Artist description "Combatting the Triangle's beat deficit!" (well, we used to!)

Music Style electronic

Musical Influences Funkiness, experimental stuff, bass

Artist History Spent 1997 and 1998 creating beats, rhythms, and sounds playing live in clubs throughout the Triangle, NC area. Self-released a CD in the Fall of 1998. Now defunct, but future remix releases are always a possibility!

Group Members Eddy Winstead - turntables: Ian Shannon - live bass, violin, and synths: Rich Misenheimer - beats, synths, and sounds programming

Instruments 808, Jomox XBase09, Pulse, Microwave, Sherman Filterbank, Schaltwerk, MMT8, MPC2000, tables, bass, violin

Albums Those Pesky Bubbles; Live @ WXDU (Terminal Transmissions)

Press Reviews from www.mtv.com local reviews - Raleigh FRIEND SIDE MONKEY Leaves Me Hypnotized FRIEND SIDE MONKEY is a magnetic threesome made up of Rich Misenheimer (synths, samplers, rhythm machines, sequence programming, external processing), Ian Shannon (processed bass and violin, sampler), and Eddy Winstead (turntables, sampler), who mesmerized all in the small setting of the Carrboro Artscenter on the afternoon of June 21. Since their music is based primarily on sequencers and infinitely repeating sounds, one would almost believe that these three were more computer geeks and chemists than proficient sound engineers. But sometimes it's the people with the most knowledge who make the best music. Their sound seems like an amalgam of artists such as the PULSARS, MONEY MARK, BECK, and STEREOLAB, in that their fast "bleeps and quips" sometimes sound a lot like "dots and loops." Combine these elements with quick hip-hop scratching and the psychedelic ingredients of acid rock, and you have the perfect finished product -- a complete stereophonic sound spectacular. On the afternoon of June 21, as part of the free Fete De La Music in Carrboro, FRIEND SIDE MONKEY performed a good 40-minute set of pulsing, tweaking, banging, kick-ass rhythmic music that showed all the locals what kind of talent this town can put together. With the new sound of electronica having already gotten a charge everywhere else, FRIEND SIDE MONKEY originates local electro talent in the Chapel Hill area. As originators, they have already taken a great leap forward by releasing last year's album Those Pesky Bubbles. The Fete set was filled with expert sequencing, a fly amount of scratching on the turntables, and an incredible light show that complemented the music to a T. All in all, FRIEND SIDE MONKEY provided the best combination of music and imagery of the entire day.-- Django Gilliganfeedlocal@mtvmail.com (June 23, 1998) =================================================from Ciysearch11.com FSM info page. . .Friend Side MonkeyDeluged with quality rock, country, and jazz performances in the past year, the average Triangle clubgoer might be excused for overlooking a missing piece in the puzzle of local music: beats. Now, by beats, I don't mean the rhythms that anchor your average rock song. Guitarists don't know beats; DJs do. Beats emerge from artfully manipulated machines, not from live instruments (at least not without a bit of sonic tinkering). They're not engineered to make you rock or swing; they aim to incite more motion than that. A beat may truly be identified by its absence; it drops out and you hang, suspended, awaiting its return, then BAM, it's back, crushing your resistance. Cities like New York and Chicago have long had an overabundance of beat gurus, manifesting their skills in hip-hop, trip-hop, and techno. Only recently have disciples in more diverse locales, egged on by the arrival of increasingly inexpensive musical technology, begun to master the art of beats. A case in point is the Raleigh outfit Friend Side Monkey, newly arrived on the scene to combat the Triangle's beat deficit. An offshoot of the Wifflefist collective, a group of Raleigh musicians who in the past five years have been ahead of the pack in mutating technology to serve their own twisted musical visions, Friend Side Monkey are perhaps the first local group to take up the challenge of presenting live electronic dance music in a rock club setting. In doing so, they utilize not only the usual banks of effects boxes, drum machines, and sequencers, but turntable scratching, live keyboards, and violin. The result is a funky, twisted sound that sits atop a bed of serious beats, ranging from oceanic dub to furious acid pounding. The clubgoer accustomed to musicians posturing under spotlights may be a bit mystified by the shadowy stage presence of these three mysterious individuals, but their ethic demands an emphasis on the music itself, not on its creators. --Richard Allenlast updated: Tuesday July 1, 1997 ==================================================Will Friend Side Monkey turn Durham into a trip-hop mecca?by tim rossIt was a chilly Saturday night this past February when I found myself standing in the middle of a crowded Raleigh basement