Need New Body is a Philidelphia-based band that arose from the ruins of another band called Bent Leg Fatima, which featured Dale Jimenez on keyboards, Jeff Bradbury on vocals/banjo, and Chris Powell on drums. As Fatima began to slow down, Powell invited his longtime friend Chris Reggiani to play bass, and the foursome called itself Need New Body. With the addition of Jamie Robinson on piano and Jim Reggiani on percussion, the band was well on its way to completely bewildering its audiences while simultaneously making them shake what their mommas gave them.

N.N.B.'s live act is nothing short of a spectacle. The band, often in full fang-bearing monkey regalia, screams sing-song-y lyrics into area mics while pounding on their instruments like the primates they dress up as (that is, of course, assuming that the aforementioned monkeys have tremendous musical ability). Their music is at once very strange and very danceable, which basically translates into very enjoyable. The swirls of organ, drums, bass, pots and pans, and banjos, create a "wicked hurdy gurdy", to quote their label's website. They have been known to cover bits and pieces of Frank Zappa tunes, and even though they have lots of written material, Need New Body's concerts usually consist of long stretches of free avant-jazz improvisation. The only consistent aspect of their live shows is the fact that all six band members are enjoying what they are doing. They laugh audibly, they dance about, they sing along with Bradbury as he belts out lyrics to, say, Gamble On:

Take my advice, don't take my hand, I've got a bad reputation...

On top of being an incredible live act, Need New Body has also done some time in the studio:

-Need New Body, 2001, released on Cenotaph Audio records.

The band’s first album can’t be specifically assigned a genre or style, as it encompasses many different sounds. Over its 22 tracks, Need New Body seeks to combine many musical styles and create the postmodern musical masterpiece of our time. Whereas most like-minded bands that attempt this feat go at it in far too serious a manner, Need New Body operates with a sense of utmost playfulness and over-the-top surrealistic humor, much like one of their obvious influences, Frank Zappa. However, while Zappa was a masterful composer, the guys in N.N.B. have a much more spontaneous, off-the-cuff feel to their work.
The album features collaborations with the likes of Blue Hawaii from Chicago’s Bablicon, as well as members of The Lilys, Ink and Dagger, and Aspera Ad Astra. They all add to the freewheeling mood of the album without bringing the sounds of their own individual acts (thank god).
The album literally features the majority of the defining aspects of 20th century music as a whole- from film music ambience and free jazz freakouts to worldbeat polyrhythms and hip-hop, even spoken word and klezmer are combined fluently (and oftentimes quite humorously). Still, they don’t sound like they’re trying to be overly eclectic. The album has definitive unity and flow to it, with some tracks even bordering on being outright accessible, such as the rock-tasticC.R. Eyeball”, and my personal favorite of the album, “Gamble On”.

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