The Daily Times [June 2011]
Stratospheerius reaches for the clouds with atmospheric mix ofblues, funk, rock and more
It’s difficult to say what sort of music, if any, Joe Deninzon would be playing had the Russian native’s family stayed in St. Petersburg, but one thing’s almost a certainty — it wouldn’t be the funk-blues-rock-classical concoction he does today as founder of the band Stratospheerius.
Deninzon’s family emigrated to the United States in 1979, he told The Daily Times during a recent phone interview, to escape discrimination toward Jews. He was 4 when they came to America.
“My dad wanted to leave there, wanted a better life for his kids,” Deninzon said. “We moved to Cleveland, and almost immediately my dad – who also plays violin – got a job with the Cleveland Orchestra.”
It was a given that Deninzon would wind up with a violin in his hand, given that both of his parents were classical musicians. When he was 6, his father gave him one and he began to learn to play … but American culture began to work its magic on the youngster, and listening to the radio, he fell in love with rock ‘n’ roll and, later, jazz.
“All of the sudden, violin wasn’t cool anymore,” Deninzon said. “I took up guitar and bass while still studying violin in my ‘other’ life. I took a big journey and came back to the violin.”
Two things occurred that helped change his mind. One was musician Michael Stanley, a name unfamiliar to most outside of Cleveland but something of a hometown hero to music fans there. He would consistently sell out arenas in his hometown, and his twin daughters attended school with Deninzon.
“He heard me play at one of our high school concerts, and at 16 he invited me to play with his band,” Deninzon said. “I knew the notes and the music, because I could do it on the guitar, so I just translated it to the violin. And I got a great response and some media attention from that concert.”
The second was a recording given to him by his father by the legendary Gypsy-jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. That led to his discovery of other eclectic and groundbreaking artists, and suddenly the violin didn’t seem like such a stodgy instrument.
“Hearing some of those guys really opened my mind that you could do a lot of cool stuff on the instrument,” he said. “That was in the early 1990s, while I was still in high school, and I thought I could pave my own way with it. There were a lot of great guitar players, and I was a decent guitar player, but I wanted to stand out and do something unique.
“There was a certain sound I heard in my head that nobody else was producing, and I wanted to make it happen. It just took a few years to figure out what I wanted to play.”
He started with the rock ‘n’ roll influences with which he first fell in love on American radio — bands like Led Zeppelin, with its roots in the blues, and Yes, one of the progenitors of progressive rock. Over time, he added in the greasy funk-blues of Frank Zappa, the jazz of Miles Davis and even classical flourishes by such composers as Stravinsky and Mahler — all filtered through his violin.
“I sort of take elements from genres that I like and put them into my music while avoiding elements I don’t,” he said. “There are certain elements of the jam band scene that I love, but a lot of times there’s just aimless noodling going on. I’m a big fan of progressive rock, and I like a lot of elements of that music, but there are some elements that I don’t like.”
Eventually, he began putting together a band that would become Stratospheerius, seeking out like-minded players who thrived on a multitude of influences and genres. Combining jam, fusion, rock, progressive, jazz, metal and more, the band sounds like a condensed version of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, with vocals added. The New York-based outfit has opened for Tim Reynolds, Mickey Hart, The Slip and John Scofield, among others, and was a winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition.
The band’s most recent album, “Headspace,” takes all of those elements and adds even more – Middle Eastern soundscapes, singer-songwriter virtuosity and a balance between the music and the vocals that’s drawn praise from critics. Next week (on Thursday, June 16), Stratospheerius will make its East Tennessee debut in downtown Maryville, a “warm-up” for the band’s showcase the following night at Chattanooga’s annual Riverbend Festival, where the group has always enjoyed a warm reception, Deninzon said.
“Performing is one of my favorite things to do in life,” he said. “I love to be in front of the audience, and I love being spontaneous. You’ll never hear a song we do performed the same way twice. From a performance standpoint, I’m really inspired by Bruce Springsteen. I love the way he pours his whole physical being into his performances.
