Slushbox

Performing July 7, 2018

at the Long Beach Vegan Festival! 

CSULB Walter Pyramid Lawn

 

 

Slushbox: Music-life partners Sharon Giarratano (vocals/bass) and Mark Wheeler (guitar/vocals), along with creative conspirator Terry Frost (drums) took the “Spectator Appeal Award” for two consecutive years in the huge Long Beach Christmas Parade, where 20 thousand attendees were chanting along with Slushbox’s own theme song,“Green Means Go”.
The band converted a borrowed dump-truck into a mobile parade showcase stage, with lights, dancers, and all the trimmings; performing their green-a-licious pop/punk original music.

In downtown Long Beach, on the street in the East Village Arts District, 300 people showed up for Slushbox’s own original rock theatre show entitled “Find Your Own Steeple”. With a cast of 12, from teens through senior citizens, this exhibition transformation brought original Slushbox songs to life with performance art vignettes, dance, acrobatics, tai chi, and opera singing.
Cast members and the band were actually growing via this cathartic show, in perfect step with the show title. The local news outlets: Long Beach Post and Press Telegram and picked up on the story:

“Slushbox is a band that represents Long Beach…unapologetically out there group… like leprechaun warriors for the planet….think the message of the Dead Kennedys (with less screaming) gone Burning Man (with less dirt).
Brian Addison, Long Beach Post 2014
https://lbpost.com/life/music/green-warrior-rock-outfit-slushbox-takes-to-the-theatrical-stage/

Q. If there was a message, what would it be?
“We all have … a special something inside that is like an internal guidance system. We want to show people what can be done. That is what our message is… with the hope of lifting the community’s spirits.
John Farrell, Press Telegram 2014
https://www.presstelegram.com/2014/09/10/slushbox-bringing-unique-performance-to-long-beachs-2nd-saturday-art-walk/

Their first album “dagga goo” features synthesizer and production by Michael Bacich of Oingo Boingo, on the title track. With upbeat, catchy songs, the album is often described as “quirk-adelic” and “super-sonic punk”.
The sound was described in Express Jet Magazine and Gazette Newspapers:
“The intergalactic rock band that crashed your pool party.”
Jonathan Kramm, Express Jet Magazine

“A seemingly innocent quirky pop trio with messages about survival of the species.”
Steve Irsay, Gazette Newspapers

“Come Alive” is their recent live album that offers raw inspiration, and a no-holes-barred audacity of going for it. Both releases can be found at major distribution sites.

Currently Slushbox is creating new material and scheming to tour.

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New live album “Come Alive”

Slushbox offers their passion and fire with a new live EP entitled, “Come Alive”.    Recorded on a boardwalk in their home base of Long Beach, California, this provocative performance is a daring journey that together, we can do it.

“Green Means Go” is an anthem of moving forward in life, and “Wetsuit” is a song of diving into a new world.   Illuminated vocals pierce the most tough-shelled into pondering new possibilities.

Their cover version of The Doors’ “Waiting for the Sun” is gripping with declarations that raise consciousness, confirming the power of being in the moment, raw, and alive.  Special guest tenor saxophonist Daniel Mancuso, brandishes uplifting melodic embellishments on tracks 1, 3 and 5.

Slushbox shares their mission:  to inspire the masses to tap in to their potential, and “Come Alive”.

“This has been a wonderful process of discovery, dynamics, determination, destruction, and divine destiny.  We feel that the heart of our matter has been revealed.”    Sharon & Mark

Click below to hear the song “Dry Spots” from the “Come Alive” album.

 

[Playbill from the original Slushbox theatre debut entitled “Find Your Own Steeple”, featuring music, dance, shamanic blessings, acrobatics, and opera singing; weaving a journey of exaltation to lift the spirits of the community.  The 12-person cast includes keyboardist Matt Cohn of Berlin, artist Patricia Bonilla and Johanna Hernandez of RAW, Richard Alan Harvey of “20Poems 20Paintings – A Creative Warrior’s Journal”, violinist Ona Green of Jacob’s Chimes; plus opera singers Annie Gholson and Cody Lowry, and more.]

Slushbox has been using their own stylized original indie/pop/punk rock and young at heart attitude to inspire and engage at these notable venues:
Green Prize Festival
Green Festival

Love Long Beach Festival

College Radio Day

L.B. Downtown 2nd Sat. Art Walk
Fingerprints Music
NAMM Show, Anaheim
Cultural Alliance of Long Beach, CALB
Squeeze Art Collective
Green Bough Gardens

Kulak’s Hollywood
KCTY FM, Long Beach

KTST FM, Anaheim

 

 

This is the album that started it all for Slushbox, “Dagga Goo”.  Their signature green color and their upbeat, quirky-pop sound is in its full regalia.

“Dagga Goo” is the first full-length CD, released by Slushbox with mixing and synthesizer additions on the title track by Mike Bacich, of Oingo Boingo fame. The songs have a sense of fun and artistry often compared to The B-52s, but with a 21st century freshness!  The jury is still out as to whether the title is a noun or a verb.

This album delivers original and very catchy phrases to sing in the shower; while encouraging healthy lifestyles.  Songs like: “Tom Ate a ‘Tomato’” and “Don’t Take Your ‘Pomegranate’ for Granted” offer nutrient rich, good-green-fun suggestions, and pulsate with solid rock intensity, and flamboyant spectacle.

These songs are balanced with more serious subjects like the imagery in “Rust” about the over-consumption perils in modern times, “Cargo is blocking our horizon, thrift store shelves are overstocked” an editorial on how literally their home base Long Beach, California is plagued by ocean freight ships.  “Messages” offers some consolation on the subject of air pollution and chem trails, singing “Daybreaks and sunsets invite another view”.

The mysterious “Track 11”
A sociological soundscape journey featuring sounds of Long Beach, California.
“Track 11” is literally the eleventh track on the CD “Dagga Goo”, by Long Beach band, Slushbox.
During production of the CD, the band’s desire to add something unconventional to the package inspired their epic “Track 11”. They repurposed the first 10 songs into a soundscape collage, as a reprise to the album. First, each song was remixed to exclude the lead vocal, then fragments were selected and purposefully muddied. These selections were melded together to create a pallet upon which to display collected sounds. The resulting sonic journey includes sounds unique to the Long Beach experience, ala early 21st century consciousness.

available at:

iTunes

CDbaby

Amazon

 Slushbox   ~discover us, discover yourself~