The Randy Bandits
The Randy Bandits first formed in New York in 2002 when Californian songwriter/playright Jim Knable (SPAIN at MCC) and Maryland piano-player/director Russ Kaplan (New Sounds Theatre) started meeting informally to play Jim's songs together with two of Jim's closest singer friends from college, Stephen Aleman and Regina Bain. The Randy Bandits started casually playing at folk clubs and friends' parties in New York City, emphasizing their vocal harmonies and arrangements. By 2004, The Randy Bandits were undeniably a real band that would grow over the next four years to include multi-instrumentalist Kentuckian Spiff Wiegand (playing everything from accordion to banjo to trumpet), Jersey-bred guitarist Chris Murphy (a middle school choir teacher by day), jazz-trained bassist Jay Buchanan (Chris' childhood friend) and on drums, Jim's younger brother Sunny Knable (a classically trained composer and pianist). In 2006, with guidance from producers Nancy and Richard X. Heyman, the group released the full-length album Redbeard, referred to by legendary music critic Lee Zimmerman as "boast[ing] the type of sound that represented what pop music used to be about-- strong singing, terrific harmonies and melodies that don't pay particular allegiance to one genre or another but embrace them all... delivering a good tune and making an earnest impression", and garnering comparisons to Moxy Fruvous, The Band and Neil Young.
By 2007, Regina and Stephen had left as full-time Bandits, leaving a tight six-piece group to forge ahead towards a decidedly Freewheeling Roots Rock sound. The Randy Bandits have played and continue to play at The Knitting Factory and Rockwood Music Hall in NYC, as well as at festivals such as New Haven's International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
In 2008 they released the live album Live at Otto’s Shrunken Head. Thanks to being featured on YouTube's home page with a cappella video "Story of Your Life" and acoustic "Give It Up", the band found a strong international following, which, combined with the dedicated "Fandits" in the U.S. made for an ever-growing fanbase world-wide. The band remained dedicated to the same spirit that first brought it together, making good genre-blind music for each other and for nice people who need it.
With their second album Golden Arrow, The Randy Bandits take a giant step forward in honing their recorded sound, while capturing the spirit of their live performance. The entire album was recorded over Memorial Day Weekend 2008 at Trout Recording in Brooklyn, engineered and mixed by recording guru Bryce Goggin (Phish, Pavement, Sean Lennon, among others). Almost all of the album was recorded entirely live, with only a few backing vocals added later. Making this possible were talented guest musicians Jon Mossberg (alto sax), Kenny Warren (trumpet), Deidre Rodman Struck (of the Lascivious Biddies on backing piano) and Richard X. Heyman (home-recording music icon and founding member of The Doughboys on percussion). Listening to Golden Arrow is essentially listening to an amazingly well recorded Randy Bandits gig, with a few bells and whistles thrown in to make these the definitive recordings of these songs.
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