Biography
Not On Mars is a quintet from Madison, Wisconsin hell-bent on defying the conventional wisdom that jazz groups don’t rock, rock groups only play three chords, and jam bands can’t write a tune. You could call Not On Mars an electric jazz band, an instrumental rock band, or even a jam band and be correct, yet the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts and any single one of those labels fail to fully describe the band’s style. The music is instrumental, somewhere between jazz and rock, and always deeply rooted in funk. While most purists would be hard pressed to call Not On Mars a jazz group, the band likes to cover a few jazz standards by the likes of Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, and Freddie Hubbard, reworking the tunes with new instrumentation, funk and hip-hop beats, and dramatic solo sections. As a rock group, Not On Mars appeals to those listeners who’ve grown bored with the mainstream and want to be challenged a bit by their rock n’ roll. Not On Mars will prove that jazz can be music for dancing and that rock can be every bit as disciplined and intelligent as any other kind of music. Perhaps it is easiest to say that Not On Mars performs music that is louder than jazz, and smarter than rock.
Many Wisconsin music fans will see some familiar faces when they go to a Not On Mars performance. Guitarist Greg Dalbey has played many shows as with Wisconsin’s own originators of “slopgrass” Sloppy Joe, the ubiquitous Unkle Pecos, and the fantastic psychedelic/southern rock group The Country Funkins. You may know bassist Jed Heckman from his involvement with Madison based Hue, the cinematic rock band The Spirit Plane, or the outer space psychedil-folk of UFO Jim. Jed initially joined the group as a guitarist, eventually moving to bass when the band's founding bass player left the band. This move made room for the addition of Aaron Hanusa to the group. Aaron had previously been involved with Madison bands such as Logarhythm and The Sugar. Keyboardist Dylan Heckman was a founding member of the blues/rock band Northbound Train, which gigged incessantly throughout Wisconsin from 1997 to 2001. Drummer Chris Marr spent several years building his chops in the fertile music scene of Colorado’s ski towns before moving to Madison and finding the perfect band to showcase his deep groove, multi-genre versatility, and fluid rhythmic sense.
You can find videos of Not On Mars on YouTube by using this link:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=not+on+mars&search=Search
Instrumentation
Greg Dalbey - electric guitar, vocals
Dylan Heckman - B3 organ, rhodes, clavinet, synth
Jed Heckman - electric bass guitar
Chris Marr - drums and percussion, vocals
Aaron Hanusa - electric guitar
Discography
Not On Mars is currently in preproduction for their first full length studio album. They have released several full-show live recordings for free download via their official website (notonmars.com) and the Internet Live Music Archive (archive.org/audio/etree.php).
Video footage uploaded to Youtube can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=not+on+mars&search=Search
Links
| http://www.notonmars.com |