TJ Dovebelly Ensemble

The TJ Dovebelly Ensemble was birthed at a quirky downtown Kansas City establishment known as the YJ's Snack Bar. Mark Southerland (AKA TJ Dovebelly), a veteran experimental musician involved in bands such as the Malachy Papers and Mr. Marco's V7, was able to put a new twist on the emerging art of turntablism. Using arcane technology invented by one William Powell Lear, Mark was able to reconfigure the innards of old 8-track tapes. He then engineered a method which allowed him to "scratch" the tape back and forth across the play head of the 8-track deck, creating sounds akin to those of modern Hip-Hop DJs. In continuing with the DJ traditions, Mark decided to call himself a TJ, an acronym for Tape Jockey. Inherent to the ways of the TJ is the imminent destruction of his medium. At the end of each performance, there lies a veritable mountain of tape, never to be used again. Southerland rounds out his sound with a vast arsenal of both conventional and exotic woodwinds, the most notable being the Hose-a-phone, Flute-a-phone, double Saxophone and the Piccolo-a-phone. Sterling Holman, having honed his audio manipulation skills by performing with local post-rock freaks a=Sky Burial, is the live sound engineer for the Ensemble. Employing an ever changing array of effects gear, he takes audio output from all of the members of the band and melds them together in a consistent textural montage in a style reminiscent of the Black Ark Studio of Lee "Scratch" Perry. Employing the mighty MPC 2000, Shane Whitsitt is the Beatsmith and arranger of the Ensemble. He takes his samples from a wide variety of sources and prides himself on breaking genre boundaries. Low frequency emanations are supplied by bassist Aaron Osborne, who uses Electric fretless bass, and a variety of effects and synthesizers to keep the music rolling.