Louie, Louie", "Tequila", "Saw Her Standing There" and "Smoke on the Water". After university Mike, Fred and I formed the much more serious and original "Temple Blue" with Doug Klatt and later Fred's brother Bill. After a year or so of entertaining our friends in Chicago's small clubs it came to an abrupt end as Bill and Doug quit to form "Trick Zipper" and set off to seek their fortunes. It was then that Fred, Mike and I formed a plan to start a new band, bigger, stronger, groovier, a band that could morph and evolve, able to survive any one leaving or joining. That band was Dhamba 8.