Eat This Music it Tastes Like Chicken: Tiger Weekly

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From Baton Rouge LA

Eat this music, it takes like chicken


By Morgan Mitchener

The Felice Brothers are playing at Bogies on September 30 and the smell of sweat, blood and baked beans will surely fill the air. These Northern guys got their start on a front porch, which may explain their backwards talent and uninhibited sense of self.

First and foremost, the band is comprised of five members: Ian Felice (guitar/vocals), James Felice (accordion/keys), Greg Farley (fiddle), David Turbeville (drummer) and Christmas Clapton (no relation to Eric or Santa/bass).

They are all friends but amongst the friends are two brothers, Ian and James Felice. That is where the tantalizing trouble begins.

It was when Papa Felice (Ian and James' dad who lives in a very, very rural area of N.Y. and basically is a mountain man) decided the group was "good as snuff," so he called all the local neighbors to cram onto, "this here front porch and hear my boys play!"

During an interview with Tiger Weekly, James Felice reluctantly recalled, "Yea my dad is sort of a 'show-dad,' I'm surprised we all weren't wearing leather pants and learning dance routines."

Eventually, coming down off the Catskill Mountains and moving to "The Big City" is how the band became city-dwellers or what some would call bums.

James Felice elaborated by saying, "Ian and I fight all the time. When we got a dollar busking in the subways, all I wanted was a piece of gum (it's only 25 cents) but Ian told me to eat one from under the chair I was sitting in, so of course I had to punch him."

After the fighting ceased, Team Love Records happened to walk by and sign them on the spot. The band rigorously wrote demos and trained in a chicken coup until they finally birthed their new album, Yonder Is the Clock.

The album is a mixture of love and barn smells that act as meth to its listener. The delightful tracks will make you desire that the sound never cease. It's a good taste for the ears and is simultaneously powerful and peaceful.

Ten minutes before each performance, the band members require one another (they are very superstitious) to suck on their perspective pebble that each member hand-picked from Papa Felice's front stoop and are not allowed to spit it out until show-time.

They say, if one member does not comply with this tradition, it could be detrimental to their performance, even going as far to say, "If someone (anyone in the band) didn't join in, I dunno, they might forget everything they ever learned, or worse, snap out of the hypnosis that actually got us playing," explained James Felice who shutters at the thought, "I don't even want to think about it."

To buy merch, look at tour dates and hear the beauty of The Felice Brothers, go to their Myspace page, www.myspace.com/thefelicebrothers. But beware; you might not be able to leave your computer once you taste this chicken-of-the-music.