About God Street Wine
God Street Wine is a jam band from New York City. Their music is an amalgam of rock, jazz, bluegrass, funk, psychedelia, pop, Americana, reggae, progressive, and more. The band broke up in 1999 and reunited in 2009. GSW played a significant role in the development of the improvisational jam band scene of the early 1990s. Their earliest days include playing Nightingale's and The Wetlands Preserve in New York City where their contemporaries were The Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, Jono Manson and the Dreyer Brothers. From their earliest days, fans of the band were known as Winos. This group of dedicated fans would follow them from gig to gig. When their touring base expanded Winos would sometimes drive hours to see the band. GSW was an early adapter of internet marketing, acquiring a domain name and electronic mailing list ahead of many others in the scene. They also maintained a snail mail list and telephone hotline fans could call to get tour dates from a recorded message. Occasionally callers would be surprised by a band member answering the phone and replying to their inquiry personally.
Numerous bands and musicians that went on to achieve major success opened for them over the years ranging from Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow and Hootie and the Blowfish to the Ominous Seapods, G. Love & Special Sauce and Dispatch. God Street Wine toured the U.S. with H.O.R.D.E. four times and opened for the Black Crowes and The Allman Brothers Band.
The band is composed of Lo Faber , Aaron Maxwell , Tom Osander , Dan Pifer , and Jon Bevo . Lo Faber and Dan Pifer met as students at NYU in 1986. Eventually they both transferred to Manhattan School of Music, to study jazz, where they met Aaron Maxwell . As it happened, his father Hal Lieberman was a trumpet and Jazz Improvisation teacher at Manhattan School of Music. Faber and Tom Osander were high school friends who had previously been in bands together. Pifer had met Jon Bevo earlier at NYU and he jammed with them on keyboards, eventually joining when the band began to coalesce.
As the band came together in the second half of 1988, they recorded songs at the studio Sounds of Joy on West 46th Street where Pifer was working. ” Electrocute,” “Freight Train,” “She Said Dark,” ”Fortress of Solitude” and “Other Shore” were recorded. Most of those tunes have remained live staples throughout their career. On December 13, 1988 God Street Wine played their first public gig at Nightingale's on Second Avenue in Lower Manhattan. This club becomes a regular haunt for them. Other bands that got their start at the legendary Lower East Side venue include Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors.
During 1989 the band became regulars at The Nightingale bar downtown and at The 712 Club on 125th Street. God Street Wine also started playing every downtown bar they could, many of them on Bleecker Street. They went into the studio and recorded an 8-song, cassette only release. John Popper of Blues Traveler was a guest soloist on one song. In 1990 they recorded three nights at The 712 Club and eventually released “Live at the 712 Club.”
1991 stands as a major turning point for God Street Wine. The decision was made to strive for being something greater than a bar band. All 5 members of the band and their crew moved into a single house in Ossining NY, which they dubbed "The Great Northern." They quit their jobs and focused only on music and the business of being God Street Wine. This allowed them to rehearse at any time of day or night. In addition to their playing they also worked on their harmonies which were increasingly becoming a signature part of their sound.
By 1992 the band had been living together in Ossining, NY at The Great Northern for the better part of a year. With an entire house to themselves they wrote and rehearsed incessantly. By this point God Street Wine had been playing gigs for nearly 4 years and it was time to record a full-length release. They recorded their debut album Bag at the House of Music in West Orange, New Jersey, and Crossroads Studio in Manhattan. God Street Wine financed Bag themselves with the help of friends and sold it at shows before making a distribution deal with Ripe 'n' Ready.
Map & Directions To Venue
