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"we are born someday we'll die just traffic inbetween" Letters From Traffic is a progressive Seattle band weaving strands of human experience, philosophical thought, contemporary social criticism, internal and cultural evolution, and pure human drama through genre-crossing musical webs. Much of LFT's sound is composed of soulful vocal stylings and complex lead work painted over jazz chords and movement built around modern rock and world sound structures. This blend of sound tends to defy basic categorization, so to confound critics, amuse ourselves, and let folks know this is something not easily codified, we like to think of it as acousticsoul . . .
soul [sohl] –noun . . . Tell your friends.
Scott M. P. Concinnity As frontman and primary progenitor of Letters From Traffic, Scott seeks to expand his promethian horizons and hone his empathic and artistic abilities through the medium of music. His ultimate goal is universal sponteous co-evolution or total molecular control, whichever comes first. Musical expression has been an interest of Scott's since he was a young kitten. He finds inspiration in the soul styling of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and Cee-lo Green, the charismatic crooning of Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and Rufus Wainwright, the songwriting brilliance of Sting, Paul Simon, and Sufjan Stevens, the lyrical mastery of Adam Duritz and Mike Doughty, and the inky genius of writers like Tom Robbins, Dan Simmons and Frank Herbert. In his spare time, Scott enjoys deconstructing reality, obsessing about etymology, wasting precious time on worthless pursuits like work and reading, and liberally applying sarcasm to the lives of those around him.
Chris Couvillion Recently transplanted from the hairy back of Los Angeles to the shining forehead of Seattle, Chris brings one of the top dog-training talents in the United States along with his gleaming chops and sonic passions. Visions of being the coolest music teacher ever fueled his early desire to understand musicianship and now he enters the Seattle music scene with a technical grasp and an aroused ardor not seen since the heyday of stars like John Holmes and Kay Parker. Chris is currently in a burgeoning relationship with a shaker egg and is rarely seen in public without it.
Dennis Hart Applying fat dollops of wicked electric guitar, Dennis Hart brings a thick skin and grunge attitude to the LFT palette. His long, unkempt locks and dismissive attitude toward the audience lend a filthy, nostalgic rock credibility to the group while he seeks sweet release through the sturm und drang of modern rock. Abandoned as a babe in the woods outside Yakima, Washington, by hippy parents who couldn't relate to his rock 'n' roll sensibilities, Dennis was raised by a family of brushtail possums who taught him how to love. The infant Dennis or "Shred", as his adopted family liked to call him, spent many an hour inside the nurturing pouch of his tree-dwelling mother. Once he was old enough to forage on his own, Dennis often snuck off to stare wide-eyed at power rock acts touring at the Gorge Amphitheater. He knew even then that his future would be totally kick-ass. Thanks to his years amongst the marsupials, Dennis can travel the fastest by scrambling along branches and leaping from tree to tree.
Matt Miller In the summer of 1969, during a secret and electric gathering of some of the most powerful percussionary minds ever to sip from the same tainted cup backstage at Woodstock, Matt Miller burst head-first through the sonic veil that separates pure concept from mundane reality, as a whole and fervent child, eager to find a set of solid sticks and something satisfying to hit. When not working the drums with Letters From Traffic, Matt can be found exploring archeological ruins around the world in search of dark and hoary treasures.
Jeff Couch If the bass guitar is a shere and wicked cliff, Jeff Couch hovers curiously about three feet off it, neither falling nor floating away. This is the secret of the spell he casts. Your instinctual denial of your own senses smashes like a hammer your assumptions of what bass can be. There are those who claim to have seen Jeff step off of a translucent, moonwrought ship onto pier 54 (right next to Ivar's Acres of Clams) on the darkest and forebodingest night Seattle has ever seen, his 1,000 year doom as a pirate ghost having been cut 500 years short thanks to heroic efforts saving the haunted crew from a hellish supernatural maelstrom even an ectoplasmic trireme could not escape. There are also those who say he merely washed up drunk and filthy on the wharf, scurvy as a rat and blank as sheet -just some drifter lost from his troubled past. We choose to believe the former tale because, c'mon, ghost pirates?! Awesome. Plus he's missing a leg! Proof. In his spare time, Jeff writes tiny novelettes based on his high-seas adventures on the head of a pin.
