Ten Speed Taxi
Canton, New York, United States | SELF
Music
Press
"Spinning" is the new CD from Ten Speed Taxi, formerly known as Sundog. Ten Speed Taxi is a 4-man band specializing in hard-to-classify rock. There’s definitely a country influence in here, a hunk of funk, some straight-ahead rock, and other
friendly indefinable bits—plus you can dance to it. The main things these guys have going for them are: 1) Catchy
original songs with clever tongue-in-cheek lyrics; 2) Gritty, wicked electric pink guitar by Doug Schatz; 3) Tight, spunky delivery of the music. Here’s the lineup: Doug Schatz on guitar and vocals, Dan Caldwell on vocals and guitar, Dave Nelson on bass, and Phil Neisser on drums. The chief songwriters are Schatz and Caldwell. My favorite songs on this recording are “Onion’s Workin’,” a chaste paean to lust, and “Next Train,” the rocking story of a breakup augmented with blistering guitar.
- Fourth Coast Entertainment Magazine, December 2009
With their ranks comprised of three teachers and a health care professional, it is only natural that Ten Speed Taxi injected a healthy dose of intelligence and clever tongue-in-cheek humor into their latest album. Couple that approach to songwriting with their multi-genre sound and their penchant for tight instrumentation and the result will leave you (with) Spinning.
Album opener “Speakeasy” is replete with dirty guitar fuzz and gruff vocals with a tight, clean electric guitar vein that runs through it. The twang lyrical delivery of Doug Schatz exemplifies his Nashville roots and adds a well-placed country nuance. “The Beach is That Way” is testament to the band’s quirky sense of humor. Yes, the tight instrumentation is in check, but a close listen to the lyrics proves these guys are careful not to take themselves too seriously… “Cause bicep curls/for all the girls/you know bicep curls/rock their world/they let them know…the way to the gun show/The girls love my gun show.” Title track “Spinning” opens to twin guitar melodies, bolstered by sing-songy lyrics. The track invokes Los Lonely Boys instrumentation merged with a Barenaked Ladies tune minus their trademark kitsch. Rounding out Spinning is “Next Train” with soaring rawk guitar run amok and lamentable lyrical matter. Instead of Schatz and Caldwell’s guitar work serving as complements, both axes are tuned to the key of “full-on distortion” with bluesy undertones. It is clearly the heaviest hitter on the album.
Fun and intelligent, yet universally approachable, Spinning will have you doing just that. It’s like slight country flair, with folksy undertones meets the dark underbelly of geek rock (with the emphasis more on “rock” than “geek”). These guys are as scarily talented at their craft as they are smart about it.
by Chris West - Skope Magazine
Ten Speed Taxi combines each band members regional influences to create a country influenced funk and rock sound that inspires one to get up and dance! Doug Schatz (songwriter, guitar and vocals) is from Nashville, thirty five year veteran drummer Phil Neisser from Manhattan, Dan Caldwell (guitar and vocals) from Ft. Wayne, Indiana and Dave Nelson (bass guitar) is from Northern Vermont. Now the band is based and live in New York state.
Ten Speed Taxi’s music has been described as “barroom songs for thoughtful people.” Their original songs don’t just touch on the standard stories of loving and losing but recognizes the good times in life with a positive upbeat tempo.
Where did the band’s name come from?
Doug: The name is meaningless, I suppose, but we had to have a name so we could play our music. Although I suppose you could say metaphorically that “we shift gears while taking you for a musical ride.”
Phil: the name came to us after three sleepless weeks of trying to find a name we could each live with that’s not already taken by someone else and thus plastered on Facebook, iTunes, and the rest. Get together with three friends and try it sometime; it’s a challenge. That said, we like the name; it conjures up our eclectic sound and our sense of drive and purpose, plus it makes reference to those bumps in the road that life throws in the way of all of us.
Dan: It was slightly better than “The Doug Addicts,” “Daved and Confused,” or “The Free Re-Phils,” so we went with it.
Who were your musical influences?
Dave: Kierkegaard, Francis of Assissi, and Zeppo. Well, actually, I think we are influenced by everything around us. Music is just one form of our expressions: e.g. of love, fear, worry, longing… It’s our reactions to the expectations of others and to our beliefs in ourselves. Making music is really an intimate act of giving and sharing; of anticipating the needs and desires of others and of expressing our own desires for understanding, unity, closeness, and connection. As a bass player, I am, or try to be, at times selflessly and at times selfishly influenced by the other guys in the band, in the moment, as called for by the song. So, to answer the question, my musical influences are, ideally, the other guys in the band. Also Stephen Stills, rockabilly, and Gogol Bordello.
