Artist description Description:Bob, the old guy who owns David’s house, where we practice, says we sound like “funeral music.”Well, that kind of makes sense. The base of our music has slow and dark roots. The history of rock has given us the blues from the country south, jazz from the depression era cities, and cultural events of the sixties and seventies. We picked up the aftermath on MTV.All members of our band, new and old, are originally from eastern Washington State, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington State along with portions of Idaho and British Columbia, Canada were self-labeled the Inland Empire back in the seventies. The unofficial designation of Inland Empire seems an indignant separation of western Washington’s wet coastal, urban (big city) environment from eastern Washington’s dry desert, rural agricultural (small town) environment.Does that mean the Inland Empire has a regional musical vernacular like the northern hill country of Mississippi? That’s our secret wish, but probably not. There does seem to be some evidence in the fact that when we advertise in local musician papers for new members in Seattle we find someone we all know from eastern Washington.The same dirge qualities of the now Seattle stereotype, are probably from the same Black Sabbath records in all our collective basements. Four on the floor, grind it till you find it, pentatonic blues-rock music is, for better or worse, ours.

Music Style Somewhere between and Julip and a pull from the bottle.

Musical Influences Afghan Whigs, Merle Haggard, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Junior Kimbrough

Similar Artists Neil Young, The Band X, Talking Heads, Tom Waits, The Eagles

Group Members Backhoe Members:Diana Baker, bass and vocals (1998-current)Jim Friesz, guitar and vocals (1997-current)Rick Saunders, drums and vocals (1997-1998)New Members:David Day, drums and vocals (2000-current)Michael Steele, piano (2001-current)

Instruments drums, Les Paul guitars, acoustic guitars, bass guitars

Albums Inland Empire, Florida, Pretty Crows

Press Reviews It's from family, but what the hell. See review of pretty crows at http://www.ricksaunders.homestead.com/digthis.html

Additional Info http://theribs.com/

Location Seattle, WA - 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).