Sidecar Social Club

From the main stage of Raleigh, NC's prestigious Artsplosure in May 2012 to back-to-back annual wide-open performances in Dizzy Gillespie's hometown of Cheraw, at the SC Jazz Festival, the five member amalgam known as Sidecar Social Club, has quickly developed a loyal and tenacious fan base. Their easy rapport and shared love of music becomes a contagious, heartfelt celebration on stage. The past three years of steady performance has keenly focused the band's artful interpretations of songs from the Great American Songbook and sparked a growing number of infectious originals and re-imagined modern fare by artists such as Cake, Danny Elfman, and Queens of the Stoneage. SSC’s shows are often standing-room-only affairs; and while the band frequently plays two to three nights back-to-back, their set list keeps fans guessing and dancers hopping by drawing from an ever-expanding catalog of speak-easy jazz, vintage R&B, real country, and modern pop. In late 2011 front-woman-chanteuse, Lisa Veronica Wood, approached keyboardist J. Clarence Crew, Jr. with the idea of starting a jazz group. While maintaining a busy schedule composing for film and TV, Crew made time, along with bassist/recordist Aaron Bittikofer, to begin shaping the band's sound. The trio quickly found a common interest in stories and themes from the prohibition-era and the broken, battered and unrequited women of song. Crew had spent the previous twenty-odd years performing salsa, funk, and avant-garde in concerts and at jazz festivals with a number of organizations, while Bittikofer toured with the highly-regarded alternative band "Hipbone." Hailing from Buffalo, NY, Ms.Wood's professional career began in Key West, Fl, where she sang with small groups and nightclub combos. Wood fearlessly engages her audience, drawing them in from the start. Before landing in Raleigh she plied her craft with various bands in Toronto, Ontario, Cleveland, and LA. The addition of saxophonist F.O. Finch, III and drummer Edward Theolandos Butler completed the lineup. Finch, brimming with funk, jazz, and big band credentials, contributes an uplifting dose of New Orleans and blues-inspired playing to the mix. Butler's eclectic musical odyssey of thirty-plus years includes adventures in free-jazz, world music, theater, and Americana. He masterfully lays down a fat groove, layered with an evolving palette of percussive textures that keeps feet tapping and dancing as the only option. In Summary, Here's the Thing: One of us likes comics, one likes surfing, one likes making Sea Pop, one likes creating wearable fine art and one likes fishing way out in the scary ocean. The perfect ingredients for one hell of of band. stumbling into your view