God Street Wine

God Street Wine (also known as GSW) is a jam band from New York City. Their music is an amalgam of rock, jazz, bluegrass, funk, psychedelia, pop, Americana, reggae, progressive, and more. The band broke up in 1999 and reunited in 2009. GSW played a significant role in the development of the improvisational jam band scene of the early 1990s. Their earliest days include playing Nightingale's and The Wetlands Preserve in New York City where their contemporaries were The Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, Jono Manson and the Dreyer Brothers. From their earliest days, fans of the band were known as Winos. This group of dedicated fans would follow them from gig to gig. When their touring base expanded Winos would sometimes drive hours to see the band. GSW was an early adapter of internet marketing, acquiring a domain name and electronic mailing list ahead of many others in the scene. They also maintained a snail mail list and telephone hotline fans could call to get tour dates from a recorded message. Occasionally callers would be surprised by a band member answering the phone and replying to their inquiry personally. Numerous bands and musicians that went on to achieve major success opened for them over the years ranging from Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow and Hootie and the Blowfish to the Ominous Seapods, G. Love & Special Sauce and Dispatch. God Street Wine toured the U.S. with H.O.R.D.E. four times and opened for the Black Crowes and The Allman Brothers Band. The band is composed of Lo Faber (lead vocals, guitar), Aaron Maxwell (lead vocals, guitar), Tom Osander (drums, percussion, backing vocals), Dan Pifer (bass, backing vocals), and Jon Bevo (keyboards). Lo Faber and Dan Pifer met as students at NYU in 1986. Eventually they both transferred to Manhattan School of Music, to study jazz, where they met Aaron Maxwell (Lieberman). As it happened, his father Hal Lieberman was a trumpet and Jazz Improvisation teacher at Manhattan School of Music. Faber and Tom Osander were high school friends who had previously been in bands together. Pifer had met Jon Bevo earlier at NYU and he jammed with them on keyboards, eventually joining when the band began to coalesce. As the band came together in the second half of 1988, they recorded songs at the studio Sounds of Joy on West 46th Street where Pifer was working. ” Electrocute,” “Freight Train,” “She Said Dark,” ”Fortress of Solitude” and “Other Shore” were recorded. Most of those tunes have remained live staples throughout their career. On December 13, 1988 God Street Wine played their first public gig at Nightingale's on Second Avenue in Lower Manhattan. This club becomes a regular haunt for them. Other bands that got their start at the legendary Lower East Side venue include Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors. During 1989 the band became regulars at The Nightingale bar downtown and at The 712 Club on 125th Street. God Street Wine also started playing every downtown bar they could, many of them on Bleecker Street. They went into the studio and recorded an 8-song, cassette only release. John Popper of Blues Traveler was a guest soloist on one song. In 1990 they recorded three nights at The 712 Club and eventually released “Live at the 712 Club.” 1991 stands as a major turning point for God Street Wine. The decision was made to strive for being something greater than a bar band. All 5 members of the band and their crew moved into a single house in Ossining NY, which they dubbed "The Great Northern." They quit their jobs and focused only on music and the business of being God Street Wine. This allowed them to rehearse at any time of day or night. In addition to their playing they also worked on their harmonies which were increasingly becoming a signature part of their sound. By 1992 the band had been living together in Ossining, NY at The Great Northern for the better part of a year. With an entire house to themselves they wrote and rehearsed incessantly. By this point God Street Wine had been playing gigs for nearly 4 years and it was time to record a full-length release. They recorded their debut album Bag at the House of Music in West Orange, New Jersey, and Crossroads Studio in Manhattan. God Street Wine financed Bag themselves with the help of friends and sold it at shows before making a distribution deal with Ripe 'n' Ready. Scott Reilly who was running Bullethead Management in New York City became God Street Wine's manager. By this point in time the band is recording most of their shows. Later in the year they released a live album Who's Driving? Their song of the same name does not make it onto the album. They celebrated the release with a return to Irving Plaza on October 9, 1993. In the mid 1990s God Street Wine was on the road all but constantly. 1994 was no exception to this. The work they had done in the last few years was paying off as they were playing increasingly larger venues and getting booked for lucrative college gigs and the like. Their spring 1994 tour ended with a headline appearance at Port Chester's Capitol Theater. In January of that year they had signed with Geffen Records. After time spent finding the right producer for their major label debut the band decamped to Memphis. They spent 6 weeks at Beale Street Studios with producer Jim Dickinson and engineer Malcom Springer. The recording sessions were fruitful but fraught with tension between the band and Dickinson who threatened to drown the masters in the Mississippi river. Despite the strain Faber insists there were benefits to working with Dickinson, “One of the best things Jim did was bring in a vocal coach named Sanchez Harley. He was a black, gospel choir director. He taught us over the course of two weeks, of twelve hour days, four part church harmonies and apply it to all our songs. It made a huge difference in the sound of the band.” The final mix was completed in New York City. “$1.99 Romances” was releases by Geffen / Eleven Records in September 1994. Having had a less-than-stellar experience with Geffen Records, during the recording and promotion of $1.99 Romances, the band was relieved in 1995 to be released from its contract. The band turned its house into a 52-track recording studio and started work on its next album. Free from the constraints of a label, and financing the project itself, God Street Wine took a different approach to recording. Previous projects were based on road-tested songs that in some cases had been played live for years. In this case, the band chose to write new songs during the recording sessions. In addition, it recorded in a segmented fashion, finishing one song before moving on to the next. When the album (Red) was complete, the band self-released it. Some months later, the band signed with Mercury Records, which re-released and distributed “Red.” In 1996, the band shot a video for the song “RU 4 Real.” On April 3, 1997 God Street Wine returned to The Wetlands Preserve billed as "Jon Bevo's Love Orchestra." They used the return to their old home venue to test out songs for their next album. Of the 25 songs they played, 10 would appear on their new album which they entered the studio to record one week later. On October 7, 1997 God Street Wine released their self-titled fourth studio album through Mercury Records. The album was produced by Bill Wray and included guest contributions from Little Feat co-founder Bill Payne. In January 1998 God Street Wine announced a two-week Shindig Tour. The tour featured them performing a combination of re-arranged songs in a mostly acoustic format and also tackling some new covers. The format was tested out with a 2 night stand in early January 1998 at The Wetlands Preserve. In the spring of 1998 Osander and Bevo expressed a desire to curtail touring. Pifer, Faber & Maxwell had no desire to curb their touring activities, so Bevo and Osander chose to step away from God Street Wine. After holding auditions in New York City Aubrey Dayle and Peter Levin were recruited