Vinyl Soup

Live at Two Stick with FREE PABST
Wednesday March 26, 2008


Tennessee Prog Rock, Jazz-Grass and Folk Jam:
Vinyl soup Hits the Road with Brandon and Travis

Tennessee isn't a state known for its prog rock, nor is the phrase "prog rock" often uttered in the same breath as folk and bluegrass music. The sound of Nashville's Vinyl Soup demands the use of hyphens, though, because a musical term has not yet been invented to describe what they do. Their name sums it up best: "Vinyl," as in nostalgia for the phonograph era and roots music styles; and "Soup," as in a melting pot of ingredients.

Vinyl Soup’s combination of roots music styles, instrumental virtuosity and psychedelic lyrics might draw comparisons to Up on the Sun-era Meat Puppets, Phish or the Grateful Dead, but the group takes its explorations to another level with tightly composed epic-length instrumental passages, Caribbean rhythms and jazz flourishes that display the group’s adventurousness as well as their chops.

Borrowing its title from a line in the road song "Down the 805," the new Vinyl Soup album Brandon and Travis returns again and again to the themes of confinement and escape, particularly escape through travel. The instrumental solos appear as journeys of the imagination, taking the listener on a phantasmagorical voyage that mirrors the restless yearnings of the characters in the songs.

The members of Vinyl Soup - Andrew Hooker, Wes Lloyd, Justin M. Smith and Dr. Chuck Brooks - are highly accomplished and schooled musicians, but Brandon and Travis is no exercise in academia; it marries top-flight musicianship with a creative spirit full of surprising twists and turns.

What one critic described as the "playful wah-driven hippie funk" of Vinyl Soup's 2003 debut, Chasing Yesterday, has given away on Brandon and Travis to a carefully constructed vision that is more prog than jam. The lyrics are more serious this time around, but the band still expresses its playfulness through their improvisations and instrumental arrangements. Describing the role of improvisation on the album, guitarist Andrew Hooker says:



I do and I don't consider Vinyl Soup a jam band.
On a whole, the album is strictly arranged with very little
noodling, but there are spots of spontaneous improv, and the
entire album was recorded live with overdubbing of
guitar, vocals, and keyboards in spots.

Defying our age of sound bites and short attention spans, Vinyl Soup spent four years crafting this complex and compelling album, and you can hear it in the grooves. Brandon and Travis is newly available from Creek Slide Records and VinylSoup.com.
- The Local Voice Oxford, Mississippi 3/20/2008 (Front Cover)

Who are they?: Vinyl Soup of Franklin, Tenn., was formed by guitarist/vocalist Andrew Hooker, a native of West Point, after he graduated from Hollywood, Calif.'s Guitar Institute of Technology and relocated to Nashville in 2002.


Employing his virtuoso craft no doubt learned at that prestigious school, Hooker turned Vinyl Soup into a band unfettered by genre, incorporating rock, folk, bluegrass, jazz, blues, reggae and more into its sound, with a playful lyrical style reminiscent of acts like Little Feat.

Vinyl Soup issued its first album Chasing Yesterday in 2003, which was a popular Web download. After a bit of a hiatus and a change in personnel, Vinyl Soup is now back with a vengeance touring and bringing its freewheeling live show to clubs in support of its just-released second album Brandon and Travis

- Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi