Grease Mechanix

Frank Macchia's GREASE MECHANIX Frank Macchia has a new jazz/funk CD out with a huge band that will bring a huge smile to your face! Picture a triple sized New Orleans Brass Band: six saxophones, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, electric guitar, drums and percussion playing all new original music that will have you shaking, rattling and rolling with modern rhythms and funky goodness. Add a touch of humor in the form of whacky lyrics delivered by Macchia and you have Grease Mechanix! Grease Mechanix is comprised of a some of Los Angeles' finest jazz musicians, including Peter Erskine, Eric Marienthal, Wayne Bergeron, Brandon Fields, Bob Sheppard, Bill Reichenbach, Walt Fowler, Alex Iles, Sal Lozano, Dan Fornero, Kevin Porter, Jay Mason, Craig Gosnell, Ken Rosser and Brad Dutz. They play with wild and inspired abandon! ----- Welcome to my latest excursion into the world of sonic madness! I got the idea for this project after listening to some New Orleans brass bands and my favorite funk bands. The idea was to do a bunch of funk tunes where the tuba and bass sax would supply the bass lines, and rhythm guitar would do the chord component. I was incredibly honored to get some of my favorite musicians in Los Angeles to sign up for a day of intense recording where we laid down these tunes. The name Grease Mechanix was conceived because horn players always talk about adding some grease to blues licks, which means bending, growling or just getting nasty with the music! Okay, so here's some info on the tunes... First up is Buckin' Bronco, a tour de force showcasing all the players in the band, in a crazed 7/4 groove reminiscent of Benny Goodman's Sing, Sing, Sing with a skip in the tom tom groove! Next we have my attempt to cash in on the zombie craze that's sweeping the nation with Zombies Ate My Grandma. I loved zombies, even before they were so popular. You can find the video for this one on youtube. Check it out, it's a hoot! Picture a chicken strutting across a coop and you get the idea of Chicken Neck. Alex Iles, Eric Marienthal and Peter Erskine get their funky chicken on. Next is a ballad that I recorded with my smaller band Swamp Thang, but re-arranged for the large ensemble. Shhhh! was written for my son Charlie when he was a baby, as a tune to relax him at night. If you listen closely to the lyrics of Bad Juju you'll hear just about every superstition that man has come up with. Check out Brandon Fields' great solo on this tune- it's one of my favorite solos on the album. Fat Cat is another odd metered funk thang that features Alex Iles, Ken Rosser, Sal Lozano and Peter Erskine. Most people know Sal as an alto saxophonist but he's a fabulous bari sax player too. Squiggles is a through composed slinky line played by Bob Sheppard on sax and me on contrabass clarinet. Bob's solo kills me, and check out the two part counterpoint soli by the band. I'm So Damn Mad is my ode to getting old and not being able to keep up with technology. I wanted to create a James Brown funk feel for this and the band abided! Bucket o' Tears is a feature for one of my favorite musicians on the planet, Bob Sheppard. He takes this tune and makes it his own, complete with a beautiful cadenza at the end. Atonal Dance Party (or Schoenberg's Strut as it's also known) was my idea of fusing 12 tone music with funk. Eric Marienthal and Walt Fowler play some really crazed solos, and there's even a three part fugue in the middle of it! This project wouldn't be possible if not for the two anchors of the band: Jay Mason on bass sax and Bill Reichenbach on tuba. They played some amazingly hard stuff and Sweet Patootie Waltz was written to feature them. Bulldog is a feature for trumpeter extraordinaire, Wayne Bergeron. The idea on this one was a kind of super low end fat rock groove, complete with a bass section of tuba, bass trombone, bass sax, bari sax, baritone guitar and contrabass clarinet. Wayne is the screaming lead guitarist in this rock basher! Finally there's Fatback Bubblebath. Originally it was going to be an instrumental, but then I starting