About
| Beatnik Turtle is a horn powered rock band that has produced eighteen albums; written music for TV, film, podcasts, and theater; released a song every single day of 2007 at TheSongOfTheDay.com; and is writing a book called The Indie Band Survival Guide to be published by St. Martin’s Press in 2008, and the UK edition the DIY Music Manual from Ebury/Random House in Feb 2009. |
Websites: BeatnikTurtle.com; TheSongOfTheDay.com
Genre: horn-powered alternative pop rock
Sounds-Like: They Might Be Giants, Fountains of Wayne, Barenaked Ladies
Instrumentation: Trumpet, trombone, sax, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums, and whatever else they can find
Background: Formed in January 1998 in Chicago, USA
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All In A Day’s Work 16 fun and energetic pop-rock tunes about work and technology. Recorded and produced within one month for the Record Production Month Challenge 2007 (www.rpmchallenge.com)in between recording songs for thesongoftheday.com. Tackles such topics as working retail, phoning it in, abusing interns, dealing with consultants, fighting I.T. departments, Googling, and sleepworking through life. |
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 (2007) |
Thanks For Coming Out: Beatnik Turtle Live! Recorded live at Gunther Murphy’s in Chicago, this album features live favorites from Beatnik Turtle’s 10-year history as well as new songs not found on any studio album. |
(2004) |
The Cheapass Album An album inspired by the off-the-wall board & card games of Seattle-based games manufacturer, Cheapass Games (www.cheapass.com). Features cover art by renowned illustrator and comic book writer/artist, Phil Foglio (www.studiofoglio.com). |
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(2002) |
Santa Doesn’t Like You(a.k.a. “The Un-Holiday Album”). An album packed with “…low comedy, parody, biting social commentary and just-plain-weird-assed wackjobbery” that un-celebrates the Holiday Season (quote taken from: www.splendidezine.com). |
(2001) |
What We’ve Got Beatnik Turtle’s first and some say, only debut album. |
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Shows: Beatnik Turtle performs in and around the Chicago metro area at such venues as Martyrs’, The Elbo Room, Schubas, Subterranean, etc. They have participated in the International Pop Overthrow Festival (www.internationalpopoverthrow.com) every year since 2005, and have also played atypical venues such as the world-famous Second City (www.secondcity.com) and comedy festivals such as Chicago Sketchfest (www.chicagosketchfest.com).
Radio: Beatnik Turtle’s music has been featured on Chicago Public Radio’s award-winning program, Eight Forty-Eight (www.chicagopublicradio.org), the nationally syndicated Dr. Demento Show (www.drdemento.com), US college radio stations; and various internet stations.
Television & Film: Beatnik Turtle’s music has been used in commercials for ABC Family’s original reality TV series “Kicked Out” (www.abcfamily.go.com) and the theme song to the TV show DVDGeeks (www.dvdgeeks.tv).
Theater: Beatnik Turtle wrote and recorded theme and incidental music for “Sci-Fry” – a sketch comedy show at Second City Etc. In addition, Beatnik Turtle has performed live and has been integrated into sketches as a “Saturday Night Live” style backing band with a sketch comedy group at Second City – a first for Second City’s Etc. stage (www.secondcity.com). They have also played at Chicago’s Sketchfest, the world’s largest sketch comedy festival in the US (www.chicagosketchfest.com).
Podcasts & Web: Beatnik Turtle has been played on dozens of podcasts including The Escape Pod, BitJobs For The Masses, Wingin’ It, GeekFuActionGrip, and many others. In addition, Beatnik Turtle writes and records theme songs, music, and voice-over work for podcasts, such as Give Us A Minute, Podculture, The Gigcast, The Wandering Geek, and others. In addition, they have created their own “pubcast” for the 10th Annual Chicago PubSprawl Event (www.pubsprawl.com) and produce their own music podcast at www.thesongofthday.com.
Books:In February 2006, Beatnik Turtle published The Indie Band Survival Guide – a free 101-page online book for musicians about how to get music played, get heard, get press, get distributed, and do it all independently. It was featured in Billboard Magazine, the Associated Press, and blogs worldwide. Within a year, the book was picked up by St. Martin’s Press, and a complete rewrite with hundreds of pages of new material will be released to bookstores in 2008.
Music Commissions & Licensing: Beatnik Turtle writes and records “songs on demand” and can be commissioned for specific projects.
Band Members: Beatnik Turtle is comprised of a community of musicians who share a similar musical vision and sense of humor. They write, record, and produce songs in their own studio as well as perform live. Members include: Jason Feehan (vocals & guitar), Randy Chertkow (saxes, flute, clarinet), Dave Hallock (trumpet), Chip Hinshaw (trombone), John Owens (vocals, drums), Tom Roper (vocals, lead guitar), Tom Susala (bass). A complete listing of those who have taken part can be found at www.TheSongOfTheDay.com.
Projects: Beatnik Turtle successfully completed a song of the day project at www.TheSongOfTheDay.com–a website where Beatnik Turtle released a new, original song for each day of 2007. They are continuing to release a new song every week at the site. When not recording and writing music for TheSongOfTheDay.com, they are creating music videos and working on the “Indie Band Survival Guide.”