THE CHANDLER TRAVIS PHILHARMONIC is a 9-piece technicolor extravaganza from Boston that includes a horn section, string bass, mandocello, guitar, drums, accordion, and valet. It's possible they might be the missing link between the Kinks and Sun Ra...

There's some chance you may be aware of Chandler's other band, the Incredible Casuals, or of his earlier work w. Travis Shook and the Club Wow; either solo or in one or another of these guises, he has opened up for pretty much everyone in the world, including Elvis Costello, Green Day, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, John Cale, Bonnie Raitt, NRBQ (longtime buds Terry and Al from the 'Q played on the first Philharmonic album), Charles Mingus, the Beach Boys, Allen Ginsburg, the Replacements, George Carlin (a guest star on the last CTP album), Of Montreal, etc., etc.

In the last few years, the Philharmonic has released three official albums (the latest, "Tarnation & Alastair Sim", just this year) and another twenty un-official ones (the RadioBall series), and toured all over the country to rave reviews (which you'll find more of below) and enthusiastic audiences at a wide variety of venues, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Johnstown Music Festival in Johnstown, PA, Tipitina's in New Orleans, the Mercury Lounge in NYC, the Double Door in Chicago, the Middle East in Boston, etc., etc... Their latest CD (released in June, '07), "Tarnation and Alastair Sim",  throws down the gauntlet once and for all with a plethora of tracks (48 in fact), weird instrumentation and unconventional ideas (recent blurbs below, somewhere...)

For a quick audio introduction to the CTP, try: "That's What She Said"  or "Bob What's-is-Name" from their first album, "Let's Have a Pancake", or better yet, one of their videos (many more clips on the website; if you're feeling adventurous, there's also a multitude of unreleased items (some live, some studio) on their popular Song of the Weak page.) The Philharmonic appeals to an exceptionally wide range of age groups, and some people think they're kind of unusual.

Why unusual? (Drum roll, please...) Well, do you know of any other alternative dixieland bands? Or any other band that put out 22 full-length cds in one year, as the they did in 2000 with the RadioBall series (not one-night live cds, either -real ones)? Or anyone that numbers both George Carlin and NRBQ among their staunchest longtime supporters? Both appear on their latest album; other longtime fans include Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, and Bruce Springsteen, not to mention a diverse selection of relatively recent converts like Of Montreal, Ween, and the Story.

The CTP is also fairly -even "keenly" -entertaining, as evidenced in the blurbs included below (strap in, there's a lot of 'em) ~ ~

“...playful original songs that mix mind-bending wordplay with jazz, shimmering rock, and horn-fuelled R & B.” -John Donohue, New Yorker

"A keenly entertaining blend of the Ringling Bros. and Ra...[that] puts the harm back in Philharmonic." -Jim Macnie, Village Voice

“Dixieland romps, twisted Mardi Gras marches, sweaty 60’s rock, smoky torch songs, and occasional novelties that sound somewhere between Randy Newman and They Might Be Giants, all with hilariously offbeat lyrics. The world would be a better place if Travis would only visit more often.”
- Sam Hurwitt, San Francisco Express

"... a strange, wonderful, totally distinct ode to musical mastery and nonsense... imagine Andy Partridge of XTC and Beat poet Gregory Corso, wandering between Saturn and New Orleans to sit in with the Sun Ra Arkestra... at once simple, abstract and wondrous to behold."
-Ed Bumgardner, Winston Salem Journal

BLURBS ON THEIR LATEST, "TARNATION & ALASTAIR SIM" ~

"A beloved legend on his Cape Cod, MA, home turf, veteran cult hero Chandler Travis is a one-of-a-kind songwriter whose absurdist wit co-exists with a bruised idealism that gives his best tunes a deep and haunting resonance. His horn-laden eight piece Philharmonic is gloriously loose yet effortlessly powerful, and thus a perfect vehicle for Travis's deadpan humor and iconoclastic songcraft."
                -Scott Schinder, Time Out New York (along with a red star indicating that it's "recommended")

"There is no one quite as cracked as Chandler Travis... a crazy carnival of sound... an alternative Dixieland band but so much more -- wild detours into rock, pop, spoken word, and experimental sound collages... suggests a gene-spliced hybrid of Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" and "The Who Sell Out"...
                     -Jonathan Perry, Boston Globe

"The irreverent guitarist, singer, and composer Travis, who lives on Cape Cod and has been known to perform barefoot and in his pajamas, has been in show biz for nearly four decades. For years, beginning in the seventies, he co-led the musical act that opened for George Carlin on his tours. His other band, the Incredible Casuals, got its start in the eighties and is a fixture on the New England music scene. This visit celebrates the release of a new album, “Tarnation and Alastair Sim,” and one can expect Travis’s set of original songs, which mix mind-bending wordplay with Dixieland jazz, shimmering rock, and horn-fuelled R. & B., to go on well into the night: the new album weighs in at a hefty forty-plus tracks."
                    - John Donohue, New Yorker

