Fame fails to faze shoeless Pseudopod

  Pseudopod UCLA band Pseudopod will be taking its act to
the East Coast.

By Whitney Smith
Daily Bruin Contributor

Pseudopod may be a technical term for a false foot, but this
rising band stands on the strength of its own two shoeless
feet.

After performing together 300 times in less than three years on
the West Coast, the UCLA-based Pseudopod will take its music to a
national level when the band tours the East Coast during spring
break.

“I’ve always been the dreamer kind, but we’ll
wait and see how successful the East Coast tour is before we call
ourselves a national band,” fifth-year psychology student and
Pseudopod drummer Tim McGregor said in a phone interview from his
L.A. home.

Guitarist Ross Grant, a fifth-year ethnomusicology student,
anticipates that the shows will be weird and scary since the band
is relatively unknown east of the Sierras.

The added pressure of making a good first impression
doesn’t faze these veteran performers, however, who have
learned to dissolve their nervous jitters by performing
shoeless.

“You take off your shoes and suddenly you’re in your
living room,” Grant said in an interview after a concert at
the Troubadour. “You get used to it. When I have my shoes on
I just feel tense.”

Combining jazz, funk and rock, Pseudopod’s sound
encompasses the various tastes of all five members. Grant and
McGregor, who have known each other since middle school, have a
history in jazz, which adds an element of improvisation and long
solos during performances.

“We let the music evolve as it wants to instead of playing
a set form the same way every night,” bassist and UCLA
graduate student Brian Fox said in an interview.

Fox’s diverse musical background includes inspiration from
places all over the world such as Bulgaria, India, Cuba and
Uganda.

Pseudopod’s music also draws on the influences and
backgrounds of UCLA alumnus Kevin Carlberg (vocals) and Matt Keegan
(saxophone). Keegan, who currently lives in Sweden, joined the band
when he left the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia to
study abroad at UCLA for a year.

“He’s just incredible. We’ve played with other
sax players and they’ve all been really good too, but
there’s something about Keegan that’s just very
different. It’s just a perfect match,” Fox said.

In addition to having Keegan spread the band’s music to
other areas of the world, the Internet has been a powerful tool in
promotion and distribution. MP3s from albums and live performances
are available to computer users from Pseudopod’s Web site
(www.pseudopod.net) as well as various other sites. The song
“Shrinks” gained prominence when it was included as one
of the “Best of Riffage Rock” on riffage.com.

Pseudopod first achieved national recognition last spring when
it was named “Best College Band in America” in the
Internet Underground Music Archive College Musicomania 2000
contest.

The prize included $10,000 cash, a $10,000 budget and 5,000
pressed CDs for the band’s sophomore album, “Rest
Assured,” which will be released in early April.

Members plan to celebrate with a record release party on April
10 at The West End in Santa Monica, Fox’s favorite local
venue.

The new album is longer and more professional than
“Pod,” the band’s first record, Grant said.

“Our first album was basically just a demo; it seems
really old now. We just never had the time or money before,”
he said.

Every one of the 2,000 copies of “Pod” have been
sold and the band plans to press and release more, in addition to
its new album.

Other than the financial rewards of being named the best college
band in America, winning the contest provided the group with free
publicity. Pomfret School, a small, independent, college
preparatory school in Connecticut, heard of Pseudopod’s
success and requested that they play at the campus and is covering
the cost of the band’s airfare across the country.

Since Pseudopod will be in the East Coast neighborhood, it
scheduled shows at other venues in Virginia, Maryland, Washington,
D.C. and New York. Keegan will join the band for the tour and will
return to Southern California for a few performances as well.

When Pseudopod first formed, no one knew how much success to
expect.

“We were just playing music that we liked to play,”
Fox said. “Then we all kind of realized, “˜Wow, this is
going pretty well, we should stick with it.'”

The band members did just that. After opening for other bands at
clubs throughout California, Pseudopod built enough of a loyal fan
base to headline its own shows and sell out small venues such as
Blake’s in Berkeley. Extensive touring was essential to gain
band recognition.

“We worked hard promoting it. We were definitely
proud,” McGregor said.

The extent of its success in the future remains to be seen.

Pseudopod will continue building its reputation this summer with
a long tour that will visit many new venues. It hopes to attract
enough fans to support its members financially on the road, since
all of the band members will have graduated by this summer.

The group approaches aspects of its growing celebrity one step
at a time. Its short-term goals are modest ““ to earn a living
through touring and to get major distribution for its new album.
Fox said selling out huge amphitheaters is the carrot being dangled
in front of the band.

No matter how big the venue or the crowds may get, there will
still be no shoes on stage.

“I used to play with shoes but then once I started playing
without them, it was so addictive. I could never go back,”
Fox said.