Brigante Artist Bio

Brigante the band is comprised of three players living in Austin Tejas, a region of the USA with similar history (“Napolean of the West”, indeed). We perform traditional Italian folk music and a very Turkish-influenced Greek style of blues called Rebetico–which also has quite a unique history–not to mention an assortment of gypsy jazz songs from the likes of Django, as well eclectic surprises and fusions of traditional and original material.

Brigante is Italian slang for bandit, outlaw, rebel. Look it up: we’re no experts on Italian history so please correct us if we’re wrong.

We took the name from a song originating from a time when the south of Italy was populated with farmers and their families, the north was becoming increasingly industrialized/militarized, and Italy as a unified country did not exist. The forces from the north came to the south to find the farming men and demanded, “You will come with us to the north to work in our factories and be in our army.” The farmers responded, “We won’t do that. We want to be with our families and our fields!” Since the forces from the north had guns, the farming southerners picked up guns as well and fled to the mountains, thus becoming outlaw rebel bandits fighting for thier own land and liberty.

Yjian Everett plays the guitar and sings his heart out, having spent a long time in Italy and other places learning the traditional music he brought back to his neighborhood in Austin to share with everyone.

Joe Egnot plays the accordion and shot glasses, adding super instrumental dynamics to the performances.

Peet Murray switches from banjo, fiddle, xylophone, etc… plus adds a few circus tricks… to be the melody maker/entertainer.

WE PLAY EVERY 2ND AND 4TH FRIDAY OF THE MONTH @ 9PM @SPIDERHOUSE (http://spiderhousecafe.com) with other assorted pre-show happenings starting around 8PM. These shows are FREE unless otherwise noted.

We are open to collaboration and participation… calling all dancers, musers, folkers… you know who you are! Oh, and bring your shotglasses (traditional percussion).

IF YOU WANT A CD OR TWO of what we have recorded please contact us: [email protected].

( taken from http://myspace.com/brigantemusica ) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.