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Hello.
Through the Grapevine is fast, intense, funky, heavy, and experimental, with the inspiration of video game music.
We're a band of friends who like to play live music in front of people no matter how big, or small, the crowd is.
We got started back in early 2005, under the name "assembly required" (lol) consisting of Carlos (guitar), Stevie(bass), Rick(drums, Matt(vocals), and Tyler(guitar). As this band, they played which well known local acts such as, The Ones You Call Goodlooking, The Skumbags, and Among the Few. The band disbanded for whatever reason at the time. In late 2005, the band Foo Man Chu was formed between Carlos, Rick, and Stevie, for the sole purpose to make music together cause is was just so fun do to. It was just a bunch of 15, to 16 year olds making funky experimental music while drinking out of orange kool-aid jammer pouches. The trio wrote one specific song titled "That Which Moves You", which was played only twice live, ever.
In early 2006, Stevie, Carlos, and Rick had decided that they wanted their old vocalist, Matt, back in the band. At this time the trio had a very open and creative mind-set that they decided to put Stevie on keyboards instead of bass. This new instrument switch had led the group to change the name of the band to Through the Grapevine. In the latter part of that year, they spent writing a complete new set, One of those songs the band wrote entitled "Ooh Babeh Babeh" was actually inspired by the main riff in the Foo Man Chu song "That Which Moves You". Through the Grapevine didn't have a bassist until late 2007. In late '06 to early '07, the band was mostly seen playing shows at a place called Christi's Java Loft in Los Fresnos, Tx. There, they first met up with the guitarist in "Death to a Star", Uriel Guardado. which 1 year later ended up joined TTGV as a bassist. From '06 all the way to early '08 the band played numerous shows literally almost every single weekend, ranging from venues such as Chapa's Bar in Brownsville, Tx, all the way to the Nikki Rowe VFW in Mcallen.
On January 5th, 2008, the band was lucky enough to raise enough money to go on a tiny Texas "tour" all the way up to Abilene, Tx, through San Antonio, Tx. Playing with bands such as Beatin' Up Girls, Iwrestledabearonce, Close Your Eyes, the local band A Single Breath.
In Mid-2008 the band went through some personal problems, being that half the band graduated from high school and their bassist Uriel Guardado was heading off to Full Sail University in Orlando, FL.
The band had a couple of "final shows" with their good friend Lupe to fill in on bass. After that, the band went on a hiatus for 2 years.
In November of 2009, the full band got together for one night on the 3rd annual Tlaquache Fest. (Matt's Annual Birthday Show) Uriel had actually flown in from Florida for a portion of that month and got to play as well.
In early to mid-2010, Carlos and Rick would get together every now and then to jam, just for fun.
After a couple of jam sessions, they decided that this was just too fun to give up. They invited their old friend Stevie to jam as well, with no real intention of getting back TTGV.
The original trio dabbled around here, coming up with pieces of songs, and talked about possibly forming a completely new band called "The Tiptup Choir", which never happened.
After a long long talk about what they should do, they finally decided they should give their old vocalist, Matt, a call.
"Should we get together TTGV again?" was a question on all of their minds at this point.
A couple of jam sessions later, the quartet had decided on continuing with Through the Grapevine. As a bassist, they decided on keeping their good friend Lupe Vela.
Luckily with all that time off, individually they earned themselves a good amount of money which led to new equipment. (yay!, YES WE BOUGHT OUR EQUIPMENT OURSELVES WITH OUR HARD EARNED CASH, NO RICH MOMMIES AND DADDIES HERE!)
[Sept. 2010] from May 2010 and on, they've tried to get their reputation back in the Rio Grande Valley, but in 2 years a lot happens. It may seem like TTGV is a "new" band but, in all reality, we've been doing this for over 6 years time. Breakdowns get old kids, trust me, we've been there. We've definitely matured as a band and as people. So we hope to get the valley "scene" out of this "chugga-chugga, i can play more breakdowns then your band can, chugga-chugga, *puts a mean face on* i can play a breakdown slower and in a lower tuning then your band can, CHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGA-CHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGAetc.".
[Sept. 26, 2010 Update]
TTGV spent their August 2010 in the studio recording with none other than their good friend Uriel Guardado, who is back from Full Sail University.
Their 10 track full-length album "Animals Have Dreams Too" is set to be released late October '10, early November '10.
They look to finally leave the Rio Grande Valley to finally go on a full tour. Help them raise money by buying their merch and going to local shows!
(read the latest blog on the myspace page for more info.)
