Rob K & Uncle Butcher

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Rob K and Uncle Butcher are on a Mission – nothing less than resuscitating the sorry carcass of rocknroll! This once proud music has been abandoned to angst ridden cry babies and buck hungry charletons. So when Marco sounded the alarm from Brazil, Rob stepped out of semi-retirement and back into the trenches touring with Uncle Butcher and delivering The Message Of The Jam.



With over six decades of musical experience between the two of them, Rob and Marco are natural bon vivants, top notch showmen and raging entertainers. Their stage presence is unique. Marco does the One Man Band thing to poly-rhythmic perfection while Rob roams the stage, the audience and the rafters spouting doggerel, practicing yoga and preaching the blues. They have taken Trash Blues to a newer, higher level – Trash Glam!



Then there’s their offbeat recording career. Impossible as it sounds, they cut their first record together before they ever met! How else but thru the magic of the internet could two poor musicians from Brazil and Hawaii make a record together? In the process they learned something profound about interconnectedness and cooperation. They learned The Jam transcends Space and Time. They learned that Spontaneity and The Moment will ALWAYS trump corperate music and the hard sell. At first this was just a feeling Rob and Marco shared but the vibe has spread internationally – The Message Of The Jam – and they’ve dedicated their lives to spreading The Word.



Rob’s pedigree goes all the way back to the mid -70s when his band, The Chumps (now being rediscovered thanks to Afterburn’s recent reissue), jump started the nascent Washington DC punk scene and helped define its Anarchistic, hard edged jazzbo ethos. From DC Rob moved to New York City eventually forming The Workdogs with Scott Jarvis. The ‘Dogs were a two piece that jammed with just about everyone of note on the New York scene. Jon Spencer, Popa Chubby, Ivan Julian, Kid Congo are just a few that clocked time with The Workdogs and in the process invented Trash Blues - New York Style. To this day The Workdogs’ In The Red and Sympathy For The Record Industry releases are highly treasured on the collector’s market.



Marco Butcher literally grew up within the Brazilian rocknroll scene. A teen aged runaway on the streets of Sao Paulo, Marco started drumming professionally at fourteen. By his mid 20s he was fronting the enormously popular The Butchers’ Orchestra. European tours for the Voodoo Rhythm label followed as well as playing in a half dozen sidebands with a Who’s Who of Paulista rocknroll.



The Jam has always been paramount to both Rob and Marco. Creative connections with other musicians are what they live for. The spark of discovering each other and of finding a method to jam across a distance of ten thousand miles ignited their explosive first disc, 24 Hours Songs. (All of the songs were created in less than 24 hours!! But that’s another tale.)



Their sophomore effort was recorded on the fly in Caffeine Studio during Rob’s whirlwind first Brazil tour. The spontaneous combustion of finally having Rob and Marco in the same room and time zone is captured perfectly on Message Of The Jam. Wildly successful European tours followed. And now there is Dictionary Of Cool, their latest record. Dictionary expands on the spare sexy style of 24 Hours Songs with thirteen new Rob and Marco originals. Several of Sao Paulo’s coolest rockers sat in on the instrumental sessions and the record also includes backing vocals from Kaikea, Hawaii’s hot new vocal sensation.



Dictionary Of Cool is Rob K and Uncle Butcher’s mission statement about the regenerative power of rocknroll and The Jam. It’s about stretching definitions not being ruled by them. Or it might just be the kicking and screaming of two old rockers who refuse to see the music they love die without a fight. Either way, the results are mind expanding.



Rob and Marco – or The Jam Messengers as they sometimes call themselves – will be touring extensively in 2010 with dates in England, Portugal, Scotland and Sweden already on the calendar