My Dear Disco - dancy, poppy, fun music
http://dancethink.com/
their live show is amazing.
VERY VERY talented musicians.....their recorded stuff is decent, but the live show is where its AT! See them if you can!
Band Member Bios:
Tyler Duncan: In 1999 and 2000, Tyler Duncan won the All-Ireland Championship (the World Championships of Irish Music) on the uilleann pipes -- the first American to win the All-Ireland on that instrument. In 2001, he won the All-Ireland on the bodhran -- the first American to win an All-Ireland on that instrument as well. In 2005 and 2006, he won two International Acoustic Music Awards with the band Millish for their debut album. He is featured on the Downbeat Award-winning self-titled album by the Kruziki Trans-Atlantica Quintet, on the Emmy award-winning Kitty Donohoe's Album This Road Tonight, on the Unity award-winning Ceili Rain's latest album Whatever Makes You Dance, including the recent #14 hit "Kneeling," and plays a featured solo on the recent Jazziz Magazine music compilation. He has also been a featured soloist for the Ann Arbor and Ashland Symphony Orchestras. Upon turning 16, Tyler composed, arranged and performed the score for an original Irish musical comedy, The Changeling, produced by Wild Swan Theater in Ann Arbor. Upon turning 18, Tyler helped design a new chromatic Low Whistle, with which he became the first Low Whistle player ever to be accepted into a university music program, becoming a jazz studies major at the University of Michigan. His recent big band arrangement of "The May Morning Dew" has been featured on NPR and the prestigious International Assocation for Jazz Educators conference.
Theo Katzman: Multi-instrumentalist and singer Theo Katzman was born to the highly acclaimed bebop musician Lee Katzman (former member of the Benny Goodman Band, SuperSax, The Baha Marimba Band, and many more).
After hearing the music of Led Zeppelin, Theo was inspired to begin playing the drums. Several years later, he began singing and playing guitar, and quickly formed his own group as lead vocalist/guitarist, with whom he produced and released a full-length album. Desiring to further his understanding of rhythm, groove, melody, and harmony, he began to explore Afro-Cuban music with the legendary New York percussionist Richie Rodriguez (former percussionist with Tito Puente).
Theo now holds a BFA in jazz percussion from the Jazz and Contemplative Studies program at the University of Michigan. His experience on drumset has set the foundation for his rock-solid, groove-heavy rhythm guitar in My Dear Disco. An established sideman in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area, Theo is also the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter for the band Red Arrow Highway.
Mike Shea: As a child, Mike Shea's first passion was Irish dancing. He competed in --and won--numerous local, regional, and national competitions, including the Mid-America Championship, which earned him a place in Ireland's World Championship competition. Soon after, Mike discovered his true passion in life: drums. He immediately began studying privately, and quickly became interested in all other forms of percussion. In high school, his marching band won the Grand National Championship in 1999. Mike recently graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in percussion performance. He has performed nationally, and internationally, in orchestras, concert bands, marching bands, world percussion ensembles, musicals, jazz bands, and multiple rock projects. He now teaches privately, is a freelance drummer and percussionist, and a full-time member of the popular Ann Arbor band My Dear Disco.
Michelle Chamuel: Michelle Chamuel began singing and experimenting with musical
instruments at age 4. In 2001, Michelle attended Oberlin's intesive TAMARA Computer Music program -- soon-after, she recorded and self-produced an album of all original music.
This album gained Michelle acceptance to the University of Michigan's highly competitive Performing Arts Technology (PAT) program -- one of the first degree programs of it's kind.
There, Michelle's received first prize for her performance in the Michigan Idol competition, and shortly there-after, first prize in the M Block Records (The University's record label) New Music on The Block competition for the composition, "My Dear Disco," which she wrote with band-mate Robert Lester.
Michelle's unique combination of vocal virtuosity, compositional vision, and technical savvy has given her the ability to flourish in many musical settings: from an intimate piano and voice recording, to the complex and demanding task of composing for a theater commission, to the live, high-energy dance music of My Dear Disco.
Joey Dosik: Joey Dosik is a Saxophonist and Keyboardist with roots in jazz, soul and afrobeat. Growing up in Los Angeles, he began to learn jazz from a wide variety of creative musicians, including members of the Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra, and the Cal Arts improvised music scene. From 2003-2004 he played in the Henry Grimes Group with Nels Cline (current member of Wilco), Alex Cline and Vinny Golia, among others. He now resides in Ann Arbor, MI where he is set to complete his degree in Jazz and Contemplative Studies in April of 2008. In his time at the University of Michigan, he has organized concerts with Arthur Blythe and his own power trio from Los Angeles, while also playing with Oliver Lake, Steve Coleman and Nicole Mitchell. He is also a member of the Ann Arbor/Chicago group NOMO, an afrobeat/soul configuration with the Ubiquity label. 2008 should be a musically rich year for Joey as he plans to release an album and tour with the Ann Arbor DanceThink group, My Dear Disco.
Christian Carpenter: Bassist Christian Carpenter holds a degree from the innovative Jazz & Contemplative Studies program at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Bass legends Robert Hurst, Dianna Gannet, and Marion Hayden. Equally adept on Electric, Fretless, and Upright, Christian he has been involved in a number of Musical Theater Productions, Rock Outfits, Jazz Combos, and Folk/Singer-Songwriter groups. Do to his wide range of experience and versatility, Christian is equally at home supporting a four piece drum ensemble or a classical soprano saxophone piece. Now a member of the successful band My Dear Disco, Christian hopes to continue pursuing a creative and unconventional career as a professional musician.
Bob Lester: In the spring of 2008, Robert Lester graduated from the University of Michigan School of Music with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performing Arts Technology. Throughout his time at Michigan, he maintained a dedicated focus on performance and instrumental techniques, as well as utilizing the compositional and technological resources that the University of Michigan is known for. He studied privately with Detroit jazz-bassist Marion Hayden and renowned classical soloist Diana Gannet for several years, and recently has been putting his music education to hard work as guitarist, producer, and songwriter with the popular Ann Arbor dancethink band My Dear Disco. In 2007 Robert was one of a handful of students awarded a grant by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities program in the Humanities to pursue a summer of research and development of electronic music performance instruments and controllers. Robert, with his diverse musical education, ranging from classical theory, to improvisation, to electronic composition, sound recording, and even electronic music instrument design, brings something fresh into any musical situation he enters. He is a true musical mad-scientist, breaking boundaries and forging new paths with his music and his craft, whether it's writing music, recording it, producing it, or inventing a new instrument to make it on.
