Year of the Dragon
Los Angeles, California, United States | INDIE
Music
Press
SURROUNDED / Safe Tomorrow Sun / The Nautilus Years
SCARS ON 45 / Wanted / Wanted Single
MISS DERRINGER / Click Click (Bang Bang) / Winter Hill
JOSHUA JAMES / Winter Storm / Fields and Floods
SAINT MOTEL / Butch / ForPlay
JAPANTHER / Radical Businessman / Tut Tut Now Shake Ya Butt
YEAR OF THE DRAGON / Ipso Facto / Blunt Force Karma
GIRL IN A COMA / Only I / Hiding My Trail (Single)
MATTHEW MAYFIELD / Dead To You / The Fire EP
FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS / Breakin’ the Chains of Love / Songs for a Break Up – Vol. 1 - Marie Claire Magazine
With regular gigs in L.A. and a well-received EP in A Time To Love Is A Time To Bleed, Year Of The Dragon drew on their core base of Fishbone fans while adding new fans drawn to the aura of the new band. - Wildy's World (blog)
Year of the Dragon is a new(ish) band originally built around two former members of ska/punk/funk-metal band Fishbone. Fishbone co-founder Dirty Walt Kibby left the band after 25 years and guitarist Tracy “Spacey T” Singleton soon followed. They started what would become the foundation of YOTD. Veteran L.A. vocalist and guitarist Roderick “Rodcore” Palmer joined them, and together they released an EP: A Time To Love Is A Time To Bleed. - ROCK REALMS
The first full-length album from Year of the Dragon - formed from the ashes of ska-punk legends Fishbone by Dirty Walt and Spacey T, joined by Rodcore. Name-dropping aside however, the new record is ostensibly a concept album about the methods and practices of indie, or as Rodcore puts it, "an allegorical indictment of the way the film and music industries are at a creative standstill, recycling ideas and not creating anything really new and exciting". - Music Emissions
So far, the year 2010 has been something of a personal triumph for me after having interviewed COREY GLOVER of LIVING COLOUR and now DIRTY WALT KIBBY III – the cofounder of FISHBONE and one half of YEAR OF THE DRAGON with vocalist and guitarist RODERICK “RODCORE” PALMER. The dynamic duo tested the waters with an EP ‘A TIME TO LOVE IS A TIME TO BLEED’ where they tore into thrash metal, reggae and acoustic sets with complete abandon. Now, YEAR OF THE DRAGON has issued their debut LP ‘BLUNT FORCE KARMA’, produced by DARRYL SWANN (MACY GRAY) and the chemistry between KIBBY and PALMER is undeniably ignitable. - ROCKWiRED (blog)
...headed to check out this fucking kick-ass band, Year of the Dragon at this very strange club that had three really tiny floors and the smallest stages I've seen in awhile. The place was cramped, and packed, but man the band, which was a metal, Fishbone-ish type of quartet from Cali, was really heavy and had a serious groove. - Writing is Fighting (blog)
Year of the Dragon is the latest act by Dirty Walt Kibby from Fishbone, and it shows that even someone as storied as Kibby continue to innovate and blindside fans with intelligent arrangements, impassioned lines, and a hell of a lot of grit and fire. - NeuFutur magazine
Discography
A TIME TO LOVE IS A TIME TO BLEED (e.p. released 2006)
BLUNT FORCE KARMA (full length album, released 2009)
Photos
Bio
In the Chinese zodiac, the dragon is a symbol of strength and harmony. Not surprisingly the two leaders of Year of the Dragon, Roderick "Rodcore" Palmer, and Walter Adam Kibby, II AKA Dirty Walt, were born within days of each other under that sign.
Rodcore, has had various starts and stops with different incarnations of YOTD in the past between stints with other Los Angeles based bands, but it was not until Dirty Walt left the band that he co-founded and co-led for over twenty-five years, Ska-Punk-Funk legends Fishbone, along with fellow Fishbone solider guitarist Spacey T, that the seeds of the current YOTD were planted.
In 2006, the three recorded and self-released an EP, A Time To Love Is A Time To Bleed which received critical acclaim and sold well through the internet and at shows. Wanting to take things to the next level, Dirty Walt and Rodcore, put together a regular band and started gigging weekly around Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, capitalizing on Fishbone's loyal fan base and attracting new fans of their own with YOTD's own brand of hardcore with a funk groove and soulful tag team vocals.
Around this time, the band began a partnership with a start-up indie label, The International Brotherhood of Consequential Truth that would result in the brand new YOTD release, Blunt Force Karma, the band's first full-length. Now full partners in the label, which also released Dirty Walt's second solo record and first since leaving Fishbone, Still Smokin' earlier this year, YOTD controls their own destiny.
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