John Bollinger - drums
Peter Hess - clarinet
Franz Nicolay - accordion,
mandola
George Rush - tuba
“A discourse in accordion-mysterioso for the feigning
hearts, the soundtrack to a marionette play as yet
unwritten.”
-Professor Jef of Terrorsex
Cabaret
“A combination of punk, jazz, folk, tango, klezmer, cheap
red wine, woolly pinstriped suits, newsboy caps, and one waxed
moustache…teenagers in full-on punk regalia thrash and
dance.”
-Times of London
“Guignol, featuring members of World/Inferno and the
Raymond Scott Orchestrette, performs eerie accordion pieces with
art-house stylings.”
-CitySearch
“Hard-hitting klezmer quartet with accordion, clarinet,
tuba, and killer
drumming.”
-The New
Yorker
Guignol [geen-yol] is the raucous, theatrical,
spastic, and melodramatic soundtrack for singing grifters, murderous
marionettes, and grease-painted gutterballs. It’s an oom-pah wedding,
squealing and lyrical, that hits like punk rockers and sings like a
gypsy camp.
Guignol
is an assembly of veteran musicians. Accordionist Franz Nicolay
and clarinetist Peter Hess both hail from the cabaret-punk-orchestra
World/Inferno Friendship Society, DIY chamber music collective
Anti-Social Music, and indie buzz band The Hold Steady. Tuba player George Rush was
in the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, devoted to the music of the famed
cartoon composer; as well as many Balkan brass bands including the
Zagnut Cirkus Orchestrar.
Drummer John Bollinger has played with all kinds of bands, to
random gigs: from the Indian of the Village People to the ukulele
group Songs from a Random House.
The band
played its first shows in February 2002 backing up the
fire-breathing, maggot-eating Lucky Devil Circus Sideshow from
Coney Island every weekend at
CBGBs. Since then,
they’ve opened for Against Me!, Gutbucket, Barbez, Sleepytime
Gorilla Museum, and more. Their self-titled debut,
recorded with Danny Shatzky at Vibromonk Studios in Brooklyn (Firewater, Gogol Bordello, Big Lazy)
came out on Third Story Records in November 2004; their second
release, a split EP with Nanuchka “Drink the Best Wine First,” came
out July 2005 on the folk-punk label Fistolo.
Guignol is one of
the central bands of the fast-growing gypsy-punk scene centered on
the King Gypsy Rocker Massive and Bulgarian Bar parties recently
profiled in the London Times. We’re playing a squat, punk
rock flea market, or dingy basement near
you…
DISCOGRAPHY:
"Drink the Best Wine First" CDep (FISTOLO, 2005)
BUY
IT.
"s/t" CD (THIRD STORY, 2004) BUY
IT.
"Demo" CD
(Self-released, 2004) OUT OF
PRINT.
Compilations:
Mehanata New York
Gypsymania 2xCD (Mehanata, 2005) Songs: "All or Nothing Machine" and
"Agada"
Related
Projects:
World/Inferno Friendship Society, Balkan Beat Box, The Hold Steady, Anti-Social Music, Nanuchka, Raymond Scott Orchestrette...
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