Bargain Music

Long Beach, California's Bargain Music is a wildly eclectic revolving door centered on the songwriting/vocals of lone original member Josh Fischel. Drawing comparisons to diverse artists as Prince, Van Morrison, Lou Reed, Peter Tosh, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, Ween, Living Color, Lyle Lovett and Iron Maiden, Bargain Music uses rock n roll, soul, folk, country, reggae, and even metal with their quirky, personal, evocative lyrics to tie everything together. Nine years ago, Bargain Music was an idea to get various local musicians together to see what they were able to pull off. Fourteen members later, thats exactly what they are. Having played with artists like Lee Scratch Perry, Los Lobos, The Shapeshifters, Buckethead, Mike Watt, Run-DMC, Buju Banton, Mixmaster Mike, The Abbysinnians and Fishbone, Bargain has done nine national tours and five regional tours. Working with producer Mike Watt on their first album, 77 003, they turned over some tracks to Mad Professor (Lee Perry, Massive Attack) for some dub mixes that were released on Cook The Beans, a collection of re-mixes and unreleased songs. The current line-up is Josh-vocals and melodica, Matt-Bass, Todd-Drums, and Zippy-Guitar. In late 2005, a friend of Josh's asked him to record some acoustic songs at a studio he was working at in Northern California, Prairie Sun Studios, that had recorded such artists as Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, Wu Tang Clan, Neko Case, The Melvins and Faith No More. A few months later, Josh brought six songs from that session to Cornerstone RAS and asked them if they'd like to help finish the record and put it out. Josh went back up to the Prairie Sun for one more day to finish American Born. All the songs were recorded in the studio in one full take and the result is a very personal album featuring four new originals, and old Bargain favorites done up all new, and a handful of covers that have stuck with Josh through the years. In 2007 the band stopped playing shows and released a final record titled Epilogue. source:Bargain Music's Myspace