Doors open at 7pm – 21+ (Los Kung Fu Monkeys will open the show.)
Tickets available in advance at BooBoo Records and online at Ticketfly.com
It’s been 10 years since the Englishman James Hunter burst onto the scene with his U.S. debut People Gonna Talk (GO/Rounder 2006), topping the Billboard Blues chart, earning a Grammy-nomination, and attracting universal acclaim from critics and his fans — including Van Morrison, Sharon Jones, and Allen Toussaint. Over the last decade, he’s toured extensively around the world on the club, theatre, and festival circuits, steadily growing a dedicated audience comprised of hardened gig-goers, old-school baby boomers, and young hipsters alike. His follow-ups The Hard Way and Minute By Minute (GO/Fantasy), further cemented Hunter’s reputation as a soul powerhouse, heralded for his talents both as a live performer and perhaps even more so as a songwriter, with The New Yorker describing his “tight, taut compositions” as “rooted in American soul music without being bound to it.”
Now Hunter is back with his fourth album, Hold On! marking his debut on Daptone Records, America’s premier soul imprint and Hunter’s second collaboration with famed producer Gabriel Roth aka Bosco Mann. It also marks a cumulative and consecutive total of 48 original songs written exclusively by Hunter, without resorting to a single covered recording. At age 53, Hunter feels he has finally found his home for making music. “The great thing about working with Gabe is that he can get our tunes on tape exactly the way I heard them in my head when I was writing them,” explained Hunter. “It’s a rare thing when a producer knows what you’re going for before you’ve told him. It’s good to be associated with a record company that ‘gets’ us.”
And the feeling is mutual. From Roth’s perspective, “In today’s R&B world, littered with retro-soul cronies, ear-twisting melisma, and hollow affectations, James has a voice that stands out not only for its natural beauty and grit, but for its honesty. His songwriting shares the masterful architecture and the inspired creativity of Smokey Robinson, each rhyme and rhythm crafted meticulously, somehow twisting familiar themes into unfamiliar new shapes.”
In May 2015, James and his longtime trusted bandmates (Jonathan Lee, drums; Lee Badau, baritone saxophone; Damian Hand, tenor saxophone; Andrew Kingslow, keyboards/percussion; Jason Wilson, bass) returned to the Roth’s Penrose Recorders in Riverside, California (AKA Daptone West) to cut Hold On! live to 8-track tape.
Though tunes like “(Baby) Hold On,” “If That Don’t Tell You,” and “Stranded” carry the buoyant energy, crackerjack arrangements, and tough soulful pulse for which the band has become renown, the true treasures of this LP may lie in the deeper grooves. Rumbas, boleros, bossanovas, and easy rockers, each one swinging more than the last: “This Is Where We Came In,” “Something’s Calling,” “A Truer Heart,” “Light of My Life,” “In The Dark” — no clichéd throwback nods to a-time-gone-by here. These are forever songs crafted with immaculate care and ingenuity and sang with an effortless balance of tenderness and grit. The word “authentic” will be bandied about this album, but it really has no place here. Hunter’s words are truly his own and though at moments his voice may “evoke” Ray Charles or Sam Cooke, there lies an inherent naturalness in these songs that bucks any comparison past or present.
James Hunter was born Neil James Huntsman in Colchester, Essex in October 1962. He left school at 16 to work mending signal boxes on the railways. Introduced to rock’n’roll and rhythm’n’blues via his grandmother’s collection of old 78s, he quickly fell in love with the genre and began to develop his sound as a teenager. His first experience of playing live didn’t occur until he was 22, when his group performed at Colchester Labour club (“we were dreadful”), but his career swiftly started swinging as powerfully and jubilantly as his music. Adopting the moniker Howlin’ Wilf in honour of one of his biggest inspirations, in 1986 he cut an album titled ‘Cry Wilf’ for the independent Big Beat label with backing band The Vee-jays. Early the following year, he enjoyed his big break when the band made an appearance on Channel 4’s Friday teatime music show The Tube.
Howlin’ Wilf & The Vee-Jays became a popular fixture on the UK club circuit, and in the early ’90s they caught the eye of Van Morrison, who asked them to back him at the Belfast Telegraph Awards in 1991. Subsequently, Hunter was invited to sing backing vocals with Morrison’s touring band — he appears on 1994’s A Night In San Francisco live CD and on 1995’s studio album ‘Days Like This.’ Returning the compliment, the Belfast soul man sings on Hunter’s 1996 album Believe What I Say.
By the early 2000s, however, Hunter found himself down on his luck and working as a labourer in west London but soon realised it was more lucrative and better fun to earn a living busking. The low point came when a homeless female squatted down and relieved herself in front of him while he performed in the street (“Everyone’s a critic!”). Slowly pulling himself out of this slough of despond, with his trusted Six he cut the album that would ignite his career — 2006’s People Gonna Talk, and relaunch his career.
In the decade since, Hunter has worked tirelessly on the road and in the studio, honing is craft. However Hold On! is something deeper than just another notch in his belt. From the driving stompers, to the bubbling rumbas, the record drips with the rawness and feeling that Daptone fans have become accustomed to, and cuts straight to the soul of the man who James Hunter fans have come to love. It is truly an artist’s vision come to fruition.
