Currently:
Yogoman Burning Band from Bellingham, Washington, USA, is making their name known around the world by touring down the west coast, consistently making people smile and dance. The music they create incorporates genres of music like reggae, soul, dancehall and early RnB, all with the grit and honesty of punk/hardcore music. YBB has won many local awards in their hometown such as Bellingham's Best Band (2008 & 2009, Cascadia Weekly) and Best Booty Shakin' Music by What's Up Music Magazine ('07, '08 and '09).
Band Members: Jordan Rain/YOGOMAN- Lead Vocal & Drums; Norah McLaughlin- Bass & Vocals; Thomas Akihiro Deakin- Tenor Sax, Percussion, & Vocals; Mars Lindgren- Trombone, Percussion, & Vocals;
http://www.myspace.com/yogomanburningband
History:
Jordan Rain/Yogoman, the founder, lead singer and drummer of Yogoman Burning Band, born in Watsonville, CA (April 15, 1974), grew up in Seattle, WA and began playing drums and making songs at the age of 2. After growing up and making it through many moves and schools around the Seattle area, Rain finally moved to the University District and Capitol Hill areas of Seattle where he applied himself and helped create two bands that toured the United States underground all-ages scene: Patterns Make Sunrise (1993-'95) and Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live (1994-'98).
Rain attended and put on many house shows in the early 90's, a hay day for underground music in Seattle, before moving to his current home in Bellingham, WA. Jordan found the people from Bellingham whom he met at Seattle basement and house shows, to be quite friendly, open minded, so he moved to Bellingham in 1995. A few years later, he joined a band with his original Bellingham friends called the Reeks and the Wrecks, who played quite wild and original music, that could easily be classified as experimental. Rain also continued to play improvised music regularly with Northwest Noise-Improv legend Michael Griffin, who played violin in Behead the Prophet.
Continuing to put on shows at his new home in Bellingham, Rain brought acts such as Modest Mouse up to play basement shows at the different group houses he lived in. Rain began deejaying at the world famous 3B Tavern in Bellingham on Mondays, developing a repertoire of underground music, mixed with danceable music. Rain adopted the character name Yogoman from a comic book by his childhood friend Max Wallace, and called his DJ show Yogoman's Wild Rumpus. This title allowed Rain to play whatever he wanted, making up a strange and very eclectic mix of music predominantly consisting of Jamaican, Hip-Hop, Punk, RnB, New Orleans Brass Band and African music. However, you might hear square dance music with calls, country, latin, ragtime, polka or Hawaiian music (to name a few) thrown in at random during one of his sets.
In the early incarnation of Yogoman's Wild Rumpus, Rain made friends with Prince Pauper, a.k.a. Matt Knowles, a former Bellingham, now New Orleans resident and record store/label owner of Domino Sound Record Shack, who at the time, also played music, deejayed, and participated in the all-ages music scene of Bellingham. This link between Yogoman and Prince Pauper influenced Rain's musical selection heavily towards the history of Jamaican music, from the 1960's to the Present.
Just before his daughter Meixing was born, Rain joined a doo wop/soul group called Alamo Social Club around 2002 on the drums. Within Alamo Social Club, Jordan formed a family-like bond with the bass player Norah McLaughlin, who has from its inception played with Yogoman Burning Band. During Rain's time with Alamo until the group ended in 2005, Rain began writing and introducing his original songs into Alamo's live repertoire. He quickly became re-aquainted with the art of singing lead/harmony vocals while playing the drums, as he did when he was very young.
When Alamo Social Club ended, Yogoman was on a path of creating his own style of dance music, influenced by the styles of music Rain had been deejaying since 1998. He came up with the name Yogoman Burning Band: Yogoman, to embody the wild abandon and embracing of rediculous behavior (of the comic book mascot of his earlier years) with the intention of people becoming freed through music by dancing, and Burning Band to acknowledge the warmth of the music and dance he felt was much needed in the rainy northwest area he grew up in. Rain took a cue from the fervent and community styled energy of Behead The Prophet's live shows and applied it to more danceable music forms such as reggae, soul, dancehall, and early RnB in Yogoman Burning Band while keeping the grit, energy, and creativity of his former underground groups.
User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.
