Bonjour, Ganesh!

This latest installment of Bands in the Neighborhood is on Bonjour, Ganesh!, a nine-member funk and jam band. Here's what frontman Adam Rosenberg had to say. The band plays next on Saturday the 16th at Axum Level X Lounge (1934 9th Street, NW) at 10 PM. They even made a promo video!

How did you all come up with the band name?
It was the product of an elaborate Hindu-Catholic wedding. With Ganesh being the Hindu god of overcoming obstacles (not to mention a ubiquitous symbol giving us some great graphic design possibilities), we thought it would be an auspicious name for a new band.

How did the band form and get so big?
We multiply when we get wet. Just dont feed us after midnight! Just kidding. We emerged from a prior collaboration between guitarist Adam Roseberg and Bassist Mike Strauss. That was basically a straightforward rock band that morphed into something a lot funkier and groovier when drummer Matt Ling came along. Given the grooves we found ourselves playing, horns were just ringing in our ears, and we realized everything would sound better with brass. So we grew...and we grew and we grew...into a band called "Brian"!

How many members live in Columbia Heights? Whereabouts?
Myself (adam) and Sax player Mike Nilsson - he lives in Mt Pleasant. Bassist, Mike Strauss lives in Adams Morgan. Some others in Dupont and Logan Circle. One guy lives in Virginia!

Do you practice in CH? How about play any gigs in the neighborhood?
We practice at the Sitar Music Center in Adams Morgan and we've played a couple shows at Wonderland just for fun.

Working on any records?
Actually yes. We are recording at Inner Ear Studios with our engineer, Hugh McElroy. Hugh actually is a Columbia Heights native as well. He lives over on Otis I believe.

Gone on any tours? Any crazy or terrible tour stories?
Well, it is a stretch to call our New York show at Piano's Bar this summer a "tour". We're a band full of professionals...i.e., not professional musicians. So while we definitely have plans to play more out-of-town gigs, they'll have to be weekend trips parachuting in to particular cities. Given our backgrounds, we are an embarrassingly atypical rock band. As our sax player wrote us from his blackberry on the way up to the New York gig, "nothing says rock and roll quite like the Acela quiet car".

What’s your take on the music scene in Columbia Heights and in DC?
There is a lot of talent out front in DC, but even more talent lying just beneath the surface. A city known for its smart workaholics has a remarkably large number of extremely-talented folks who work too much to play in an organized fashion.

Luke Peterson (Keyboardist): I think every performing musician in DC probably knows a half-dozen non-performing musicians who are better than they are but just keep it in the closet. And every day I am thankful that none of them have made a sales pitch to the rest of my band, because B,G! is an extremely valuable and important outlet for me.

And if you had to rename your band for something Columbia Heights-related, what would it be?
Either Bonjour, Gentrification! or Bonjour, Hipster! or Julia's Empenadas - wait...is that last one already taken? Darn! - New Columbia Heights

Say hello to Bonjour, Ganesh!, a young local band that mixes the fun with the fanciful. The group features everything from horns and brass to rip roaring vocals in a blend of rock, ska, jazz and pop. Always optimistic, their music has the ability to transform the ordinary into something special and unexpected. Guitarist and singer, Adam Rosenberg, answers some of our questions with highlights and quotes from other Bonjour, Ganesh! band members.



Photo by Brendan Lilly

Photo by Brendan Lilly

You’re a relatively new band – how did you guys meet and how did you come to play the self-described jam, ska, jazz, rock and funk music that defines Bonjour, Ganesh!?

Mike Strauss (bassist) and Adam Rosenberg (guitarist/vocals) had been in the band “Must Love Trash” (MLT) together for a while. That band had done really well in DC; recorded an album and played shows in both DC and New York. The band broke up, but they remained very close and continued to jam. Jess Savage (lead vocalist) was a colleague of Adam’s and had sung a song with MLT for their farewell show and had originally been studying to be an opera singer. After that show, EVERYONE was talking about the guest vocalist (Jess) who sang with them so Adam approached her about starting up a new band. There was a close dynamic from the beginning.

“I knew going in that I wanted the horn section to be the main focus of the band. I’ve always been a sucker for horns because they just make people happy when you hear them live. Mike had wanted to get into more funky stuff and Colin [McCormick (trombone, slide trumpet, bass)] (who coincidentally had been previously playing bass for an unrelated, though confusingly named Adam Rosenberg’s band AND had gone to college with Mike) and Stratton [Edwards (trombonist)] joined on as the dueling trombonists. Megan [Brooke Scott (alto saxophone)] was actually Adam’s mentee in GW’s mentorship program by accident and once Adam learned she was an accomplished alto sax player, he signed her up. Matt [Ling (drummer)] had just moved to DC and had such a rich, jazz background that he would’ve made any band lucky to have him. Lucky for us, he picked Bonjour, Ganesh!” – Adam R.