“We’ll record a song one way, and it’ll take on a life of its own as we perform and tour with it. And it seems to go over really well with all kinds of audiences. It’s funny, because I’m not into labels – all of the sudden that puts you in a cage, and people think of you as only one thing. If any sort of audience appreciates our music, then I’m down with it and fine with it.”
Detroit Live Magazine [November 2010]
Tiles and Stratospheerius: The Old Miami 11-20-10
by Eric Harabadian
The Old Miami in Detroit’s Cass Corridor is truly one of the Motor City’s downtown venues that have stood the test of time. It’s been there through the good and the bad and the years have done nothing to erode any of this rugged institution’s charm or character. I’ve heard it likened to the long-lamented New York City alt/punk club CBGB’s and there may be something to that. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that ground-breaking NYC violinist Joe Deninzon and Stratospheerius has been back a number of times and been embraced by the local hipsters and the cultural cognoscenti with open arms.
Electric violinist and lead vocalist Deninzon made no haste kicking their animated and adventuresome set full throttle with a tune off their Headspace album called “Long Rd.” It was an energetic rocker, with the mad fiddler front and center leading the charge as if his life depended on it. Another strange track off that same album, “Old Ghosts”, brought in a bit of funk laced with a tuneful chorus and jazzy lilt. “Today is Tomorrow” highlighted drummer Lucianna Padmore’s tabla-like flourishes and asymmetrical rhythms that gave the tune an exotic Middle Eastern feel. Another song called “Gods” showcased yet another aspect of the band’s sound where Deninzon plays his electric fiddle “bowless” in a pizzicato fashion like a guitar. “The House Always Wins” found Deninzon switching to mandolin for a gypsy blues taste, with stellar accompaniment by French guitarist Aurelien Budynek.
It seemed like Stratospheerius covered just about every kind of musical genre imaginable and the snappy ska-like “Tech Support” further displayed that notion. Bassist Jamie Bishop really propelled this one into overdrive, with some wacky and truly inspired soloing by Deninzon on the violin. As the set wound down they dedicated one of their more “prog rock” numbers “Mental Floss” to their much-anticipated gig mates Tiles. Guitarist Budynek stepped out with some ripping leads joined by cool and avante garde sound effects manipulation by Deninzon and an exceptional drum break by Padmore.
Maximum Ink [September 2010]
The band Stratospheerius features Joe Deninzon (vocals, violin, mandolin), Jamie Bishop (bass), Aurelien Budynek (guitars), and Lucianna Padmore (drums). The sound is hard to classify in a genre.It combines modern and classic music in a way that is hard to find. The new album Headspace showcases the style nicely.
Headspace: Rock Metal Bands [2009]
‘Headspace‘
As one can infer from the front cover, the band I am about to describe is really unique as for both genre, techniques used and arrangements. I beg forgiveness in sackcloth and ashes because I neglected attention to their previous works, which means I don’t have a touchstone from the past, but hey…there are so many bands around and too many releases. One lifetime couldn’t be enough even if one dedicated their whole free time to music, and I am one who’s very close to that goal actually!
Anyway, the opener “New Material” begins deceiving you by making you think Stratospheerius are in the vein of Red Hot Chili Peppers, but then the electric violin and track plot bring towards T-Ride and the likes. Excellent are the bass lines by the way.