"'Tarnation's zooming drive by pleasures, fueled by manic musical adventurism, gleefully light a match between the toes of convention. This quasi-symphonic monstrosity, a glorious bulldozing of the emo-emaciated musical landscape, marks a madhouse return to the musical freedoms upon which Comboland and its garage-bound laboratories were once founded."
                      -Ed Bumgardner, Winston Salem Journal

"Travis and his Philharmonic raucously plow back into town with their overstuffed new CD Tarnation and Alastair Sim and its 48 (!) songs. Such overstuffing is just part and parcel of the CTP experience: too many genres (glam rock, Afropop, ska, r&b, Christmas songs, free jazz, Dixieland, Tom Waits-y art-clank, funk) going toe-to-toe with too many instruments (horns, mandolin, synths, guitars, sitar, mando-cello, strings, four drum kits) disgorging a hodgepodge of over-the-top wacky fun."
                    -D. Shaun Bosler, Village Voice

"...wonderful, trippy, wild and rewarding... the final track sounds like you've duct-taped blown 1985 Walkman speakers to your head and had a drunken rhinoceros push you on a rope swing."
                      -Rob Conery, Cape Cod Chronicle

"Like some cosmic collision between NRBQ, Marcel Duchamp, Captain Beefheart and Spike Jones, the Chandler Travis Philharmonic is utterly charming and totally unpredictable.. lots and lots of fun."
                      -Greg Haymes, Albany Times-Union

"If the members of Monty Python had grown up sneaking into bars in New Orleans, they'd have formed a band a lot like the Chandler Travis Philharmonic. The 48 tracks include a CD-opening Christmas song, ad jingles for fake products (including Unibrow Man Oatmeal) and stream-of-consciousness gibberish voice mail from comedian George Carlin left on Travis' answering machine. The disc also includes some delightful Dixieland-flavored pop songs ("Wireless" and "Must Be Love" among them) that prove what we already knew: Travis and crew are as talented as they are clever and bizarre."
                    -Bill O'Neill, Cape Cod Times

"... a dynamite band... one giant ball of explosive thunder... there is no real way to describe the music except to say big, bigger, biggest."
                     -Melora North, Provincetown Banner

" Inspiring, creative, and honest... To think that this wild group of eight music makers can keep us entertained with such unusual tunes is a compliment to Travis’ obviously natural flair for harmony. The album never sounds forced or stupid. It sounds creative and honest."More or less the antithesis of the expected, the CTP is an eight-man musical ride from Dixieland to jazz to pop to the avant-garde and back again. As wacky, zany and bonkers as the music is on tarnation & alastair sim, the CTP does something that should be done more often – it makes music fun.
Living up to everything it’s created since its 1996 debut as a traveling band that would be proud to be called a circus too, tarnation is an album that touches a lot of musical bases. At 48 songs (less than 70 total album minutes), there’s a version of “Brown-Eyed Girl” that definitely won’t remind anybody of the original. “Vasco de Gama” features a 50-vocal track; “Dance Godammit” will most likely elicit that exact response; “Ronald” reminds that the CTP is actually a tight musically driven orchestra; and songs like “I’m Chandler’s Butterfly” showcase sitar, mandocello, and four drum kits."
                   -Nicholas Smith, Barnstable Patriot

"Among the highlights are the live opener "It's Almost Christmas Again", which turns a joyous observance into a tinsel-covered threat, the swirly eastern flight "I'm Chandler's Butterfly", the poppy "Wireless", the soul-grooved "Strong Strong String", the blissful tomgue-twisted toe-tapper "Must Be Love", the island exploration "Vasco Da Gama", the zapped-out  musical comandment "Dance Godammit" and a brilliantly twisted version of "Brown-Euyed Girl" that finally gives Van's anthem its long overdue trip through the wringer."
                     Matthew Robinson, boston.com

"This band will bring you joy... trippy, jazzy, poppy, rockin’... a record that’s impossible to listen to and not smile."
                   -Ed Symkus, Cambridge Tab

"a tour de force that canters effortlessly from horn-y Dixieland jazz to sitar-laden psych-rock to Princely funk to whimsical ephemera... "
                      -Brett Milano, Boston Phoenix

MORE ~

“Dixieland, pop, avant-jazz, rock...and fully over the top.” - Jim Sullivan, Boston Globe

"...[CTP's] gleeful tendency to ignore genre boundaries -not to mention the musicians' preference for goofy costumes -evokes New Orleans. Elvis Costello-like pop songs, avant-jazz vamps, novelty pieces, and way off-beat lyrics factor into the wildly inventive mix."
-Keith Spera, Times Picayune (New Orleans) 

  "...the band sounds an awful lot like the Kinks circa Muswell Hillbillies ("My Old Man"), or XTC circa Oranges and Lemons (the instrumentally brilliant and lyrically witty "Village of the Darned")... they are frighteningly versatile, and many of their  arrangements are almost symphonically meticulous and complex..."
-Francis DiMenno, the Noise

