Bonerama is a brass funk rock band from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Bonerama was formed in 1998 by trombone players Mark Mullins and Craig Klein, who, from 1990 up until late 2006, were also members of Harry Connick Jr.'s big band. Shortly thereafter, they added trombone players Steve Suter, Brian O'Neill, and Rick Trolsen, sousaphone player Charlie Kruger, guitarist Bert Cotton, and drummer Eric Bolivar. New Orleans drummers Russell Batiste, Stanton Moore, Doug Belote, Chad Gilmore, Terence Higgins, and Kevin O'Day have also been playing with Bonerama for periods of time. Later, Matt Perrine sousaphone replaced Charlie Kruger.
Bonerama trombonist Brian O'Neill had a heart attack and died while on a solo piano gig in New Orleans in December 2005.
Bonerama released their debut album in 2001, to positive reviews from OffBeat magazine, Gambit Weekly, and The Times Picayune. They had their first tour of the East Coast to sold-out venues. Rolling Stone editor David Fricke, in his "On the Edge" column, wrote about them as "the ultimate in brass balls."
Walking down an alley
Deep in blue neon
A dead end for today
Under skyways worn
Concrete from far below
Rising up above
Surrounded by shadows
Garden without gods
All are strangers alike
All riding the blind
The purple of blind
The purple of their eyes
In reverie unwind
Circling sub-city
A rainbow appears
To calm down the fury
To calm all the fears
This random occurrance
Is only a sign
Of the incoherence
In the clockwork mind
A symphony of our time
Recalling the past
People in a decline
Denying the vibrations we're made of
Somber drama
Rolling down hill
Panorama
All is so still
Anyway, anyhow
Anyhow, anyway
End of all reason
Is what I go through
Yes, it is what I go through
Slip-sliding nation
Is what they must do
Yes, it is what they must do
Over the greying landscape
Under a deadened sky
Sitting on a mountain
I will stand aside
As I am a witness
I turn a blind eye
I am feeling helpless
But it passes by
Is this a modern legend?
Maybe a fairy tale
Just a future requiem
Cutting along the fiction that we're
The Independent | 19 Jun 2018