em dash: the band, not the punctuation mark

UPCOMING SHOW JULY 7th

2006-06-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

Em Dash will be performing with special guest Strange Montgomery on July 7th at the Rochester Contemporary (RoCo) Art Gallery in downtown Rochester. The event is called "Up Against the Wall" and features the work of various local artists. Venue info and details are available at http://www.rochestercontemporary.org/upagainstthewalls.htm.

Holy Blood!! Holy Grail!!

2006-05-08T13:51:00.000-05:00

The EmDash family continues to grow. Bassist Jeff Tucker and his wife Belinda are the proud new parents of Elizabeth Sophia Redden Tucker, born April 11th.
Also, JB and Alfred's side project Strange Montgomery is off and running.. check us out at www.myspace.com/strangemontgomery
We smell gigs coming up..we'll keep you posted.

UPDATES

2006-04-28T14:43:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Dashville!!

It has been a long time oh my brothers but we promise to keep you up to speed now that Dashville is up and running. Dashville is our new practice space/headquaters/recording studio on South Avenue in Rochester. There are 3 bands that make up the Dashville collective--EmDash, The Salary Men and Strange Montgomery. We are all working on demos right now and should be out playing this summer so we'll keep you posted.

for JB's mom...

2006-01-20T13:40:00.000-05:00

hi there mrs. jb's mom...

we just want to let you know that we think your son's a good boy. he's polite, neat, respectful of his elders, and his breath often smells of cantaloupe. plus he can ride his bike really fast.

sincerely,

malcolm sleazy
impresario and svengali to the stars

Yes, we're still alive...

2006-01-20T13:21:00.000-05:00

Hey there dash-heads!

Yes, as the subject line says "we're still alive" and playing. We are currently awaiting news on a rehearsal space, so that we can practice more and record a new demo. We have a bunch of new songs and despite neglecting this blog, we are still working on our music dilligently...playing better, rocking harder, pontificating holier, spelunking deeper, and photographing sexier. Just take a look at these pix...we are sexy bitches, no doubt.

But wait...here are a couple more. And just so you all know, only one of these 4 swarthy sea dogs is single. Can you guess which one?

For those of you who just can't get enough, here is one more picture of the guys. We have decided that we need to get a PO Box in order to handle the flood of packages sent to us daily...packages containing interesting morsels like used lobster bibs, untranslated german travel guides, padlocks, unsubstantiated rumors, and de-linting implements. For the last time, people, panties or money only.

em dash: armed, legged, tendoned and dangerous.

Conspicuous Consumption Redux

2005-11-11T12:58:00.000-05:00

A message from our svengali-like Impresario, Malcolm Sleazy, a man of few words and even fewer scruples:

"Buy things with em dash written on them."

How can you argue with that?

Goto: http://www.cafepress.com/emdashmusic

2005-11-10T09:13:00.000-05:00

Mistakes? More Like Opportunity-Stakes!!!!

**Correction** The reading and Em Dash Show on Friday Nov. 11th will be held in Rare Books and Special Collections not the Gamble Room as previously reported. So stop all your mundane blogging, clogging, and defogging, and come on down to Rare Books and Special Collections--Where ideas become imagineering!!!!!

2005-11-08T14:28:00.000-05:00

EM DASH LIVE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER 11/11/05

November 11—Poetry Reading by Wyn Cooper. Author of three books of poetry and known for his lyrics set to music, Cooper's reading celebrates acquisition of BOA Editions' publishing archive by Rare Books and Special Collections Library. Reception with live music and refreshments follows. Gamble Room, Rush Rhees Library, 7 p.m.

Em Dash will go on after the reading at @8:15 and we will rock until they pay us

em dash Live at The Barn

2005-11-04T07:32:00.000-05:00

em dash, live at The Barn.

okay...the date is wrong. The gig was actually on 10/29/2005.

From left to right: Alfred, JB, Babak and Jeff.

Frankenstein officially became our first groupie.

End of message.

Jeff's Bio

2005-11-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

Jeff "Atomic Skull" Tucker (Bass, Guitar, Vocals)

Referred to as the "Stoic's James Bond," Jeff Tucker has written over 73 bathroom wall novels, including "For a good time, call Theodor Adorno" and "Where's the Toilet Paper, Kenneth?" An adroit bass player and co-founder of em dash, Jeff has managed to remain fairly gruntled, somewhat whelmed, and full of ruth all through the tumultuous years when em dash was struggling to get various monkees off their back (as a side note, Mickey Dolenz has been spotted recently in their vicinity once again). Jeff is known to hordes of Teutons as the August Strindberg of modern rock.

