Formed in the bitter winter of 1996, the entity collectively known as the Old School Carpool rose from the slimy dystopia that is Jacksonville, Florida. Their origin is egnimatic: suffice to say that they have proven Winter a time of BIRTH as well as decay. The streets of Jax shook under the fury of this avenging force, this Carpool. Asphault is seasoned with blood, countless lives are taken, fear rules the city: this is no plague, but an atrocity just as potentially destructive. With the powers of mind-control, invisibility, and a mysterious love potion brewed in secret by trumpet-blower/singer JESSE SEARLS, known on the streets to all as GHOSTHAIR CROONA (after his shocking 'do and heart-metling vocal abilities), they strike a mix of terror and admiration in the hearts of young and old alike. The battlefield is aural, the goal domination, the methods brutal: the Carpool take no shit. Their forte is ska, they resuscitate this victim of soulless looting with an unshakeable thirst for revenge. They could not allow their rude comrade to undergo cultural rape and minstrel show-esque degratation at the hands of pseudo-punk rockstars, out to bleed the genre dry of the spirit that virtually defines it. In concert, they bring to mind everything from Sean Connery's early James Bond to a Kingston funk orgy. The energy is undeniable: they please, but they don't care.
Driven by the relentless skin-beatin' of JACK RINGCA aka THE UNARINGCA (a veteran of the seedy percussionist underbelly), the Carpool play their way into the audience's id, welding their instruments like chainsaws in the hands of brain surgeons: never before has such graceful violence been witnessed. Also handling rhythm duties is charismatic-but-deadly bassist, THE KRZA known to his mother as CHRIS HERR, whose onstage peacockery masks a ruthlessly efficient killer- make no mistake. VAN BATTLE blows the trombone with love and with anger. He is known to his fellow musical terrorists as METHOD VAN, a reference to his highly systematic trombone technique. He is to be avoided by the weak: his mere presence is overwhelming for most. DAVE KNUCKLES, a quick-minded saxaphonist (whose birth certificate calls him DAVE BIRD), makes sounds that simultaneously evoke the painful horniness of adolescent lust with the surprising pain of a fist in your face: he is, as the kids say, "outta site." Last, (but according to him), not least, is OL' DIRTY PATRICK, cursed by his dope-smoking parents with the name PATRICK LEVY. His vocal chords, alongside partners in crime Method and Ghosthair, grace the songs of the Carpool with consistent unpredictability. His guitar is the disturbing stare of a stranger and the burning crotch of a lover. It sings, it weeps, it hops.
The Old School Carpool is a reaction to the depression inducing music scene of Jax, as well as the sickening commercialization of ska by people who don't know shit. They strip ska to its soulful, often melancholy roots but without succumbing to nostalgia or to gimmickry. Performing a type of music that has at times fallen guilty to dilution, in-breeding, and phonies, they approach ska as at times obsessive music fans whose interest is in good music, rather than marketability or genre-segregation. Their infulences range from the revolutionary studio-as-playground approach of Dub and Jungle to American roots music (Blues and Jazz) to the street level integrity of Punk.
Now dig this: your ears are next.
OLD SCHOOL CARPOOL aka THE OC-POO CLAN.
