Guster is an American alternative rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. Formed in 1991, the group is known for its live performances and humor, founding members Adam Gardner, Ryan Miller, and Brian Rosenworcel came about to begin practice sessions while attending Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. The members met during the freshmen Wilderness Orientation program in August 1991, playing publicly together as a trio two months later at the Midnight Cafe coffee house set in the common area of the Lewis Hall dormitory. While attending Tufts, the band lived at 139 College Avenue in Somerville, MA.

The band stayed “underground” for its first two full-length albums, ''Parachute'' (1995) and ''Goldfly'' (1997), but broke into the musical mainstream in 1999 with its third studio album ''Lost and Gone Forever'', with the single song "Fa Fa," which made it onto the Adult Top 40. The band has enjoyed moderate success on the charts with ''Keep It Together'', its fourth album, with two singles in the Adult Top 40 ("Careful" and "Amsterdam"). Joe Pisapia joined the official lineup for "Keep It Together," and the second album following his joining, ''Ganging Up on the Sun'', peaked at 25 on the Billboard 200. A variety of television shows and movies have featured the band's music, including ''Martian Child'', which featured their song "Satellite"; ''Disturbia''; ''Wedding Crashers''; ''Life as a House'', which makes several allusions to the band throughout the film, ''The OC''; and one of the band’s songs was used in an ad for The Weather Channel.

Guster's tours were originally local, but began to spread as the band gained popularity. In 1999, Guster gave its first performance in Canada, followed by a 2004 tour in Britain that had four shows in London and one in Manchester. Guster maintains a liberal taping policy and has a very dedicated and active taping community. Despite this policy, the band has released several live shows via iTunes.

History

In 1996, the band independently recorded their second album, ''Goldfly'', releasing it early the next year. In 1998 the band signed with Sire Records and re-released ''Goldfly''. A year later, the band released the album ''Lost and Gone Forever'', produced by Steve Lillywhite. With the backing of a major label, the band appeared on shows such as ''The Late Show with David Letterman'', and it released their first music video for their song "Fa Fa." The band released its fourth album, ''Keep It Together'', in 2003, with the first single, "Amsterdam," which got significant airplay on the radio. A live album/DVD, ''Guster on Ice'', compiled from two shows in Portland, Maine, in December 2003, was released in 2004. Guster released its fifth full length studio album, ''Ganging Up on the Sun'', on June 20, 2006. The single "Manifest Destiny / Sorority Tears" was released in November 2005 on the Internet.

Alongside ''Ganging up on the Sun'', the band released a documentary comedy series called ''Joe's Place'' on its Web site. More recently, the group, along with the Barenaked Ladies, participated in the latter's Ships and Dip cruise. In 2009, Guster took part in a similar event with musician John Mayer called ''Mayercraft Carrier 2'' aboard the Carnival Splendor

On September 27, 2006, Guster won Album of the Year (Major) at the Boston Music Awards.

Guster released their sixth studio album "Easy Wonderful" on October 5, 2010. Mixing for the album commenced on March 15, 2010 according to an update from the band's Twitter account. On April 30, Guster released "Jonah", an outtake from sessions for their then upcoming album, on the "Download to Donate for Haiti" compilation album. On July 20, Guster released the song "Bad Bad World" as a free download on their website. Before starting their 2010 fall tour, Guster announced that Joe Pisapia would not be touring with the band. Instead, Joe would be touring with k.d. lang with whom he had been writing songs. It was also announced that Luke Reynolds would be filling in for Joe starting September 12, 2010.

Style

While Guster's studio albums included more instrumental variety (e.g. violin, bass, drum kit), its live shows generally retained the same line-up until tours supporting its album ''Lost and Gone Forever,'' in which the band diversified by playing different instruments on some songs. At this time, Rosenworcel began introducing a more traditional drum kit into the stage and studio performances in an effort to move away from bare-hand percussion. Following the release of ''Keep it Together'', multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia, who had been touring with the band, became a full-time member.

Guster's live shows have a style of their own. For encores, the band has sometimes featured drummer Brian Rosenworcel, who is not known for his vocals, moving to the front microphone and singing humorous covers. These have ranged from Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strike" to 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up?" to the theme song from the TV show "Cheers." Guster has toured with many other artists, such as Ben Folds, Nickel Creek, Tally Hall, Ben Kweller, Pete Yorn, Nada Surf, John Mayer, Rogue Wave, and Rufus Wainwright.

