Grape Juice Plus w/ Stephanie Rearick

GRAPE JUICE PLUS!?!?!

What is it? A haunted liquid to stimulate the auditory nerves? Ape Astronaut Zira’s favorite libation?

Actually, Grape Juice Plus is a multi-media improvising outfit out of Chicago that has been freaking out/delighting audiences since 2014 and have shared stages with such luminaries as STICK MEN (featuring Pat Mastelotto & Tony Levin from King Crimson) and prog fusion legends, BRAND X.

It began with Barry Bennett and Eric Klotz as a series of Monday morning sessions. Both musicians were looking be pushed to new areas of their improvisational sand boxes. At first glance, they seemed frome disparate places. Bennett, a fixture of Chicago’s free rock scene dating back to the classic Chicago band, MiLkBabY. Klotz, meanwhile, emerging from the world of jazz fusion. They discovered their chemistry quickly. When they decided to take their little fever dream public, they found the perfect collaborator in video artist, Tony Churchill, who is a multi jeff award winning projection designer whom Bennett met while sound designing a play. it turns out, a projectionist can improvise just as fluidly as musicians and can add a bit of wit and mystery to the proceedings that already included tribal groove, other worldly chants, electricity, improvisation, ritual, celebration, unknown lands, an ocean floating in the sky, a sprinkle of retro-future, and a dash of prog…

Well, they found some new sand. this one populated by apes on horseback.

Stephanie Rearick (Ladyscissors, Negative Example, The Coma Savants...) will be performing a rare solo show. Combining her classically-tinged piano tendencies with her love of looping trumpet, voice and beats, Rearick exudes confidence and creates a universe of music all her own. Her soundscape is rich. Cheery, creepy, lush, beautiful and very dreamlike.