Los Kung Fu Monkeys are a ska punk band based out of Canada, U.S and Mexico. Formed in 1997 joined their talents and forces to start Los Kung Fu Monkeys. That same year the band recorded their first three-song demo which included songs like “Consecuencias” based on the excess of uncontrollable youth, costing them 10 dollars to record each song, and opening the doorway to being one of the top local and regional bands with such a loyal following that it caught the eye of Los Angeles-based now defunct label ONE SHOT RECORDS, who released their first album Rebuilding the World recorded in Love Juice labs in Riverside, California, U.S.A. in 2000. With the release of Rebuilding the World in 2001, they were brought to the attention of an international audience that it became the precursor and the beginning of what would be the path to endless touring throughout the world, starting their first with Union 13 (Epitaph Records) all over Mexico in 2001 with a sold out concert in Mexico City for more than 2000 people.
In 2002 they released the Para los que ya no estan E.P. limited to only 1000 copies that included a series of lost demos by Philco Raves of Mystic Records (punk label in the 1980s and 90s and producer of NOFX’s Maximum Rock and Roll Album), including a hidden track of AFI’s song “A Single Second” covered by Los Kung Fu Monkeys live at the Glasshouse in Pomona, Ca.
“End Transmission” was released in 2003, recorded, mix, mastered and produce by Mike Trujillo (Strung out, Chocking Victim, collaborator with Epitaph Records) and this album becomes the fuel to get the band to shared stage, tour Mexico and for the first time the U.S. with Voodoo Glow Skulls in 2004. Time passed, promotion still going on the album, and the band gets invited to take part on one of the most important punk festivals in the U.S. the “Vans Warped tour” in 2005 becoming the first Independent Mexican Band to be a part of the festival tour and getting a slot on the 2006 “Vans Warped Tour” Compilation with the song “Short Fuse”, also by this time the band records their first official music video for the song “Neglect” landing a month plus airtime on the National Mexican Music Television station TELEHIT.
This same year they released the self-titled album, this is the first album on their own label RIOT RADIO Records, taking this decision when the band got offered a deal from a label in Mazatlan, Mexico that the owners ended up being involved with drug trafficking, laundering money and being arrested by the authorities, leaving the band with no label and no way to release their album, so they took upon themselves to make this happen, the result, one of their most successful albums in Mexico, recorded, manufactured and distributed by the band itself, with 14 songs mostly in Spanish (one in English), and the sound and the fury of such songs like “Una y Otra Vez” caught the eye of European label Übersee Records who opened the doors for the band to release and tour Europe for the first time in 2007, going to France, Germany, Czech Republic, and Austria.
In 2008 LKFM was hand-picked by Dropkick Murphys directly to be their support band in all their Mexico dates, and also to be included in Guadalajara’s “Festival Extremo” with artist like Moby, Underworld, Maldita Vecindad, Stephen Marley and more.
In 2009 Übersee Records asked LKFM to release an EP exclusively for Europe, as a result they released the “Lobo Hombre in Paris” E.P. where they cover the iconic Spaniard pop band La Union with the song of the album title, also including another cover “Screaming at a wall” from the iconic legendary hardcore band Minor Threat, a remake of “Ciudad de Nadie” and 2 more unreleased tracks for the album that open the doorway to tour England, and Belgium for the first time as well as coming back to Germany, then coming back the tour the United States, and once again being picked to be the support band for NOFX’s Mexican tour in late 2009 Tijuana and Mexico city. By 2010 the band releases their first discography collection album “And they came from Tijuana…” recollecting almost all of their songs from their firs 3 full length albums and giving the opportunity for the band to play in Canada at the “Victoria Ska Festival” with bands like Fishbone and the Aggrolites, and tour once again the U.S.A.
2011 came and with 10 years of non-stop touring, being included in many important compilations, played with many important bands, and festivals, Los Kung Fu Monkeys return to the game and continue touring Europe once again now playing in the Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Croatia for the first time, and coming back to Belgium, England, Germany and Austria once again, playing 4 shows of the tour with NYC’s The Slackers for a crowd of 2000 in Austria at the Arena.
2012 became the most important year of the band, after many years of proving that they are a Mexican Icon and Institution in Mexico, they get added to the most important rock music festival in Latin America “VIVE LATINO 2012” playing with Gogol Bordello, Foster the People, Café Tacuba, and MADNESS. A new record on the works for the first time this same year Los Kung Fu Monkeys release their first vinyl record a 7” 45 RPM split records with the Voodoo Glow Skulls on their own label Cafeina Riot Radio in Mexico touring to promote the release September and October. And also releasing a greatest hits record in Japan on ska in the world records
2013 saw the band tour Canada again with Jamaican Canadian singer Jah Cutta and sharing the stage with bands like the Planet smashers and Rude city riot. Also Returning to Mexico city to play a sold out headlining show at the famed Alicia venue.
2014 Los kung fu Monkeys start the year playing Que me pregunten fest in Mexico city in front of 10,000 people and in April start to record their new upcoming album with Canadian producer Steve Loree (The Real Mckenzies, S.N.F.U)
2015 looks to be their best year putting out a new record with Canadian label Stomp Records and planning on touring for the 2015 release of the record and all of 2016.
Till this day Los Kung Fu Monkeys has toured in over 15 countries all over the world, Headlining, and also sharing the stage and bill with all the greats in the underground as well as the mainstream markets, mythical bands like The Misfits, Moby, Panteon Rococo, Mad Caddies, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Fishbone, Madness, The Toasters, The Aggrolites, NOFX, Dropkick Murphys, Enrique Bunbury, the Planet smashers, The Adicts and many more.
