Franzschubert & The Schuubs

Originally an in-studio only project, Franzschubert was created in 2002 by musician/composer Andrew Lipke and visual artist/musician Ian Jarvis as an experiment in genre bending, goofiness and modern music. Our unabashed collaborative spirit allows us to explore any of our favorite of musical styles and influences, while our work ethic guides us to maintain consistency and a unique sound. We call it "Friend Rock"… we figure that just means it's such fun music that you'll want to hang out with; maybe buy it a beer? Your call. After weeks and months of writing and recording, we had "BUMP!," our first album.

We played it for some friends and gave a unch of cds away and when the demand became enticing enough, we formed a band with a handful of Philadelphias most talented musicians. We dubbed them The Schuubs (pronounced SHOOBS) and off we went to play an ever increasing number of incredibly fun, inspiring shows. We keep it local, playing mostly in Philly when not working on recordings, but we've played at most of the important venues in Philly, even landing what became a nearly 2 year residency at the famous World Cafe Live. We'd bust out limbo sticks and hula hoops and encourage the audience to do tricks and play games, all for the love of the party and perhaps some Skittles or a Reeses. Occasionally we'll invite the audience to stump us with a cover song we've never played before… we call it The Great Schuub Challenge. This evolved out us playing as long a show as possible, often up to 4 hours without a break, and filling time with extended jams and a wealth of covers – from unkonwn favorites to Top 40 hits – interwoven with all our original material.

After a few years of playing around town and in NYC and NJ, Andrew and Ian returned to the studio to record the second album, which dropped in 2007: Little Lamb-O's Birthday Party. This album is a semi-conceptual piece represented by a thru-composed instrumental broken into 4 parts and dispresed among the individual songs on the album. On his 21st birthday, Lamb-O, a 2-headed lamb (Ian), wishes for he and his barnyard pals (Andrew and the Schuubs) would become human for his birthday. The wish comes true in an anthropomorphic sort of way and they go on to have a really awesome day. The music on the album unrelated to the concept aspect is a continuation of our exploration of various genres and influences.

Over the past year, the band has taken a hiatus for mostly personal reasons, but we come out of hibernation – playing so tightly, it's as if we'd never spent a day apart – to rock some gig or another. We love playing together; straight and simple and we will continue to do it until it stops being enjoyable.

Andrew and Ian are in the development stages of the 3rd album that is going to take the sound further than anything up until now. We have some very interesting plans for the next album… it is going to get very interesting.