Chandler Travis

Chandler Travis was born in New York City and his family moved to Connecticut when he was a child.[11] His father worked as a textile salesman, his mother condensed books for Reader's Digest and his sister, Deborah Travis, is a nurse.[11] Travis was influenced by jazz music from a young age; Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Ray Charles were among his favorite musicians, and he began playing guitar at the age of 13.[1][11][12] In Connecticut, he attended prep schools (Taft, along with Steve Shook; and Forman School.) At Forman, Travis played guitar in a garage band that played from 1966-1968 called The Good Fairies, later renamed The St. James Infirmary.[13] He played his first show at a coffee house at age 15, and had his first paying gig at age 16.[12]

Travis has been a Cape Cod resident since the early 1970s.[1] He continues performing, mostly in small New England venues, as a lead member of the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, the Chandler Travis Three-O, the Chandler Travis Philharmonette,[14] and the Catbirds.[7]

Travis moved to Boston to attend Boston University.[15] There he became friends with Steve Shook and the two formed the acoustic-comedy group, Travis Shook and the Club Wow, in 1969.[12][11] The group wrote folk-rock music with comedic, whimsical lyrics, and created several recurring characters.[16][11] They quickly gained popularity playing shows at campuses across the Northeast United States,[16] and were opened for by artists such as Bruce Springsteen,[17][18] and the E Street Band.[12] They appeared on The Dick Cavett Show,[19] The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,[11][5] and The Midnight Special.[5] In 1972 the group released their only contemporaneous full-length album, The Essential Travis Shook and the Club Wow, along with several other musicians including members of NRBQ.[20] Tom Staley, the drummer from NRBQ, joined them on tour for a period of time, as did Rikki Bates (also performed as Vince Valium, formerly known as Rich Bates)[21] who has been a frequent drummer in Travis' collaborations ever since.[22][11]

Travis and Shook met with drummer Rikki (Rich) Bates in 1978 and began working on a new, more serious band focused on pop-rock.[22] Originally with Eric Rosenfeld on the guitar they went by the name The Susan Anton People; they were joined by Johnny Spampinato a couple of years later and became The Incredible Casuals.[6] After a couple of singles, the "Let'S Go Summer Fun Maxi-EP" was released in 1982.[31] Shook then left the group and was later replaced by Aaron Spade.[6] In 1983 and '84, the group produced a monthly mail-order cassette subscription called the Inedible Casserole series in which they recorded and released a new album every other month.[32] The Casuals played at a club called the Wellfleet Beachcomber in Wellfleet for 35 years every Sunday during summer months.[27][33][34][35] Spampinato joined NRBQ in 1994; however, the Casuals continued to play part-time while their members focused on other projects for over 20 years until 2014.[36]

Over the years, The Casuals were joined on stage by guest singers, including their soundman, Chris Blood, who had a recurring feature as "The White Prince," performing unusually inept covers of classic songs, with the Casuals credited as the Brain Bats of Venus,[6][33] and they have released two albums on Sonic Trout Records: You've Got a Friend: The White Prince Story, and Resurrection![10]

In 1996, the house band of the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a rhythm section led by Dinty Child.[2] The club had a guest position that rotated weekly; Child was joined by Travis for one of these positions and by Travis' suggestion Child recruited a full brass section, leading to the formation of Chandler Travis Philharmonic.[37][38] The Lizard Lounge resident band position was next filled by Session Americana.[39]

Travis has created two smaller versions of the Philharmonic: the Chandler Travis Three-O, and the Chandler Travis Philharmonette; each group mostly plays different material with unique styles.[40][41] The groups are known for regularly performing in brightly colored pajamas, smoking jackets, and hats.[1][12][42] The Philharmonic in particular is a high-energy, theatrical group, often engaging with the audience in quirky ways during their performances like the way they present their tip jar; it is taped to a Roomba robot vacuum and roams the audience randomly and was dubbed the Honey Bunny 6000 by its inventor, trumpetist Kami Lyle.[43]

The Philharmonic usually consists of nine members, currently, Chandler Travis (guitar/vocals), Alex Brander (drums), John Clark (upright bass), Fred Boak (vocals), Cliff Spencer (keyboards), Dinty Child (mandocello/mandolin/accordion/cello), and their three-piece horn section known as The June Trailer Dancers;[44][45] Berke McKelvey (clarinets/saxophones/keys), Kami Lyle (trumpet), and Bob Pilkington (trombone).[46]

Fred Boak (also known as "The Valet") was a longtime fan of the group before joining them. After befriending the group he began selling their merchandise at shows and managing Travis' website.[45] Boak became a harmony singer with the Philharmonic's many versions around 2001 when he was called in as a last-minute substitute, and now performs regularly,[37] although he describes his role as “being on stage, with a drink in my hand, looking good.”[9] Boak replaced Travis as the musical director of The Cape Cod Christmas Cavalcades for the Homeless in 2018.[9]

Chandler Travis Three-O is a quartet that was created to play smaller venues than Chandler Travis Philharmonic, it being difficult to find venues with the budget and stage-space to fulfill the Philharmonic's needs.[41] Although they have rearranged songs from the Philharmonic to work with the quartet, there is enough material that the Three-O has quite a different repertoire from the Philharmonic, and they have released two albums.[41] The scaled-down group is: Chandler Travis (guitar/vocals), Fred Boak (vocals), John Clark (upright bass), Berke McKelvey (saxes/clarinets/keyboards), and sometimes Kami Lyle (trumpet, vocals).[47]

The Catbirds are a simple guitar/bass/drums quartet, play rootsier, louder rock, a bit closer to the Casuals in style than any of Travis's other current groups. They've released a couple of EPs and 2012's full-length "Catbirds Say Yeah". The Catbirds' current lineup is: Travis (bass/vocals), Steve Wood (guitar/vocals), Mark Usher (guitarist) and Sam Wood (drums).[48]

• Travis played on Jonathan Edwards albums; maraca on Honky-Tonk Stardust Cowboy (1972), and marimba on Rhino Hi-five (2006).[52]
• Travis is credited on Martin Mull's albums; with backing vocals, harmonica, percussion and auxiliary in Martin Mull (1972), and with vocals on Mulling it Over: A Musical Oeuvre View (1998).[53][54]
• Travis wrote and recorded the theme song for The George Carlin Show, and Carlin's TV pilot, Apt. 2c.[28][29]
• Travis played bass guitar for the track "Antidisestablishmentarianism" from Go, Go, Gorilla's 1993 album It Was a Nightmare.[55]
• The Incredible Casuals song "Summertime" was used in the film Touching the Game: The Story of the Cape Cod Baseball League (2004).[56]
• Travis, Tom Ardolino, Johnny Spampinato, Aaron Spade & Rikki Bates are credited on P.J. O'Connell's album Careful (2007).[57]
• Five songs by The Incredible Casuals were used in the film Paper Man (2009): "This World", "Summer Nights" and "No Fun at Parties", "I Wanna Play Loud" and "Gotta Have You."[58]
• Travis wrote the score for the musical Boyce & Melinda Peterson’s Investment Strategies for the Post-Money World! (premiered 2009)[59][10]
• Travis is credited on P.J. O'Connell's albums Join the Crowd (2011), and Happy Go Lucky (.[60][61]
• Travis and Johnny Spampinato wrote original songs included on a soundtrack for The Simpsons.[62]
• Travis played bass in Zoë Lewis & the Souvenirs.[63]

• Chandler Travis' website
• The Catbirds' website