STS9 Announce Departure of David Murphy, Postpone Tour
Sound Tribe Sector 9, or STS9 for short, announced the somewhat sudden departure of bassist David Murphy, who had been with the Livetronica acts since co-founding the band in 1988. The announcement came via a message posted to the STS9's website.
In life, the only constant is change. We try to embrace this in our music and in our lives and its in this spirit that we announce STS9 and bassist David Murphy are parting ways. We are postponing our upcoming winter tour dates through February. We’ll miss David and wish him the best on his journey ahead.
To our fans, we can’t thank you enough for your understanding and continuous support. We are thrilled for the future of STS9 and can’t wait to share it with you.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you!
-Hunter, Jeffree, Phipps & Zach
The break may signal the end for one of the trailblazing live electronic bands. A precursor to the major EDM movement and acts like Lotus, Big Gigantic and Disco Biscuits, STS9 is still widely regarded the pinnacle of the "livetronica" sub-genre that blends elements of jam bands with live electronic production. The band postponed a slew of Winter tour dates through February and it will be interesting to see where things go from here. For his part, Murphy also got his two cents in via his own website on over the weekend after performing a DJ set in Denver on Saturday.
It is with a very sad and heavy heart that I announce I am parting ways with STS9. While we have had an amazing experience together, our paths are taking us in different directions creatively and personally. My deepest apologies go out to all of our fans who have supported us through thick and thin. I will never be able to fully express my gratitude for everything y’all have given me. I wish STS9 the best and hope to see y’all down the road…I LOVE Y’all
[RH Interview] North Coast Music Festival: Jesse Miller of Lotus
Photos by Bobby Reys
Lotus has carried the flag for their own genre for awhile now. "Jamtronica", the band's signature blend of electronic elements paired with a creatively unique jam band aesthetic that has kept them at the forefront of both genres for close to 15 years now. Lotus' ability to master a wide range of disciplines musically has allowed the Indiana-based group to constantly tinker with it's sound and evolve the band's dynamic. Lotus is a fully adaptable animal, with the ability to go from rock to dance to hip hop all in one rocking set and, largely without vocal aid. I had a chance to catch Lotus frontman Jesse Miller while backstage at The Last Stand Stage, check out the interview below.
Jake: Welcome to Chicago, what are the feelings about playing at North Coast and what do you all have in store?
Jesse: Our set is always interesting. At a festival, I feel like Lotus tends to stretch things out so ours sometimes we have to take it down to this package but this is a young crowd at this festival so I'm sure we're going to keep it on the dance tip. So we're planning on dancing and rocking out.
Jake: I know you all have a new album coming out as well that is tailored more towards a hip-hop aspect?
Jesse: Yeah, Monks. It's more of just a project for the album. We actually had started working on a track with Mr. Lif in maybe like 2011, maybe even a little bit before and we were working on it while we were working on other tracks and we didn't really feel ike we had a great place for it, we didn't want to drop it in the middle of another album and have it feel like it was this totally different thing so we were going to release it as a single but then started doing a few more and then we got Lyrics Born on for a track and Gift of Gab on there. So we just sort of built it out and said "Ok, what can we do with this" and then we ended up going back through it and weaving in the whole story, recorded some instrumentals and the whole project really came together really organically.