Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
...Let’s play a little word association. I’ll say a phrase, you say the first thing that comes to your mind. Don’t worry. Nobody’s watching you. All right. Ready? Garage rock. What did you say? The White Stripes? The Strokes? The Vines? Well, forget about all of those bands because Jarvis Humby is better than the lot of them....
- rocknworld.com (Gary Schwind)
...full of chunky guitar hooks, swinging horns and incredibly catchy rhytms that dare you to stand still...
- LA Alternative Press
Hundreds of bands try to do the same thing as Jarvis Humby: soul-soaked, British-invasion style rock `n' roll...Unlike most of those other bands, Jarvis Humby hits every note on all cylinders....Go ahead and move a little, if it helps (it helps me), to the organ-bass interplay of "Oh Baby (I Believe I'm Losing You)."And even non-users might be compelled to spark one to the crackling guitars of "These Eyes." Easily the best record I've heard in six months. - New City Chicago
The young men in this British quartet must have had hip parents, because they take the listener on a tour of various 60s garage rock styles that were old when these blokes were born. The group serves up dirty white boy R&B ("Black Cat," "Oh Baby [I Believe I'm Losing You]"), melodic folk rock ("These Eyes," not the Guess Who song), psychedelic pop ("99 Steps to the Sun," "Let Me Take You There"), groovy instrumentals ("The 4th Man," "Badger") and, of course, no-frills rock & roll ("Formaldehyde," "Ain't No Friend of Mine," "We Say Yeah!"). Sure, this has been done before by a gazillion different bands, but Jarvis Humby stands out by virtue of its solid-to-great songs and the obvious glee it takes in performing them. - High Bias
Jarvis Humby and their CD "Assume the Position It's" are a great contemporary garage band who evoke images to me not just of the Kinks and Spencer Davis Group but of Northern Soul as well with great modern production tossed in. A great band and a fun listen that will have you pinning for the Carnaby Street of old in no time. Really great stuff. - The Rock and Roll Report
Discography
'Get on Board my Train' (single) Detour Records
Assume the Position It's...Jarvis Humby (LP) Acid Jazz/Hard Soul Records)
'These Eyes' (single) licenced for SUGARLUMPS, Acid Jazz/Hard Soul Records
'Let Me Take You There' (licenced for Little Steven's Coolest Songs in the World) Wicked Cool Records
*as yet untitled* Hard Soul, early '06
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Jarvis Humby…
…started off as a no-holds-barred, harmonica-driven garage/beat quartet with more energy than an Olympic discus thrower bursting through the gills with androgen and strange and powerful juices. Mainly playing covers by the likes of The Birds, Bo Diddley, The Bare Facts, and Sonny Boy Williamson mixed in with a psychedelic medley of original work.
The band started getting offers to play all over England, and from London to Aberdeen the band began gigging their collective nuts off- adding a 60's soul influence to their music, giving it a wailing garage/soul feel slick with Mod sensibility, and incorporating more of their own material into the set until it was 95% original.
In the midst of all this, the band went through more personnel changes than the Tony Blair government, but serendipity prevailed, and their current lineup is far and away the most stable and talented that they’ve had for a long, long time. Thus reincarnated, they released a single on Detour Records that became the label’s top seller, and Jarvis Humby soon appeared on numerous compilation albums. Gigging became incessant.
A full-length album on Acid Jazz Records soon followed in April 2004, along with more appearances on compilation albums & a four track vinyl EP that has just been released and immediately got heavy airplay on Little Steven's Underground Garage nationwide radio show, earning the honour of having THREE tracks chosen as 'Coolest Song In The World This Week' by The Man Himself…an accolade not generally bestowed more than once.
Jarvis Humby was the only new English band that played Little Steven's International Underground Garage Festival at Randall’s Island on the same bill as such luminaries as Iggy Pop And The Stooges, The New York Dolls, Bo Diddley,The Electric Prunes, The Chocolate Watchband, and The Strokes.
The heavily praised album was released in the USA on Hard Soul Records, and Jarvis Humby toured stateside in February of ‘05.
Rumors have it that of a new album to be recorded in Boston this fall...with the help of some heavyweights, and a few doses of nitrogen, their early '06 release will top the airwave charts!
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