 “At first glance you may be surprised at their weird, cool, and strange world, but soon you'll be fascinated by the charm of the songwriting (which may remind you of Elvis Costello); then you will have big fun with the co-existence of free noise and melancolic jazz-pop, and with the humor of a cult glam-rock show. This is just a great omni-pop record.”
-Sakae, Crossbeat (Japan)

“Intelligent, imaginative, witty, entertaining, and sometimes sweetly sentimental, “Llama Rhymes” is a CD that reaches the head, heart, and feet.”
-Joe Burns, Cape Codder

“...one of rock’s true originals.”
-John Swenson, UPI

“...never a dull moment... Travis is a rock’n’roll Brittanica ... obviously dead seious about his music.”
-Kevin Convey, Boston Herald
 
“Llama Rhymes” is one of the best and most indescribable Cape Cod record releases in years, if not ever.”
-Ann Wood, Provincetown Banner

 “He’s a true New England eccentric, a master of daft power pop, and live, he plays in his pajamas...”
 -Rob Tannenbaum, Village Voice

 “...like a Mexican version of the Bosstones on Caribbean holiday...”
 -Carly Carioli, Boston Phoenix

 "...a truly original musical experience."
 -John Black, Offbeat Boston

 “...Jonathan Richman for adults...”
 -Christopher Walsh, The Republic of Letters

 “Fast and giddy and loose as a clown’s drawers, his Philharmonic sounds like the ‘Q saluting Louie Jordan.”
 -Rob Tannenbaum, Village Voice

 “‘Pancake’ is a skillful, fun, sometimes funny collection that is played with joyous, wreckless abandon, and the Philharmonic is the best damned music show you can see in a small club ever.”
 -Al Canali, Music Revue (Northampton, MA.)

 “...like filling a music store with laughing gas, then turning eight wonderfully talented virtuosos very loose inside...seriously sharp and spirited...”
  -Michael Hochanedel, Schenectady Daily Gazette

 “They put the fun back in dysfunctional!”
 -Tim Wood, Cape Cod Chronicle

 “‘Let’s Have A Pancake!’ uses accordions, horns, mandocellos, guitars and drums to decorate pop songs of inconceivable appeal and inarguable ingenuity. Expect the unexpected is the only rule...”
 -Ed Bumgardner, Winston Salem Journal

 “The Chandler Travis Philharmonic are a huge cosmic accident...very odd, very beautiful, and you know there’s a message in it all. We need more bands with this kind of nerve and the tunes to back it up...a delicious, nutricious, and total mind-fuck.”
 -Joe Coughlin, the Noise (Boston)

 “...might be the most unconventional act on earth...a Cape Cod version of surf-punks Sublime, substituting Dixieland for ska in a lively mix that will make a great sound track for your next clambake...one track sounds like Loaded-era Velvet Underground gone berserk...”
 -Michael Strohl, Valley Advocate (Northampton, MA)

 “Inspiring...”
 Scott Schinder, E-Pulse

 “An eight-piece monster of a band [with] a big raucous sound...seriously energizing...”
 Shawn Stone, Metroland (Albany, NY)

 “The entire lot were dressed with a casual exuberance that belied a purposefulness of sartorial intent,  which was completely consistent with the show itself—a talented group of highly skilled professionals  flawlessly playing music that seemed free and spontaneously created. Trumpet player Keiichi Hashimoto spent the first half of the show in an Afro wig, then switched to what appeared to be the headpiece of a bunny costume—a sort of bonnet with long droopy ears. Both of these approaches managed to make him seem oddly regal. Of course, he’s also an astounding player, and he used the ambience of the room to blow gorgeous solos up to the rafters.
  The not-so-secret ingredient to this troupe is the uniformly high caliber of the players, [and] what made the set such a compelling whole was the unswerving commitment of all eight members. There was never a moment when one of the horn players seemed anything less than fully amazed and delighted to be a part of every single moment. They were right to feel that way, for this is rare and engaging music, drawing on Dixieland, Tin Pan Alley, ska, the Kinks, and much more.”
 -David Greenberger, Metroland (Albany, NY)

“The horn players howl, the rhythm section wobbles, and the boss pulls lions out of his hat...if you’re in favor of Vegas weddings, the Firesign Theatre, and the Bonzo Dog Band, you could have yourself a dada field day.”
 -Jim Macnie, Providence Phoenix

“Not unlike NRBQ meets Sun Ra on the beach, doing bong hits spiked with primo acid and laughing gas.”
 -Joe Coughlin, the Noise (Boston)

“Little did I realize one of the greatest nights of my life would unfold in St Joseph Michigan.  No foolin' -Friday June 15, The Chandler Travis Philharmonic dropped into a west Michigan club, Czars, and proceded to tear the roof off the dump. Sheesh, they were great. I was really uncontrollably shaking...”
 Paul Tracy Fredrickson, civilian

 
CONTACT: Chandler Travis - 508 240 2733 - ctravis@sonictrout.com