Rock-It Science Performer Bios
The Scientists
THE AMYGDALOIDS are NYU scientists who play inspired garage rock, sometimes with a country twist. Their lyrical themes on love and life are drawn from their research about mind and brain and mental disorders. They are led by neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, pioneer in the study of the brain mechanisms of emotion and memory and author of The Emotional Brain and Synaptic Self. LeDoux is a University Professor, Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, and Professor of Neural Science and Psychology at NYU. The band also features Daniela Schiller, a postdoctoral fellow in cognitive neuroscience, Nina Galbraith Curley, a graduate student in Psychology, and Tyler Volk, an Associate Professor of Biology and Science Director of the Environmental Sciences Program at NYU, and author of CO2 Rising, Metapatterns, Gaiaís Body, and What Is Death?
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/ledoux/amygdaloids/
DANIEL LEVITIN is an American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, record producer, musician, and writer. He is currently James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and the author of two best-selling books, This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, and The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. As a musician, Daniel has performed with Mel Torme, Blue Oyster Cult, and David Byrne.
http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/levitin/
DAVID SULZER is a neuroscientist who fronts the Sulzer Lab at Columbia University, and as DAVE SOLDIER is an acclaimed composer, musician, and arranger. Soldier has worked with David Byrne, John Cale, and Kurt Vonnegut, and designed music to be performed by ensembles made up of elephants and chimpanzees. He also leads the Soldier String Quartet, and co-leads a number of other groups, including The Spinozas and the Kropotkins.
http://www.mulatta.org/davesoldierpage.html
PARDIS SABETI is a pioneering evolutionary geneticist and an Assistant Professor in the Center for Systems Biology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. The Boston-based band she leads, Thousand Days, have been favorably compared in the press to Belly, Throwing Muses, Liz Phair, and Hole..
http://www.myspace.com/thousanddays
Guest Artists
ANNA COPA CABANNA is an Australian showgirl icon who has performed her choreography, played her xylophone and roller-skated in venues around the world. The Anna Copa Cabanna Show (Joe's Pub), her multi-disciplinary homage to television specials of the 1970's, has captured the imagination of punk royalty, celebrities, various magazines, blogs and many a teenage boy. Anna's primary goal is transporting the audience to a world of glamor, humor, overly earnest but beautiful dancing, and classic rock and roll! An established singer-songwriter in New York City, she reflects on everyday issues with her lil xylophone, voracious voice and fabulous imagination. Anna has collaborated with some of NYC's most exciting and eccentric performers including Jeffrey Lewis, Corn Mo, Tommy Ramone, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Michael Leviton, Flaming Fire, Andrew WK, and Les Sans Culottes. Her special brand of vintage go-go dancing, pretty punk songs and extravagant outfits have been featured at diverse venues including Joe's Pub, The Zipper Theater, The Slipper Room, Mo Pitkins, FEZ, Tonic, Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, NEST, The Knitting Factory, Green Room, Pianos, Pete's Candy Store, Santos Party House, Cakeshop, Galapagos and many more.
GARY LUCAS is an American guitarist, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, and an international recording artist with over a dozen solo albums to date, and a soundtrack composer for film and television. He has been described as "one of the best and most original guitarists in America.” Lucas tours the world solo, as well as with several different ensembles including his longtime band NYC-based group, Gods and Monsters, a psychedelic rock band based around Lucas's guitar playing and songwriting. Lucas also lectures on guitar and the music business in general. As of 2007, Lucas has performed in some 35 countries.
THE KENNEDYS are an American folk-rock duo, consisting of husband and wife Pete and Maura Kennedy. They have recorded and released ten Kennedys CDs as well as several side-project CDs (as The Strangelings, The Stringbusters, Pete Kennedy solo and Maura Kennedy solo), performed in clubs and theaters throughout the United States and Europe, were artists-in-residence at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and toured Great Britain with Nanci Griffith as part of her band and as her opening act.
http://www.ReverbNation.com/TheKennedys
PAMELA LUSS is a fast rising star on the New York jazz/cabaret circuit who has just released her third CD, Magnet, on Savant/High Note Records. With her remarkable pitch-perfect voice, wit, and poise, she breathes life, fire, and sensuality into new and old standards.
PETER HOLSAPPLE is an acclaimed musician, songwriter, and sideman, who was co-leader of the dBs and Continental Drifters, and played and toured extensively as a “fifth member” on stage and in the studio with R.E.M. and Hootie & The Blowfish.
http://www.myspace.com/peterholsapple
STEVE WYNN is an acclaimed songwriter and performer who led the band The Dream Syndicate from 1981 to 1989. Since then, he has had a successful solo career, and has recorded with The Miracle Three, Danny and Dusty, Gutterball, and The Baseball Project.
JEFF PERETZ is a Guitarist/Udist/Author/Professor/Producer/Daddy/Foody/Dog Owner that was born in Newark NJ in 1968. He is a faculty member of the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University, Third Street Music School Settlement, the New School University, and the National Guitar Workshop. His books include Zen and the Art of Guitar (Alfred 2003), Guitar Atlas: The Middle East (Alfred 2004), and Guitar Atlas: Cuba (Alfred 2007). Since 1998, Jeff has been the leader and principal composer for Abu Gara, an eclectic ensemble dedicated to the promotion of harmony and unity through musical expression. Aside from his work on the stage, Jeff is also a sought after studio musician and producer. He and his guitar have worked with Grammy-award winning producers Mark Ronson, Rock Wilder, Andres Levine and Joe “Flip”. As a producer Jeff has produced albums for The Americans, The Middle Eight, Batsheva, The Amygdaloids, The Ellis Unit and Hysterics. As a composer he has written for TV and film, most recently scoring the festival favorite “The Driving Lesson” as well as composing the music for the Off Broadway hit “Why We Don’t Bomb the Amish”.
Jeff currently lives in Brooklyn and vows “never to live in Manhattan again”. Read more at http://www.jeffperetz.com
COLES WHALEN is a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter. After independently releasing an EP in 2005, she bought a truck and camper, and never looked back. In the next 12 months, she played over 150 venues across 10 states in the western U.S. “Her voice has more than enough power to carry a rock anthem, but she prefers to use that power to sustain her gentler, more pensive moments. Her pitch and articulation - vocal and instrumental - are flawless” wrote Malcolm McCollum of Steppin’ Out Magazine. Coles Whalen sold well over 3,000 copies of her first CD right out of the back of that truck. Parking the camper, Whalen recorded a full-length album, Gee Baby, in February of 2006. But the camper didn’t stay parked for long. In the next year and a half, Coles Whalen played over 600 shows throughout the entire United States and sold more than 8,000 CDs. She has performed both solo, with her new band, and has shared the stage with Paula Cole, The John Butler Trio, Melissa Ferrick, Michelle Malone, Reckless Kelley, Reverend Horton Heat and Tyler Hilton among others. Ricardo Baca, Pop Music Critic for The Denver Post said of Whalen’s live performance “Whalen delivers an absolutely great show, she left a lasting impression on me.”
STUART CHATWOOD is a Canadian musician best known as the bass guitar and keyboard player for the now defunct platinum rock band The Tea Party. Chatwood is also working on music with the drummer of the Tea Party, Jeff Burrows, under the name The Art Decay, and he is also a composer of video game soundtracks.
