Amazing instrumental rock by a founding member of McKendree Spring and a master of the electric viola.

10 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Instrumental Rock, ROCK: Modern Rock



Details:
NICE & QUEASY

a new CD from Michael Doc Dreyfuss

Familiar melodies collide and corrupt one another to produce unexpected couplings (ah yes). Wait until you hear the title cut with its country riffs darting from ear to ear; the gunfire of Get Bach threatening to maim music as we know it; the tenderness of Tears in Heaven; the political insensibility of The Kaiser; the comfort of Warm Air; the raucous Latin goofiness of I Donât Know Why I Love You Like I Do. You will also find Prokoviev morphing, Ashokan Farewell, Nelly Furtado laced with talking sticks, and a score to the Movie in your head.


MICHAEL DOC DREYFUSS (electric viola)

Before Nice and Queasy, Michael Doc Dreyfuss earned degrees in physics and medicine, taught anatomy, researched limb regeneration, and published fiction in Northern Ohio Live and Penthouse magazines - when all that time he could have been playing music. So in 1968 he co-founded the rock band McKendree Spring with Martin Slutsky and Fran McKendree.

On tour in the 60's and 70's, McKendree Spring rocked audiences in Europe and the USA with its innovative style, recording seven albums for MCA and PYE. Line Records (Germany) released five on CD in 1994. A compilation CD issued by Edsel records (UK, 1996) features Dreyfuss's rock improvisation, God Bless the Conspiracy - a work that the New York Village Voice called "the most original use of the electric violin we've heard." Dreyfuss joined with Howie Smith and Bill Cavanaugh in Snowball, a 72-track improvisation for electric violin, viola, keyboards, and saxophones on Cyborg Records (USA, 1992). In 1990, as music director of Wyse Advertising, he created a Clio-winning version of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in which sampled animal sounds are used to produce the instrumental parts (for the Cleveland Zoo). Collaborating with the Cavani String Quartet he composed and recorded Ignition (DFA Records, 1997), a quintet for string quartet and electric viola.

Dreyfuss, whose awards include the National Addy and the Clio, is profiled in Who's Who in Entertainment. Work and artifacts of McKendree Spring are represented in the permanent collection of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

Web: http://www.zaretandsonsviolins.com/mikedreyfuss.html & http://www.mckendreespring.com/


DAVE MORRISON (harmonica, guitar, vocals)

Dave Morrison is a remarkable studio and live musician who has taught, recorded, and performed harmonica since 1973. For over twenty years Morrison led and fronted the outstanding blues band, "Aces & Eights.â He has shared the stage with such greats as Junior Wells, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, Roy Buchanan, John Mayall, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Steppenwolf, Lonnie Mack, Robert Lockwood Jr, John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, Little Charlie and the Nightcats, Fenton Robinson, and Eddie Shaw.

Dave continues to expand his musical and technical horizons at a rapid rate by performing regularly with outstanding regional and national acts and by contributing in so many extraordinary ways (engineering, production, performance, and temperament) to projects like Nice & Queasy at his cutting-edge Treefort Studio.

On May 28th, 2006 Dave performed brilliantly with
McKendree Spring at the bandâs 30 year reunion.


THE BUZZ SO FAR

Also cool, if not exactly jazz, is âNice & Queasy,â by Michael Doc Dreyfuss with Dave Morrison. Dreyfuss plays electric viola like Jimi Hendrix would have. As a cofounder of McKendree Spring, an early folk-rock band that electrified audiences in the late â60s and early â70s, Dreyfuss wowed âem with his imaginative use of electronics, particularly on âGod Bless The Conspiracy,â a wild, subversive instrumental. In âNice & Queasyâ he and longtime harmonica cohort Dave Morrison barrel through instrumentals touching on J.S. Bach, bluegrass and electronica. Call it prog-rock, call it zany. Youâve never heard âI Donât Know Why Love You Like I Doâ or Eric Claptonâs âTears In Heavenâ treated so richly.
Carlo Wolff: music critic, author, Goldmine Magazine

"Wow! Nice & Queasy is very inspirational! All those interesting layers and moments, punctuated by beautiful strains from the viola."
Paula Apynys: webmaster Peter Zaret Violins.com

"Michael Dreyfuss is very, very exciting - certainly on a level with Jean-Luc Ponty."
DISC Magazine, U.K

"I love Nice & Queasy. Played it once, played it again, and now it has moved to my car stereo where I can play it all the time. Great music from a great musician."
Billy Bass: radio personality, DJ, former senior vice president Chrysalis Records

"Dreyfuss pushes his sound through a bag of tricks, and it comes out soaring, searing and sophisticated."
The Miami Herald

"Until I heard Michael Dreyfuss play electric viola I never thought about the instrument, or the fact that wah-wah, fuzz, looping and other electronic effects can be used with it. After attending McKendree Spring's reunion show last night, at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom, I am starting to think that every band could benefit from an electric viola. And a player like Michael Dreyfuss."
Jon Winer: musician, posting on the Grateful Dead Hour, 6/1/06 http://www.gdhour.com/

"Brilliant."
Jonathan Meyers: Jam Photography

"This amazingly innovative music is a surreal blend of classical, contemporary, jazz, and blues sounds, taking adventurous twists at every turn! Producer and engineer Dave Morrison adds the perfect touch with his harmonica playing. Hats off to Dreyfuss on another triumph!"
Becky Boyd: front woman and vocalist for Real Life.