Artist description "...raw energy...high-performance punkish, garage feel...early Metallica-meets-Social Distortion-meets-The Buzzcocks...meaty growl of a voice...a little creepy and a little sad..." -Spaghettio Reverso, The Noise

Music Style Garage/punk rock, trash R&B

Musical Influences Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Modern Lovers, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the who, the Kinks, Black Sabbath, Joy Division/Warsaw, Guided by Voices, MC5, Kiss, New York Dolls, Dead Boys

Similar Artists Supersuckers, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dead Boys, DMZ

Artist History   The Chris Ware Band – a virtual car crash of punk and rockabilly – was born late in the winter of 1995 in the haunted dark of a bar in Lowell, Massachusetts. A few friends were spending the evening discussing a few shared obsessions – the cruel voyeurism and gossip-mongering of enemies real and imagined, excess (in all its manifestations), and Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power. The band was conceived, that night, as an outlet for their petty anxieties, consuming paranoia, and love of rock and roll. In 1997, the Chris Ware Band released the seven song Mill City’s Burning, which enjoys regular college radio airplay and continues to draw comparisons to the likes of the Dead Boys, the Standells, and Nick Cave. Their 2000 follow-up full-length Soul Shakedown – which charts the interior regions of despair, unrest, betrayal, remorse, and boner-shame – is a more finely crafted rock and roll locomotive. These new songs are loud, full, and catchy as hell – making it nearly impossible not to shout along with the choruses. To date, the band has had more drummers than Spinal Tap. With the recent addition of Sean Burgess to fill that role, the Chris Ware Band is entering the next phase of an already highly successful career. In the past five years, they have built a following in Boston; Lowell, MA; and Providence, RI – playing with bands like the Fleshtones, the Shods, Textile Lunch, Eddy Dyer and SuperID, Kearney Square, Purrr, the Texas Vipers, Rock City Crime Wave, Quintaine Americana, Porter, Random Roadmother, Demolition Doll Rods, the Lashes, the Double Nuthins and the Nines. They have recently signed with Boston indie That Promising Seadog Media, and expect a 7” out by Spring/Summer 2001.

Group Members Chris Ware- Vocals Sean McSheehy- Guitars, backing vocal Donny McHale- Guitars, backing vocals Scott Brodeur- Bass, backing vocals Sean Burgess- Drums

Albums Mill City's Burning, Soul Shakedown, Sound of Speed (Live)

Press Reviews CARBON 14 (#19) - Ben Brower said about "Soul Shakedown": Somebody's got to help me out here. Where might have I heard of Chris Ware before? Hmmm, the record's got a Cambridge address on it. Boston area club fixture perhaps? Was he in some "seminal" under-the-radar band in the '80s that I never bothered checking out? This is going to bug me until I get some answers. Normally I wouldn't be wracking my (and your) brain over it. But a record this flat out great doesn't usually just spring fully realized from out of nowhere. There's almost always a traceable lineage. Dammit! Why did this have to be the one band to NOT send a self-aggrandizing press kit! Soul Shakedown is a ragged, crackling, exposed electrical wire jumping with the same unchecked current that powered the Gun Club, the Flesh Eaters and Sonny Vincent's high wattage, lone nut, rock n' roll desperation. Ware's vocals sometimes toy with the idea of melody, but ultimately abandon the notion in favor of a Jeffrey Lee Pierce by way of David Yow via Johnny Thunders howl and yelp. Not as tough on the ears as it might sound. Rather a fitting counterpart to the rest of the band, which manages to keep things nailed down while the twin Detroit guitar roar storms all over a refreshingly spare and uncluttered studio production. The review copy came packed in a hand-screened cardboard contraption with precious little information as to Mr. Ware's origin or current whereabouts. I can't tell you with any accuracy if this [is] his first or 50th album. All I know is that I've got one of them, and I'm making room on the shelf for any others that may be out there. CHRIS WARE BAND Soul Shakedown (Fan Attic) The Chris Ware band have their finger directly on the pulse of cool rock songs. Upbeat affairs that take as much from the Sex Pistols as the do from the Supersuckers, Jerry Lee Lewis or Frank Black for that matter. Simple, fun and effective, this band are a high-energy affair that makes you want to get loaded, dance your fool ass off and hoot until you cough up green stuff. Polished off with really cool indie CD packaging. !!!! Keith Carman Caustic Truths

Additional Info other project related to band members: Alien Blood Transfusion (Chris Ware), Goolstickers (Sean McSheehy, Sean Burgess), Textile Lunch (Donny McHale), Brober (Scott Brodeur)......purchase CD's through www.fanatticrecords.com or www.thatpromising.com

Location Lowell, MA - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).