“Old Ghosts” is a danceable groovy Rock that has some percussions and hooks that have connections to Santana. The amplified guitar and the violin are the protagonists here and they are perfectly in tune; after all, when the guitar didn’t exist yet, the fiddle was already notorious because of rumors about musicians such as Italian Tartini’s and Niccolò Paganini’s; the latter, perhaps because of his otherworldly skill, had devilish tales swirl around him. In fact, he was rumored to:
Have sold his soul to the devil, or even himself be Satan incarnate- Use the guts of murdered women as string material for his violins
- Have been imprisoned for gambling debts
Due to the superstitions surrounding him, and the fact that he didn’t receive last rights before death, permission to bury his body in consecrated ground was withheld until five years after his death, after an official inquiry could be made into his orthodoxy, and his son could give a generous ‘donation’ to the church. Moreover the Evil One, as agent of death and creator of dance, became linked to the violin during the Renaissance period, as depicted by paintings such as Pieter Brueghel’s “The Triumph of Death” and Hendrik Goltzius’s “Couple Playing, with Death Behind“. These introductory statements are necessary as every song is made particular by the acoustic or the electric violin, and this is especially valid for “Sold out“; like all string instruments it is more difficult to play than a piano for instance, because you need more precision but this major effort is repaid by the infinite nuances you can achieve; the solo is therefore vital and this one is – without exaggeration – awesome, since it is played in a guitaristic manner.
Coordinates vary completely with the record highlight, “Today Is Tomorrow“, reminding of Genesis in the vocals and Incubus (USA) when the distorted guitar bursts into; the utmost care was delivered to the guitar licks and the bass windings along with the moog psychedelic inserts make it suitable as a single, whereas “Mental Floss” and “Gutterpunk Blues” are perfect candidates for modern Western flick soundtracks; there’re wah-wah, John Zorn, psychedelia, acoustic guitar, guitar shredding and everything is skillfully performed. Each member is a master of their instrument and the emotive links between the 4 members is real considerable.
The elegance of the cover “Driven to Tears“, originally composed by the Police, melts with the fat bass sinuosity, while the frantic and surgical drum work is closer to a gardener’s chisel; decidedly moving are the lyrics, surpassing the other ones that Sting’s band wrote as for their mordant; such topics are still topical, altho the song is about 25 years old.
Multiformity is guaranteed by New Jersey’s musicians but at the same there’s always a link with the full length as a whole; that’s why “Yulia” is no exception, even tho it deal with Jazz Rock in a fairly free and romanticist way, whereas “Long Rd.” manages to combine Funky rock with a fairly melancholic violin. It may sound like a heresy impossible to realize but Joe Deninzon and his pack made it real!
In conclusion, “Heavy Shtettle Part II: Heavier Shtettle” is the only composition written by four hands together with Mr. Alex Skolnick; curb your headbanging, because it is heavy, especially the final part in crescendo, but it is not Heavy metal and it is based on Middle-East percussions and rhythms; another masterpiece indeed!
One more thing to stress out is the excellent recording giving great attention to detail, which is vital to albums like this.
After all it turned out to be a positive thing that a band of this kind has come out these times; I fear that if they’d started in the 80’s they would have been understood by too few people, while now the public is more mature in all. Surely in the 70’s there was more place for avantgarde artists and labels were not as oppressive and market-oriented as nowadays’, yet it seems unlikely that some major would have signed them, as they are too forward with their minds! About the 90’s enough has been said and the decline of music sales and the excess of releases, so I will limit myself to claim that today’s tighter competition has been a timely useful spur to the four-piece.
The violin has never been made so topical like now, and most of the time its notes stay far from nostalgia or melancholy, the way bands such as My Dying Bride have accustomed us. Were they still alive, my country-fellows Vivaldi and virtuosist Paganini would be crying for joy, but also more recent violinists such as Stravinskij, Prokofiev and Sciostakovic would like to attend a Rock gig of the quartet, no shit!
If you have an open mind, tastes that range from Frank Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Dave Matthews, Radiohead, Jeff Beck, Bela Fleck and Blues Traveler and are in search of something different, go for this record; for once the band’s name doesn’t exaggerate and is up to the expectations created. No, you won’t get bored even after a century by these 10 tracks, my word!
MARKUS GANZHERRLICH – April 20th, 2009
Line-up on this record:
Mack Price – electric and acoustic guitar, vocals
Lucianna Padmore – drums
Bob Bowen – electric bass, moog, vocals
Joe Deninzon – acoustic violin, 6-string fretless violin, 7-string fretted electric violin, mandolin, lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Benny Koonyevsky- guest percussions