Alfred's Bio

2005-11-03T20:41:00.000-05:00

Alfred "insert expletive here" Vitale (Drums, Percussion)

The last member of em dash, replacing their Spinal-Tappian slew of dead drummers, Alfred has recently starred in a number of public service announcements warning against the evils of the philatelic pleasures. A paranoid conspiracy-buff cum narcissistic anarcho-syndicalist, Alfred has a hard time keeping his hands from himself. He hopes his foray into em dashism will strengthen his already nonexistent cult following. Alfred is known to scouses as the Benny Hill of modern rock.

JB's Bio

2005-11-03T20:39:00.000-05:00

JB "Wombat Rock" Rodgers (Guitar, Lap Steel, Vocals)

A staple in the Rochester office supply scene, JB Rodgers has been faking music since he was 14. He started with em dash as their drummer, but switched to guitar because the sticks just couldn't make the strings sound loud enough. JB spends his weekdays writing death metal gospel songs for local Buddhist temples and wondering why he still can't find his pants. JB is known to a small cadre of diehard battery fans as the Ren Hoek of modern rock.

Babak's Bio

2005-11-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

Babak "Pronounced Bob-ack" Elahi (Guitar, Vocals, Harmonica)

Babak, originally born "Cat Stevens," had 7 fingers on his left hand until a bizarre "rock-paper-scissors" accident chopped two of them off. Co-Founder of em dash back in the 18th century, when it was called "ye em dashe," his guitar playing has wowed audiences from here to there. Babak currently lives in Ironicquiet with his many families, and is known to none as the Leonard Zelig of modern rock.

It begins...sort of

2005-11-03T08:34:00.000-05:00

Many years and incarnations have passed. Rather than bore you with tedious history, we're going to post a relatively recent snippet written about the band in SPINe Magazine by legendary gonzo beatnik objectivist unbearable reporter, Rollo Whitehead:

"em dash's hectic library schedule inevitably found them in an orgy of books, fees and rock and roll. Babak had started to read with a cadre of banned librarians and soon was strung out with a book addiction...twice he tried to commit suicide by shoving copies of Proust's Remembrance of Thing's Past down his throat, but was unable to swallow its premise.

Jeff also had his problems. for he was living a double-life...by day he taught classes, by night he was partying at open poetry jams, surrounded by the seediest readers in town, immersing himself in a world of mispronounced words, illegally imported absinthe-java, and poor imitiations of sylvia plath. in the early morning of april 9th, after police raided an illegal after-hours writer's workshop, jeff was found carrying 5 ounces of poetry...enough to get him charged with possession. if not for the intervention of university legal services, em dash's bass player might have been reading poetry at sing-sing.

JB, seeking to go his own way, cut Jeff's hair, sold all of Babak's possessions, and became a disciple of Jacques Derrida...first leaving the band for 3 months in June of 2006 in order to find and deconstruct himself, then spending the rest of the year getting an MBA in an accelerated course at Indian Pyrotechnic University in Ulan Bator. When he returned, his songs began to reflect his new philosophy of deconstructonomics...with songs like, "Baby, Your Mutual Fund is a Vastly Reducible MythoPoetic Inversion of its own Signifier." and the haunting ballad, "There is no 'I' in IRA."

Alfred remained in the Rare Books collection long after their concert ended, living in the stacks, and starting a sex cult of librarian groupies, filming literary porn with reconstructions of great literary masterpieces done on a low budget and filled with outrageous sex scenes. Getting bored of 19th century british lit, he started his own novellas which he then filmed as porn epics. He was to sweep the adult film awards with his now-legendary trilogy, "Talk Dewey To Me", "Bonan the Librarian" and "Playing with My Shelf."

The band reunited in 2004 to play at a local nursing home. The success of which prompted a whirlwind tour of preschools, departments of motor vehicles, laundromats, clerk's offices, bus depots, and nail salons...culminating in their final performance in the remainder section at the pittsford barnes and noble. babak, who had spent 6 months in book rehab, had the shakes and was found in the bathroom trying score some books on tape. jeff's hands were shakey, as he was jonesing for a poetry fix. jb ended the show by dry humping "Of Grammatology" while sabotaging Alfred's already abysmal tax returns. After the show, they once more split up...to deal with the various monkey's on their backs. This reporter hopes that some day, we may see them back and literarier than ever!" --Rollo Whitehead, SPINe Magazine Dec. 2004