Music:
Member Since: 5/8/2006
Band Website: fidgetypiglet.tripod.com
Band Members: Captain Raab on guitars, bass, keys, loops, turntables, vocals, beatbox, frying pan, etc....
Plus various members from the Captain Raab Aansaamble, Red Earth, Phathom, The PF Squad, Count Spatula, etc....
Influences: MAN! WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN???
THE BEATLES started if for me in elementary school. I found the White Album in my parents' record stack on accident, it blew my brain, and within moments I was searching for a guitar and my doom was sealed... Then I found JIMI HENDRIX and my universe opened even further as I spent years trying to do what he did...
...but NOTHING warped my mind like the 3 F's: FUNKADELIC, FISHBONE, and FRANK ZAPPA!!! From the time I caught Fishbone on SNL in Jr. High it threw all the limits on genre and energy in music out the window. You can funk, thrash, play horns, skank, and dub and if anybody had a propblem with that it was their own fault! P-Funk took the funk and threw it to every edge of the universe and showed the full dynamic range of funk and how to play with that many people onstage at once while being able to hear all of them clearly. Frank took composition and scoring and showed the level of art you could infuse into everything and the only limits on your music is yourself!
I can't forgot to acknowledge the influence of great drum groups like Black Lodge Singers, Siksika Ramblers, Little Axe, and Blackfoot Crossing for keeping my culture in my music! Meskwaki Nation, Eyabay, Whitefish Bay... and all the great Muskogee stomp dancers!!! I also have to credit Jim Pepper for showing the right way to fuze traditional and non-traditional music without watering it down or nuetering it!
I grew up on hip-hop, too, so I need to credit the great Prince Paul, Kool Keith, MF Doom, ODB, and Dan the Automator for showing me that hip-hop isn't stuck into commercial regulation or creative limits!!! DJ Premier, Public Enemy, J-Dilla, RZA & Wu-Tang, Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Digital Underground have all influenced me...
Hip-Hop made JAZZ accessable to me, and once it blew the doors off I was primed for the late great Sonny Sharrock, Charles Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Jean Paul-Bourelly, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Sun Ra, Eric Dolphy, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago!!!
But the thing that did it for me more than anything is THE FUNK! I'm talking the real deal P-Funk, dirty, grimy non-glossy funk! Sly & the Family Stone, Larry Graham, Weapon of Choice, Cameo, JB's, Prince, D'Angelo, Me'Shell nDegeocello, Jef Lee Johnson, all that! Some people might call it a stretch, but old school Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Bobby Blue Bland, that's all funk to me. I'll even toss in modern African music like Ali Farka Toure and Tinariwen in the same school as Funkadelic.
I've even been leaning into classical music for the first time in my life: Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky, that stuff is great. And I grew up on Carl Stalling's cartoon scores, so that oddball orchestral stuff is rattling inside my noggen as much as anything.
That's not to say that I'm not rocking out... I've been influenced by Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, and Napalm Death, The Melvins, and Fantomas in the mix, too. I like the unclassifiable stuff like Mike Keneally, Bill Laswell, Los Lobos, Latin Playboys, Infectious Grooves... and I can kick it roots style like Junior Brown and Johnny Cash whenever I feel like it!
Hopefully I've confused you here. I think that's what you needed, wasn't it?
Sounds Like: SOLO PROJECTS:
"I Seem to Have Lost My Wallet"
"Membranez Detonating at Will"
"Membranez Dissolving on Cedar"
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GROUP PROJECTS
RED EARTH "Zia Soul"
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COUNT SPATULA "Optimus Spatulus"
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THE PF SQUAD "Got Funk", "Blast Your Ass", "Infestations", "No Annexation", "Grandiosity"
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PHATHOM "Nutt'z Happening", "The Gift of Crabs"
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Record Label: FIDGETY PIGLET
Type of Label: Indie
