Biomecca

Biomecca is a hip hop group that grew out of the small town of Jackson Hole. Spawning out of the freestyle sessions in cars outside high school parties at friends’ houses, a few started to write and record songs. Hef (Jeff Bedford) and Cwaz (Craig Williams) played their first show opening for Coolio at the Mangy Moose while still in high school (2004) with all their friends on the porch looking through the windows. At this time the two were collaborating with Brian “Cutter” James as well as other local DJ’s and emcees as well as other friends from their high school 101 (Jacob Ferguson) and Craft (Nick Cottingham). Eventually, Jeff, Craig, and Nick went on a trip to Bend, Oregon in June of 2005 with Cutter, Mike Thunder (Mike Sagan), DJ Vert-One (Rocky Vertone) and local legend King Weep (Chris Blank) who had such a big part in starting the local music scene in Jackson. They also brought another group from Seattle called The Educataz down for a show at Gibson’s pub which was one of the first all ages local hip hop shows in Jackson (first I donno-I mean there was the project blowed right?). At this point they decided to name their group Biomecca, a word that was created by their childhood friends Adam Dowell and David Cleeland as a meaning for ‘the center of life’. At this point everyone was going to college, Jeff in Arizona, Craig in Seattle, Jacob in Vancouver, and Nick in South Bend, Indiana. In 2005 they were playing shows around Jackson both at bars and doing all ages shows by themselves and opening for people such as One Be Lo who Cutter was bringing through town. Cutter took the crew under his wing and helped them with all aspects of setting up and promoting the shows around town.
At the time Craig was going to school at the Art Institute in Seattle for audio production and met another emcee, Jackson Wallace, and they started collaborating together with some other students and local musicians forming a group called Endangered Rootz. That project eventually stopped being developed and Craig, Jackson and Jeff (who moved to Seattle to pursue music) started working with another Jackson Hole native Twan (Anthony Harmon) who was going to school in Seattle for graphic design. They started developing a Biomecca album with Nick who set up a makeshift recording booth in his dorm room so that he could send songs back and forth with everyone in Seattle. Nick went to Seattle to record their album in the home studio of Seattle emcee Macklemore who is starting to tour extensively around the US and in Europe.
They finished up their album, which they entitled The Pilgrimage: (http://www.divshare.com/download/10629395-88e),
in the summer of 2006 and pressed it in time for there largest show yet opening up for the Teton Gravity Research premiere in the fall outside at the base of the old tram the last year it was up with snow coming down in classic Jackson Hole fashion. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GdDF0lGDyA)
They also brought Macklemore to play a set at the show and the Swollen Members from Canada played the after party at the Moose as well as doing the whole film tour with TGR. The album was brought together by the five Jackson natives and Jackson from New York, and they found producers from Seattle, as well as from Poland and Denmark to produce the instrumentals for their songs.
They began to bring other artists that they met through town including Grieves and playing shows regionally opening for Blackalicious in Salt Lake City and bringing other artists into Jackson including Del tha Funky Homosapien.
Nick was also playing shows out in Indiana with live bands and opening for artists including Brother Ali. Jeff, Craig, Anthony, and Jacob were also playing shows around Seattle and the Northwest. They also did a small stint in a couple venues in Wisconsin and Iowa with a group called The Crest. Biomecca was also starting to have their music featured in movies both locally as well as regionally and in random places like New Zealand. Jackson is nice in that it has a transient population and many tourists so people have picked up our music slowly over the years, as well as our friends going off to college and spreading it to their friends. They put out another album in the next couple years that was several songs recorded on gear they had acquired over the years called the Untracked EP. Throughout the years they have started to record, mix and master all of their own music, with Craig and Nick taking up most of the responsibility on that end. Craig has a degree from the Art Institute in Seattle in Audio Production and Nick has been going to the Art Institute in San Francisco finishing up a degree in the same field.
Though they haven’t put out any official music in the past several years, Biomecca has remained active, slowly recording songs on the side while working or going to school. Nick lived in Jackson for a while opening for Akil from Jurassic 5 and Souls of Mischief and playing other shows with Cutt