Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad brings the reggae
Iowa City Press-Citizen
03.06.10
By Stephanie Wise
If you think you've heard it all when it comes to music, you've probably never heard anything like a reggae-inspired experimental dub band with North American roots.
That's Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, a quartet performing at the Iowa City Yacht Club on Monday to showcase their unique sound to fresh ears and welcome back their diehard grassroots following.
The band's newest album, "LIVE UP!," is a compilation of 11 unreleased live recordings that exemplify their live performances, for which they are well known.
"LIVE UP!," released in November 2009, follows their 2006 debut studio release "Slow Down," and peaked at No. 2 on iTunes's Reggae Chart.
What sets Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad apart from other bands is not only their creative moniker but their innovative, experimental, ever-changing musical style that you probably won't find with many other reggae bands.
"We pride ourselves on having a pretty unique sound," Giant Panda drummer and vocalist Chris O'Brian said. "We don't find too many bands that remind us of us."
According to O'Brian, Giant Panda categorizes itself as a reggae band using dub, which is a mix of effect, echoes and delays on their instruments "to create an ambient soundscape," he said. "We're definitely a North American band. We have influences ranging the whole rainbow of music."
O'Brian started the band with bassist and vocalist James Searl in Rochester, N.Y. The two had been playing together since high school and are the only two members who have been with Giant Panda from the beginning. Since its start in 2004, O'Brian said, the band has had a lot of changes with their members, translating to a shift in their music.
Since their sophomore effort "LIVE UP!" was released, the band has gone from a six-piece group to a quartet, leaving the remaining band members to forge ahead in new roles with an alternate sound.
"Our sound is always changing," O'Brian said.
"LIVE UP!" is Giant Panda's "closing chapter" on the six-piece lineup, O'Brian said, so the shift to four members "was a very fast, forced evolution." The other half of Giant Panda, along with O'Brian and Searl, includes guitarist and vocalist Dylan Savage, and Aaron Lipp, who juggles a Hammond B3 Organ, Fender Rhodes, clavinet, percussion and vocals.
"We all had a nervousness about it, but people are digging the sound, and we're enjoying the challenges of being a quartet and making as much sound as a six-piece. It did prove (to be) a challenge," O'Brian said.
The band is no stranger to challenges, and it's nothing they can't handle. While on tour in Atlanta, the group discovered their vegetable-oil fueled van had a cracked engine. Band members petitioned their fans online asking for donations to replace the engine and, though a new veggie-fueled engine is still in the works, the group is continuing to travel by regular engine to their Midwest shows.
Giant Panda is linking up with G. Love and Special Sauce for part of their tour, though their show at the Yacht Club will include a solo performance by special guest Dave Bess, Public Property's lead guitarist and a close friend of O'Brian and other Giant Panda members.
"It'll be a good local crowd and we'll get linked up with all our Iowa City buddies," O'Brian said about Monday's show, which starts at 9 p.m. "We're really excited to come and have always had a good time there."
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