Alex Gee Can a robot feel a broken heart? Or the cold rain on his clever mask of a human face? Can a robot know the difference between program and poetry? These questions haunt all those who come close enough to Alex - or A-Lex-G in the code language of the sentient robot collective from which he escaped into the beautiful, cruel, mercurial world of man, lo, those eons ago. Alex would say "Affirmative." And would you say he's wrong? Perhaps once, but the sting of his robo-tears surely would stop you from denying it a second time. Since settling into Earth time-stream #ES9045, Alex has found a blue-collar job, an apartment, and is currently developing his understanding of what it means to be the most vulnerable robot of all, man.
Bradford King Born of the unlikely union between a wayward mortal maiden and an upper-demogorge from beyond the twisted spires of Thermopolitos, Bradford knew early on what it was like to be of two worlds, yet at home in neither. His soft pink skin and bilateral symmetry clearly betrayed his human heritage amongst the ancients gorgons; yet with his powerful stature and preternatural charm, most humans betrayed discomfort in his presence. Men feared; women lusted. For both it was control of their more animal natures that he threatened. After ages of wandering, the lonely ache in Bradford's heart drew him to the company of a charismatic cadre of fellow outcasts. For the first time, he's found a true place, which is to say, a place of truth, and a home amongst others who have none, but seek continually to carry the idea of home wherever they go.
Once and future friends of Letters From Traffic . . .
Jim Laws A true stick'n'palm maestro, Jim Laws regularly subdivides space and time into funkier and funkier moments on his way toward Ultimate Temporal Funkification (UTF). His perspective on the taste of the beat is an important part of every balanced breakfast. Recently, Jim emerged from a thousand year sleep in a sorcerer's chrono-chamber harkening from Middle Ages. His previous vocation as Ye Olde Dungpit Inspector (a critcal role in any medieval municipal setting) and general knave-about-town was no longer relevant in our time and Jim took up the drums as a way to connect with the urban values of the Twentieth Century world. Has Jim successfully adapted to our modern age? You decide. It is a little known fact that Jim is the mostly likely member of Letters From Traffic to use the word "butthole" -particularly in a positive context.
Ataa Newman-Adjiri Born to royalty in the mythical realm of Accra-Ghana, Ataa spent his youth being schooled in philosophy by sentient unicorns and trained in the art of battle by ancient rock dragons. Upon reaching the "Wandering Age," he was cast out of Ghana to find his way in the world and he will only be allowed to return when he can best either the unicorns or the rock dragons in a three-way match of hyper-dimensional battle chess. Following puberty, Ataa developed the ability to project concussive telekinetic blasts from his forhead. These blasts are so devastating, he has not used this power ever.
Twenty-D The enigmatic keeper of the keys, Twenty-Danza brings a solid and powerful improvisational instinct to the band. Some say his fingers search for a truth the can only be expressed with spontaneous melodic conjuration. Hailing from the mythical Lewis-Clark Valley at the confluence of the majestic Snake and Clearwater Rivers, Twenty-Digits spent his youth as a cut-purse on the long and stoic levees that run along the water's edge. His well-documented history as a skate-puke has ensured his place in the halls of infamy at the local constable's office, while his epic fingers have allowed him to touch a set of ivories with a virtuosity and general dopeness few can claim. When not dancing on his fingers for the people of the world, Twenty-Disasta has also been known to "work the word" and "write the rhyme right on time" as the kids say these days.
Jeff Tillinghast A native of Alaska, Jeff has long been deprived of precious sunlight and has been known to weep with joy every morning on the shores of Greenlake, in Seattle, worshipping its return. His lust for the lower tones is apparent in the sly and sensual touch he applies to the full upright bass. Caressing its hollow, wooden curve makes Jeff feel tingly special all over and that's why it sounds so damn pretty. When not digging the boom, Jeff moonlights as private investigator who employs the ancient and arcane science of alchemy to solve crimes, often with hilarious results.
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a·cous·tic [uh-koo-stik] –adjective.