Other traditions at live shows have been developed over the years. For example, at the end of "Airport Song", people in the crowd throw ping-pong balls at the stage, in reference to the studio recording, where the audio of a table tennis game can be heard in the background.

Fan reception

Guster once maintained a rep (representative) program, through which fans received promotional materials for upcoming concerts and albums to sell. Reps were rewarded with a special, rep-only series of EP's called ''The Pasty Tapes'' as well as invitations to rep-only concerts. Early in its career, Guster managed to sell more than 10,000 copies of ''Parachute'' and ''Goldfly'' through little more than word-of-mouth. Following the release of ''Ganging up on the Sun'', the band formed a new program called the Wrecking Machines, through which fans are able to receive posters for advertising nearby concerts. Guster is a constantly touring band, often playing up to 250 shows a year.

The band's humor is noted by many fans. For laughs, the three members of Guster opened a number of their own shows as the Peace Soldiers, three redneck-looking musicians. With the addition of Joe into the band, it has since opened for itself in costume as a jam band called Trippin' Balls. During a 2001 show in Rochester, NY (which was oddly enough opened by Joe Pisapia's band Joe, Marc's Brother), the band started their show with an empty stage. The music to The Price is Right played over the sound system, and a voice called each of the band members down from where they had hid themselves in the audience. Upon hearing their name, each member played the part of an enthusiastic game show contestant all the way to the stage.

On July 26, 2011, Ryan Miller went onto turntable.fm to give live previews of tracks off of Guster's On The Ocean EP and listen to music with fans.

Activism

In 2006, Guster named its spring tour the Campus Consciousness Tour. The band toured with the Format, and it powered its buses and trucks with biodiesel and aimed to use the tour to teach audiences about the environment. Participation in early 2007 IZStyle Winter Tour is similarly goaled.

In Fall 2007, Guster headlined the Crocs’ Next Step Campus Tour with Brett Dennen as a supporting act. The tour promoted eco-friendly green initiatives while educating attendees on ways to help the environment. The tour stopped at fifteen colleges, including the University of Puget Sound, Gonzaga University, the College of William and Mary, North Carolina State University, Michigan State University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Vermont, the University of Florida, Furman University, Georgia Southern University, Murray State University, Vanderbilt University, Indiana University, and Williams College.

In Spring 2009, the band continued the green initiate touring, performing at colleges including University of New Hampshire, Northeastern University, University of Arkansas, University of Wisconsin, Fordham University, Union College, Colby College, Ohio State University, University of Dayton, Albright College, Marquette University, Clark University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Band members

;Past members

Discography

;Studio albums

References

External links

Category:American indie rock groups Category:Alternative rock groups from Massachusetts Category:Tufts University alumni Category:Musical groups from Boston, Massachusetts Category:Sire Records artists Category:Reprise Records artists Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Musical quartets Category:Live Music Archive artists

Career

In 2002, Tank released his second album ''One Man'' and a single of the same name.

Tank released his third solo album entitled "Sex, Love & Pain" on May 15, 2007. The lead single was intended to be "I Luv Dem Girls", but for unknown reasons the song was given to Marques Houston who renamed it "Strip Club" (intending to place it on his third solo album "Veteran"). However, "Strip Club" did not make "Veteran," and "Sex, Love & Pain"'s last track is the Timbaland remix to "I Luv Dem Girls". The first single from Tank's third album was "Please Don't Go". Later in the year Tank, Ginuwine and Tyrese Gibson formed a group called TGT. Their first single was a remix of "Please Don't Go" with an international tour entitled "The Shirts Off Tour" and search for a fourth member to follow. Tank released his fourth studio album, ''Now or Never'', on December 14, 2010. Tank collaborated with other artists on this project like Chris Brown, Drake, Letoya Luckett and many other artists.

Tank's song writing and production credits include working with Dave Hollister, Marques Houston, Omarion, Jamie Foxx, Donell Jones and Monica amongst others. As an associate of production team The Underdogs, also Harvey Mason and with his team, Song Dynasty. He has worked with many different artists over the years and was also a contributor to the score of the film adaptation of the musical ''Dreamgirls'', in which he also had a cameo. He was also featured in the movie "The Preacher's Kid."

Personal life

Discography

Albums

¹Copies shipneeds

Singles

Awards

References

External links

Category:African American singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:American male singers Category:Living people Category:People from Milwaukee, Wisconsin Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:1976 births