Phil: I’m more of a Schopenhauer/Nietzsche fan. As for drums, I grew up loving the playing of Mitch Mitchell, Keith Moon, Russ Kunkel, and Elvin Jones.
Dan: I used to go to Phish shows and these days I listen to lots of hip-hop plus whatever my kids are singing. At one point they were stuck on a Michael Franti song, which they sang over and over.
How would you classify your music?
Dave: Under ‘T’
Doug: Top secret at this point
Phil: Hmm… that’s a tough one. It’s rock for sure, but not heavy metal. It’s alternative. It’s lyrical, meaning that we like the lyrics. It’s cross-over rock, with hints of folk, country, and hip-hop. Some of the grace notes played on the snare drum come from jazz, but the groove they create is driving rather than swinging. All in all I guess we’re an indie band. Above all we play music.
Dan: When not doing what Phil said we’re more or less a Nelly/Hendrix/Johnny Cash cover band. We also like to really explore the space with the cowbell.
Phil: Don’t listen to Dan. Also we try to keep him away from the cowbell.
Tell me about your latest CD. What do you want listeners to get from your music?
Dave: Laid. Or whatever they need at the time.
Doug: We want them to enjoy Doug’s guitar playing while Dan sneaks his ideas into their lives.
Phil: Seriously, I think I can speak for all of us in saying that our music helps us get through each day, and that we hope it that does something similar for our listeners. But of course it’s not for us to say what someone else should get from our songs. What I get are solace, irony, drive, rejuvenation, expression, relief, blisters, noise, adrenalin, and more.
Where are you performing?
Dave: Where do you suggest? We’ll play for you.
Phil: We play in northeastern New York State, mostly in the Canton-Potsdam area. One of our regular haunts is a Moroccan restaurant and club called La Casbah. We have plans to tour more widely in the northeast in a few years, when Elias and Josiah (Dave’s kids) and Owen and Marshall (Dan’s kids) get a little older.
Dan: We play music in various video games on the iTunes AppStore (Addicted…HD, Spinning Sketch Balls, and more).
- Skope Magazine
Discography
1. Spinning (CD, 2009)
Available on iTunes, CDBaby.com, Amazon.com, and Digstation.com
2. True to Gone (CD, 2007, under the band name of Sundog); available from the band and in local stores.
Photos
Bio
Ten Speed Taxi first formed under the name of Sundog in 2007, when drummer Phil Neisser and guitarist/songwriter Dan Caldwell connected with Doug Schatz, a singer songwriter from Nashville. In 2008 bassist Dave Nelson joined the band, the name changed, and the band crafted an original sound that has, as one reviewer put it, “country influence…, a hunk of funk, some straight-ahead rock, and other friendly indefinable bits—plus you can dance to it.” Another reviewer described the tunes as “barroom songs for thoughtful people.” And the Ten Speed Taxi sound has been compared to Wilco, the Counting Crows, John Prine, and the Velvet Underground.
Dan Caldwell's music history includes stints with The Shpiel and Decent Exposure. He's also a science teacher at the Gouverneur Middle School and advises the Guitar Club there. His understanding of young people's challenges and hopes comes through in the lyrics of songs such as “Mean Girls.” His humor is evident in “The Beach is That Way” and, in a song much appreciated by his fellow teachers, “It’s the End.” Caldwell lives in Morley with his wife Kate and their two small boys.
Phil Neisser teaches political theory at SUNY Potsdam and is author of the book “United We Fall.” He has been playing drums for 35 years in many bands, including The Spectators, The Hubtones, The Shpiel, and the Phil Neisser Trio (a jazz trio of long standing in northern New York). Neisser grew up in Manhattan, but learned to love the woods while he worked towards his undergraduate degree at SUNY Potsdam. He lives in West Pierrepont, NY.
Dave Nelson came to the "North Country" of New York when he and his wife Rebecca Pickens bought a farm in Hermon. Dave, formerly of the Hazel Pearl Band, works for the county in his “spare time.” He and Rebecca have two small boys and own and run “Mind’s Eye Farm and Herbary,” selling organic teas and a variety of other herbal products.
Doug Schatz, whose band credits include a national tour with the southern alt-rock band Gladys, teaches sculpture at SUNY Potsdam and is the creative mentor each year for the College's “Celebration of Light” outdoor lighted sculpture exhibit. Schatz grew up in Nashville and recently bought a house in Potsdam.
Ten Speed Taxi’s music is available on iTunes, digstation.com, cdbaby.com, and amazon.com. The band can be contacted through their website: tenspeedtaxi.com
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