Biography
Electric Junkyard Gamelan is the brainchild of band leader, composer and instrument builder Terry Dame. Performing original groove-driven music on self-invented instruments this highly original band has a distinct voice that is at once both old and new. EJG performs at a wide range of venues from festivals to arts centers large and small, elementary schools to underground raves. The list is ever growing.
Originally inspired by the interlocking rhythms of traditional Gamelan music from Bali, today the group is a true world fusion project. With influences from tradtional gamelan, eastern modal styles and West African drumming fused with American funkiness they produce hypnotic melodies and syncopated strings riding over funky bass lines and layers of interlocking rhythms. They perform on Dame's innovative instruments such as the Rubarp and Big Barp (electric rubber band harps), the Sitello (an electric cello/sitar combo), the Terraphone (copper pipe horn), the Clayrimba (a three octave tuned clay pot "marimba") and an arsenal of percussion instruments fashioned from old farm equipment, turntable platters, saw blades, and truck springs. The result is a super original sound that is new yet familiar. Audiences are transfixed by the beauty and strangeness of the unusual collection of instruments on stage and the amazing array of sounds they produce.
The musicians in EJG hail from diverse musical backgrounds. Band leader and composer Terry Dame, a saxophonist by training has studied music from around the world including Indonesia, the Middle East, the Balkans, Brazil and India. She has been living and working in New York City since 1985, composing and performing for film, video, theater, dance, and concerts. She was the music director, composer and saxophonist with the seven piece global beat jazz group Monkey on a Rail from 1998-2002 and a founding member of the improvisation trio Trophy Wife . She was composer in residence and saxophonist with Jennifer Miller's New York based Circus Amok from 1994-2004 . Ms. Dame was also a member of Gamelan Dharma Swara, the traditional Balinese Gamelan based at the Indonesian Consulate in New York City from 1999-2007. She is currently saxophonist with several NYC bands including Paprika, Brooklyn's acclaimed all-female international dance music band, Zapote led by bassist Dawn Drake and Squeeze Rock led by Julian "Julz A" Hintz. She was an artist in residence at HERE Art Center in New York City during 2003 & 2004 and has received commissioning funds from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Rockefeller Foundation, New York State Council for the Arts and the Meet the Composer Fund. Dame was selected in 2006 to be a Sundance Institute Composer Lab Fellow.
She met Julian Hintz aka Julz A, a singer, hip-hop accordionist and classically trained percussionist while in grad school at Cal Arts. Mary Feaster, Lee Frisari and Dame met while playing together in the Circus Amok Band. Feaster, also a member of the trio Trophy Wife is a bassist that plays everything from punk to funk, Latin to klezmer. Frisari is a classically trained percussionist and punk rock drummer.
EJYG has been performing together since 1998. They have two releases to date including a live album "Live from HERE" released in January 2007 and their self-titled debut released in 2002. Their new record "Get Your Barp On" is due out in June of 2009.
Here is what the critic's say about the group
"Electric Junkyard Gamelan makes music so original
they had to invent their own instruments to play it.
It's wild enough to please fans...regardless of genre."
--Global Rhythms Magazine
"transporting...beautiful and inspired sounds"
- --Village Voice
"...rhythmic, near-hypnotic music."
--HX Magazine
"Electric Junkyard Gamelan makes music that is the product of a highly personal vision, and Dame's originality is alone enough reason to come check out the Big Barp in person."
--James Heflin, Valley Advocate
"Terry Dame is one of those eccentric musicians for whom composing isn't enough, she has to create new instruments as well. A downtown fixture."
--Time Out New York
"a scattered mix of foreign music that mixes jangling and banging with worldly sounds. The EJG definitely knows what it's playing. It never feels disjointed or awkward, but always feels out of this world; at times natural, earthy..."
--Michael Levy, New Haven Advocate
"Dame has created a panopoly of homemade instruments that are not only visually fascinating but sonically stunning."
-- Iris Hiskey Arno, The Rivertowns Enterprise
"...powerful, mesmerizing and ever changing."
--Ellie Covan,
Founder/Director of Dixon Place, NYC
Electric Junkyard Gamelan Venues played
Abundance Ecovillage - Fairfield, IA
Amazing Things Art Center - Framingham, MA
Amherst Unitarian Meetinghouse - Amherst, MA
APT – NYC, NY
Barbes – Brooklyn, NY
Bennington College, VT
Brooklyn Arts Exchange - Brooklyn, NY
CafeNine - New Haven CT
Carabar - Columbus, OH
Casa Cantina - Athens, Ohio
CB's 313 Gallery – NYC, NY
Common Grounds Coffee House - Hastings On Hudson, NY
Chicago World Music Festival
Cleveland Bridge Project
Concord University, Athens, WV
CULTURE FEST, Appalachain South FolkLife Center - Pipestem, WV
Dixon Place, NY, NY
Donald L. Oat Theater - Norwich CT
Drom-NYC
Elastic Arts Foundation - Chicago, IL
Feet to the Fire Festival, Wesleyan University - Middletown, CT
Galapagos Art Space - Wlmsbg, Bkln
HERE Arts Center – NYC, NY
Hill's Country Inn - Callicoon Center, NY
Hillside Elementary School - Hastings, NY
Invented Instrument Festival - Hudson River Park Picnic House - NYC
Joe's Pub-NYC
JunkJam Festival - Mountaindale, NY
Langdon Street Café - Montpelier, VT
Le Petit Versailles Garden - New York, NY
Metro Gallery - Baltimore, MD
Metro High School-Cedar Rapids, IA
Modern Formations Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
Mojo's@RiverMusicExperience - Davenport, IA
Montague Bookmill - Montague, MA
Museum of Modern Art - MoMA Thursday Nights - NYC
New Bohemia Music Festival - Cedar Rapids, IA
One Longfellow Square - Portland, ME
P.S. 122, NYC, NY
Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton - Easthampton, MA
Performance Place" - WAMC Northeast Public Radio - Albany, NY
Puffin Cultural Forum - Teaneck, NJ,
Real ArtWays - Hartford, CT
Riff Raff Arts Collective - Princeton, WV
Ritual Café - DesMoines, IA
Roxbury Arts Center - Roxbury, NY
Scarsdale Public School - Scarsdale, NY
Shrine Bar - NYC, NY
Summer Fest, Staten Island Academy - Staten Island, NY
The Arts Center of the Capital Region Troy, NY
The Buttonwood Tree Art Center, - Middletown, CT
The Creative Alliance - Baltimore, MD
The Flying Monkey Art Center - Huntsville, AL
The Kitchen - New York, NY 10011
The Shelf - Columbus, OH
The Stone – NYC, NY
The Water Heater - Roanoke, VA
The Werehouse - Winston-Salem, NC
The Wildflower Café - Bethlehem, PA
Time & Space Limited - Hudson, NY
Vermont Arts Exchange - North Bennington, VT
Vintage Virginia Wine Festival - Centreville, VA
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
World Grotto - Knoxville, TN
Your Inner Vagabond - Pittsburgh, PA
Zebulon - Williamsburg,Bkln
Instrumentation
Terry Dame: Rubarp,Terraphone, Kachapitar
Mary Feaster: Sitello, Kacapitar, Big Barp
Julian (Julz A) Hintz: Clayrimba, Big Barp, Vocals, Gongs
Lee Frisari: Clayrimba, Pot & Gong rack
Discography
"Life On Marz" released September 2009
"Live From HERE" released January 2007.
Self-titled debut cd released in 2002.
All receive college and public radio airplay.
Links
| http://www.terrydame.com |
| EJG's myspace page |
| NY1 Television Profile |