Luke Peterson (keyboardist) had been working for Obama for nearly two years and was an accomplished keyboardist and was the missing piece. Once Luke came in and started playing with us, everything really started rolling.

Musically we all have different styles, but we also listen to each other. Not a single one of our songs sounds the same and that’s because you have someone like Matt (with a jazz background) and someone like Mike (with a funk and rock background) adding their influences into the song. Since we listen to each other and improv a lot, it never gets boring and everyone feels like they have a place.

“But as you can imagine, with eight folks in a band, influences are all over the map, and we’ve just been very lucky that, rather than generating creative conflict, that diversity has worked instead to layer on better and better ideas.” – Mike S.
I really like your song “Lazy Days” what was the creative process with producing that particular song?

“Lazy Days” is a great example of why I love this band. I wrote that song and couldn’t figure out the style I wanted to play it in. I knew I wanted Jess to sing it but wasn’t sure the type of style.

“This started as one of those songs that could have been played in any of about seven, radically different styles. We tried it as country, rockabilly, etc. But when we sped it up, heard what two trombones could add, added a bouncy bass line and then knew this would come out more like ska.” – Mike S.

The best part of the song, and something we think really shows our attitude on stage, is that midway through the song Colin switched from trombone to bass and Mike switches from bass to harmonica. It’s pretty wild!

Generally what happens is, Adam will come up with some lyrics and a basic melody and the rest of the cast will fill in. The horns and Jess really make this song. And once again, it’s something different than all the other stuff we had been playing, which at that point were mostly old MLT songs just redone with horns and with more funkiness.

“Like most of our songs, Adam started out with some great lyrics and a fun melody, and Mike, Matt and Luke gave it some structure while Jess rounded out the vocals. Meanwhile, the horns (Stratton, Meghan and myself) pretty much just screwed around while everyone else was doing the real work. Eventually Adam is going to figure out that’s what we’re doing, but we’re going to keep milking this until he clues in.” – Colin M.
How’d your last show in April at Velvet Lounge go? Any surprises or things you’d do differently?

“We were very pleased to see such a big crowd out there for the first show, and it was great to get back to the Velvet Lounge. In addition to having such a nice turnout, we felt like we showcased the new material in - District of Sound

When Bonjour, Ganesh! takes the stage at the Black Cat on Friday night, there will be three locals performing in the band: Adam Rosenberg, Colin McCormick and Luke Peterson live in Dupont-Logan. Most of the other members close by—Shaw, Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights and the West End/Foggy Bottom
Funk and Jam Band

The band describes itself as “a nine-piece funk and jam-band… featuring a four-piece horn section and a musical dynamic that keeps fans on their feet dancing the night away.” They produce much of their own material and cite Phish, Medeski, Martin & Wood, The Who, Tower of Power, Aretha Franklin, Talking Heads, Blondie and Pink Floyd as influences.

“It’s the first gig for Boujour, Ganesh! at Black Cat, although the band has played at numerous local venues, according to keyboardist Peterson. “We’ve played pretty much everywhere in DC that regularly has rock bands except Black Cat and 9:30 club… Velvet Lounge, Red and the Black, Rock and Roll Hotel, DC9 and Iota in Virginia,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg is the front man and vocalist/guitarist and is flanked by bassist and vocalist Michael Strauss. Peterson adds keyboards, Matt Ling is on drums and Dan Wagner is the band’s auxiliary percussionist. Bonjour Ganesh includes a four-piece horn section—”The StratPak”—featuring two trombone players (Colin McCormick and Stratton Edwards) who compliment trumpet player Mark Mossey and saxophonist Mike Nilsson. As if that weren’t enough members, Bonjour, Ganesh! will be playing their Black Cat show with a guest guitarist Mike Sager as well.

And the name? Peterson explains that Bonjour, Ganesh! comes from bassist Strauss’ “little black book of band names.” He said, “Mike has a file of band names he keeps from his world travels. I think he came up with this one at an Indian wedding in France. Either way it translates to ‘hello’ to the Hindu god for overcoming obstacles.”
Policy Wonks by Day

Not surprisingly for the neighborhood, the members of Bonjour, Ganesh! have day jobs that are closely tied to government and politics. “We are all adults with serious jobs—this is a creative outlet for the whole group,” Rosenberg explained.

Trombonist (and Dupont-resident) Colin McCormick has a PhD in particle physics and works in energy policy while two other members are lawyers and another is a law student. Peterson said that “seven of the nine band members have an unnaturally high degree of interest and interaction in government policy.”

Two of the band’s members (Wagner and Peterson) were full-time staffers on the Obama campaign from the primary season through to the general election while Sager was a full-time employee of the Democratic National Committee at that time. Two band members worked on the Obama inauguration committee and another was on the transition team. There is a lone Republican in the band, with one member assisting the 2008 McCain campaign. - Borderstan