Biography
An irrepressible playfulness colors everything Chandler Travis attempts, threading his work in bar-band formats, rock & roll, new-wave-tinged power pop, and jazz-tinged big-band arrangements with a sly wink and a taste for the absurd without ever lapsing into simple comedy. Rather than a parodist or stand-up comic, he operates as an unapologetic smart aleck whose approach often mirrors that of Massachusetts counterpart R. Stevie Moore.
Raised in the Cape Cod community of Eastham, Massachusetts, Travis entered the late-’60s Boston scene by way of a teenage garage outfit first called the Good Fairies and later renamed St. James Infirmary. In 1969 he joined forces with fellow local musician Steve Shook to launch Travis Shook & the Club Wow, a loose collective that worked Boston venues for roughly two years until comedian George Carlin discovered their rough-edged, R&B-inflected rock and their growing emphasis on wordplay and musical humor; Carlin promptly booked them as his regular opener, a role the duo maintained into the early ’80s. Their sole album, The Essential Travis Shook & the Club Wow, appeared in 1973 on their own Just Like Real Records and drew songwriting and instrumental support from several members of NRBQ, a group whose path would soon intersect repeatedly with Travis’s own.
By 1981 Travis and Shook felt the Travis Shook & the Club Wow idea had run its course. Adding drummer Vince Valium (also known as Rikki Bates) and guitarist Johnny Spampinato—brother of NRBQ’s Joey Spampinato—they formed the Incredible Casuals. A poppier outfit whose guitar-jangle style echoed the post-punk groups then emerging from Athens and Hoboken, the Casuals issued the Summer Fun, Let’s Go EP in 1982 and waited until 1987 for their first full-length, That’s That. The next album, Your Sounds, surfaced on the local Sonic Trout imprint in 1991, followed in 1996 by It Is Balloon; by then the group had become a part-time concern, especially after Big Al Anderson departed NRBQ in 1993 and Johnny Spampinato assumed the guitar chair in that longstanding ensemble.
Travis finally began a solo discography in 1992 with the eclectic, Van Dyke Parks-influenced Writer-Songsinger, which featured contributions from Shook and David Greenberger. The largely serious, restrained folk-jazz pop of 1998’s Ivan in Paris stood as a stylistic detour, yet an effective one. Shortly afterward he assembled the eight-piece Chandler Travis Philharmonic, complete with horn section. Its debut, recorded in 1998 and originally slated for release under the title Her Stewardess Suitcase, finally reached stores in late 2000 under the new name Let’s Have a Pancake.
That same year Travis launched his own CD-R imprint, Iddy Biddy Records, announcing plans to issue twenty-six discs of previously unreleased recordings; twenty-two ultimately appeared, documenting live and studio work by the Philharmonic, the Incredible Casuals, and Travis Shook & the Club Wow, and were sold at shows and via the Sonic Trout site. In 2009 he released After She Left, and two years later he was occupied with side project the Catbirds, whose EP Viborate came out in 2011; the Catbirds’ single “Gonna Keep Drivin’” followed in 2012.
Raised in the Cape Cod community of Eastham, Massachusetts, Travis entered the late-’60s Boston scene by way of a teenage garage outfit first called the Good Fairies and later renamed St. James Infirmary. In 1969 he joined forces with fellow local musician Steve Shook to launch Travis Shook & the Club Wow, a loose collective that worked Boston venues for roughly two years until comedian George Carlin discovered their rough-edged, R&B-inflected rock and their growing emphasis on wordplay and musical humor; Carlin promptly booked them as his regular opener, a role the duo maintained into the early ’80s. Their sole album, The Essential Travis Shook & the Club Wow, appeared in 1973 on their own Just Like Real Records and drew songwriting and instrumental support from several members of NRBQ, a group whose path would soon intersect repeatedly with Travis’s own.
By 1981 Travis and Shook felt the Travis Shook & the Club Wow idea had run its course. Adding drummer Vince Valium (also known as Rikki Bates) and guitarist Johnny Spampinato—brother of NRBQ’s Joey Spampinato—they formed the Incredible Casuals. A poppier outfit whose guitar-jangle style echoed the post-punk groups then emerging from Athens and Hoboken, the Casuals issued the Summer Fun, Let’s Go EP in 1982 and waited until 1987 for their first full-length, That’s That. The next album, Your Sounds, surfaced on the local Sonic Trout imprint in 1991, followed in 1996 by It Is Balloon; by then the group had become a part-time concern, especially after Big Al Anderson departed NRBQ in 1993 and Johnny Spampinato assumed the guitar chair in that longstanding ensemble.
Travis finally began a solo discography in 1992 with the eclectic, Van Dyke Parks-influenced Writer-Songsinger, which featured contributions from Shook and David Greenberger. The largely serious, restrained folk-jazz pop of 1998’s Ivan in Paris stood as a stylistic detour, yet an effective one. Shortly afterward he assembled the eight-piece Chandler Travis Philharmonic, complete with horn section. Its debut, recorded in 1998 and originally slated for release under the title Her Stewardess Suitcase, finally reached stores in late 2000 under the new name Let’s Have a Pancake.
That same year Travis launched his own CD-R imprint, Iddy Biddy Records, announcing plans to issue twenty-six discs of previously unreleased recordings; twenty-two ultimately appeared, documenting live and studio work by the Philharmonic, the Incredible Casuals, and Travis Shook & the Club Wow, and were sold at shows and via the Sonic Trout site. In 2009 he released After She Left, and two years later he was occupied with side project the Catbirds, whose EP Viborate came out in 2011; the Catbirds’ single “Gonna Keep Drivin’” followed in 2012.
Albums
Singles