watching the second of four local bands at a house party, that most intimate and punk-rock of all possible music venues.A casual scanning of the room made it clear that not only was I surrounded by a healthy assortment of local rockers and clubgoers, but, in what must have appeared to be some sort of odd tribal ritual, many of my basement-mates and I were shaking our heads in unison as we became more and more engulfed by the undulating midtempo rhythms emanating from the loud band performing in front of us.Later that evening I was struck with the idea that five or six years ago, the exact same physical response might have been displayed at an early Picasso Trigger or Orifice show, perhaps by a similar crowd that even contained several of the exact same folks who were at the house party.And I could suggest with even greater certainty that a crowd of that particular time period (1990 to 1992) would have been inclined to "nod the upper half of the bod" to then-favored American underground stalwarts like "Goat"-era Jesus Lizard, early Helmet, or any number of slow-to-medium-paced Amphetamine Reptile or Sub Pop combos whose music contained a heavy bass-and-drum component.But the soundtrack to the above-described party moment had very little to do with Midwestern independent rock circa 1991. In fact, the band booming the basement that night didn't even play rock 'n' roll; they filled the room with a hypnotic and crunchy mutation of "trip-hop" that bore at least some resemblance to the experimentally funky techno stylings of "...I Care Because You Do"-era Aphex Twin.Who was this mysterious local band? It was Friend Side Monkey, a Durham-based electronica trio headmastered by the synth-playing, rhythm programming, sound processing and sampling talents of Rich Misenheimer, a man that Triangle music fans may have previously encountered via his vocal, electronic, percussion, bass and costume work in the quirky, avant-pop quartet Polycarp."Friend Side Monkey was first conceived about two to three years ago as a means to explore some techno-electronica ideas that were different from Polycarp," Misenheimer explains."It was also a mechanism for collaborating with a variety of other musicians who I'd invite to my studio to experiment with whatever instruments they wanted to tote along."This open-door policy was instrumental in allowing Misenheimer to transport the project past the typical techno-hermit realm of just a man and his hard drive, as two of the invited parties have since become regular members of Friend Side Monkey's lineup.In addition to aiding Misenheimer with sampler duties, bassist-violinist Ian Shannon (also of Polycarp) and turntable manipulator Eddy Winstead help spice up the otherwise digital domain with low-end groove and essential surface tensions and decorations. It's a lively and interactive setup-one that affords Friend Side Monkey most of the same functionality that other local bands enjoy."With this style of music," Misenheimer continues, "one of the biggest challenges is configuring our stage equipment so that it is easy to set up and permits some flexibility. If you utilize a lot of pre-recorded music, you lose the ability to improvise or surprise, which is boring for both the band and the audience. Our current songs are pretty structured, but we'd like to focus on breaking down the music and rebuilding it, making it a little more improvisational."That may seem to be an odd goal in such a technology-dependent style of music, but it's exactly this sonic adventurousness that should help Friend Side Monkey distinguish itself from many of its brethren in the already unwieldy and overhyped techno-electronica genre.By employing some non-digital instruments (metal cans, conga drums, tapes, plastic pitch tubes) and by visibly performing (and even grooving along to!) their fresh compositions, Friend Side Monkey just might be the band that convinces many of the Triangle's hype-wary techno-phobes that there's a lot more to electronic dance music than what MTV buzz clips or superficial listens tend to indicate. And if the band's live performances, everywhere from rock clubs to art galleries, don't do the trick, maybe one of Friend Side Monkey's other ambitions will."We'd like to remix other local bands," offers Misenheimer. Hmmm...now there's a thought that should excite anyone who heard Friend Side Monkey's masterful "King Vitamin" remix at the end of Polycarp's The Magnetic Moment CD. My mind races thinking about what might be next off the technological cutting board. Drum and bass reworkings of Pipe songs? Trip-hoppy Analogue jeep beats? Irreverent acid-house mixes of the Squirrel Nut Zippers?I can hardly wait. And there'll be nothing left for the "Chapel Hill doesn't dance anymore" complainers to do but stand around and shake their heads.- Independent Magazine (local Triangle weekly magazine) review, (May 7, 1997)

Location Durham, NC - USA

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