HGMN Welcomes Venice Gas House Trolley

Venice Gas House Trolley (Madison, WI) grooves body and mind creating a unique and organic live music experience. VGHT' s original jam-based songs and poems transport audiences on a creatively wild and transformational journey through darkness and into the light. Spoken of by fans as "A Cerebral Groove" and "Sacred Existential Fusion Rock," VGHT brings a sense of passion and performance to every live show. The Trolley's appearances include festivals such as The Muddy River Jam Fest (Woodstown, NJ), The Michigan Peace Fest (Lacota, MI), The 40th Annual Midwest Harvest Fest (Madison, WI) and 190 performances from Wisconsin to New York City. Praised by the media and fans alike for their new approach to words and intense yet chilled psychedelic jam, the band has emerged as originators of a genre that has yet to be invented.


Venice Gas House Trolley features the words of Flowpoetry, a three-time Madison Area Music Awards Best Artist (other) finalist and a finalist for the 2009 MNSWA "Urban Griot" International/National Performer of the Year alongside such spoken word notables as Saul Williams and Leonard Cohen. Flowpoetry emerged from the vibrant Midwest open-mic spoken word community and has performed over 700 times around the US. He has opened shows for such notables as Steve Kimock, Cornmeal, and Buck 65 and performed with members of the AACM avant-garde jazz community and James Brown's original "funky drummer" Clyde Stubblefield. He has also appeared on festival billings with The Jerry Garcia Band.

Venice Gas House Trolley have recently been embraced within the jam scene for their wholly original take on composition and improvisation. Through this creative mix, the band has released three full length domestic CDs and has placed tracks on British compilations. The Trolley's recently released CD "Burst Open" has already begun to receive rave reviews.

This full length (over 54 minutes of music) CD is VGHT's most fully realized, funky, jammin'and agressively rockin' album to date. Tracks range from the Flowpoetry inspired title track Burst Open (Dance) to the political heaviness of Bomb Drop and Busted And Wasted to the roots reggae rubba dub of Layin' Low. Add in some skanky blues, psychedelic rock and roll, and some of VHGT's unique take on the American West and you have an album that will move your body and your mind. Recorded in Madison, WI at The Blast House Studios and officially released Spring 2011.

"[Flowpoetry's] verses find the right rhythm and pitch for every approach (and) he reads them with an ease that lets the music sing. ...(The CD) "Burst Open" (by The Trolley) makes the relationship between words and music feel new again."
-The Isthmus (Madison, WI)

"Venice Gas House Trolley lean more toward Funkadelic.... [And] the band as a whole can keep up with [Flowpoetry's] eccentricity via slinky-funky bass and drums, flute, and a variety of careful melodic and atmospheric interjections. ...Flowpoetry's voice [is] raspy and heavy over the cool suspense-building [music of the band]."
-The Onion A.V. Club

"The Trolley carves out a tribal, ambient, dreamy vibe.... They're a musical group that have finally arrived."
-The Isthmus (Madison, WI)

"Rhythm comes first [with Venice Gas House Trolley]. The band layers Flowpoetry's spoken word over jazz-funk-rock-jam."
-The Capital Times 77 Square Entertainment Section

"...a sound that doesn't shrivel when the meters swell into a rant."
-The Isthmus (Madison, WI)

"[Flowpoetry is] one of the most unique and riveting performers on the Midwestern musical and artistic landscape. The group [Venice Gas House Trolley] is on the cutting edge of the nationwide expansion of new forms of spoken word.... The band is unique, theatrical and musical."
-DeKalb Chronicle (DeKalb, IL)

"...very chill yet gripping. The band [Venice Gas House Trolley] is on a mission to bridge the gap between poetry and music and does so.... ...some hip jive cat daddy."
-Gapers Block Presents: Transmission (Chicago, IL)

"Words flowing over bass and drums thrumming jazz, groove, folk, country, blues, psychedelic, jam. Man!"
-The Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)

"These are no frail photocopy-folk tunes, but rather legends and tales drawn from a deep well of historical experience; stories that place the listener into the leather boots of the prospectors and drifters they depict. When you hear music created by an American ghost, it gets you to your bones."
-Emmie Music Magazine (Madison, WI)