Diggin’ In The Crates: Screaming Headless Torsos & NERVE

​These two bands are linked by a common drummer. The first is a jazz/funk group, the second is halfway-to-dubstep/electronica band.

Funk is a wild genre. It's not so much the music itself, although that has a lot to do with it. It's just that sometimes its musicians are very eccentric. Enter: Screaming Headless Torsos. This group, in its prime, had five of the best. SHT's frontman was a funk, soul, and blues freak named Dean Bowman... seriously, his voice is so perfect for the genre. On bass, they had London-born but now New York-based jazz virtuoso Fima Ephron. Bronx native Daniel Sadownick played percussion other than the drum kit. To add to the already impenetrable mix, Switzerland's Jojo Mayer was on drums. I consider him to be the best drummer in the world. Many will disagree with me, but I stand by it. And finally, we've arrived at the character: Dave Fuze Fiuczynski. This is a guitarist who doesn't want to play just jazz. He's radical in his style, inventive, and uninhibited. Just listen to some of the stuff he comes up with.

SHT is a bunch of really fucking talented people. Eventually, Jojo Mayer went on to bigger things. He won Modern Drummer's Best Drummer award a few times, if I'm not mistaken, and crafted a group called Prohibited Beatz. They were a fusion of hip hop, jazz, rock, funk, and blues that really sparkled on the live stage. They had a weekly spot in a New York nightclub, and that gig eventually morphed the group into what it is today, NERVE. The trio really centers around Jojo Mayer and his drum kit - he's a human drum machine. Jojo is one of the few musicians to have ever mastered the Moeller Whip and it makes his technique and style idolized. NERVE, can't just ride on one person's shoulders though. As a group, they are one of the most forward thinking, wow-inducing, stylistically-intriguing talents, akin to the kind of stuff Flying Lotus does in terms of really pushing boundaries. Check out some stuff from both bands below.