JEFF BUJAK

07-29 Cyber Cafe West, Binghamton, NY

07-30 Castaways, Ithaca, NY

08-07 Mill Street Brews, Southbridge, MA (w/ The Breakfast)

08-14 Mojo's, Jamestown, NY

08-15 Westcott Theater, Syracuse, NY (w/ Zach Deputy)

  More shows and more details...

07-09-09 | The Ups and Downs of the Last 3 Months

DOWN AND UP-DATE

So, it’s been about 3 months since I’ve written a self proclaimed ‘BUJ-Letter’ to all of you. In these 3 months, I’ve been traveling (touring), playing some (a lot of) music and meeting some great (really great) people on the road. I had my first run down to Tennessee and North Carolina, I had a great run to Ohio and I ran in circles all around the usual northeast terrain. I feel that I’ve finally found my stride and I’m building steam, so now is the time to let me know where to play… especially for this Fall. I want to tour to where you want to see me, so give me a reason why I should play at your favorite venue, lend me a couch for the night, and I’ll be there… just look over your shoulders, honey! But even before then, less we forget my final 3 shows this week before my BIG 2-week break (using ‘break’ loosely… more info below)! I’ll be performing on Thursday in Albany, NY; in Southbridge, MA on Friday; in Hartford, CT on Saturday. All these shows will be co-bills with my Connecticut friends The HippoCampus, and Albany will also include some DnB from the lovely DJ Leila. Check out www.jeffbujak.com/live for more details. Speaking of music, I have some new videos up on Buj-Tube of my Strange Creek Fest performance. I also have a feature in the new issue of State of Mind magazine. Oh, it’s just a look into the reason why I play music, a breakdown of who influences me musically and simply my overall meaning of life. It’s a neat read, real hype.

BREAKDOWN AND UP

My creative juices have been flowing while on the road. I’ve had many chances to start writing some new material, so in the next couple weeks I’ll be in the studio piecing together some new tracks and maybe a couple remixes. I have a feeling that this will be a great session of writing. I haven’t written any new material yet this year and August is looking like a big exposure month for me, so having some fresh material to hit the road with will be a great feeling. Look for the smile. I’m addicted to the feeling of playing brand new songs in front of big audiences. In addition to new songs, I want to bring back some old songs that I don’t play anymore. Let me know if there’s any past OG-BUJ that you’d like to hear live and I’ll try to get to refiguring them during my time off. I have a couple that I want to bring back, but I’d also like to know what you all think. I’m still working on the mind reading thing.

GET DOWN AND TURN IT UP!

The 22-hour straight drive down to Bonnaroo was thankfully a joy with the help of a few albums, and I’d like to thank those artists for keeping me awake and attentive while driving. The most played award goes to The Brew’s “Back to the Woods.” A simply well-produced and great arrangement of music with melodies meant to stick in your head for days after. Justin Eck’s new disc “Piecemeal” had some serious rotations as well. That’s a must grab for my Somebody’s Closet peeps out there as well as the rest of ya! Pantera’s “Great Southern Trendkill” was a late night fave. Particle’s “Launchpad” kept the party going while Meshuggah mellowed me out for nice sunny daytime peanut butter sandwich lunches at the fabulous route 81 rest stops. XM’s Michael Jackson tribute channel was just fantastic. I got to hear so many old hits that I forgot about. His music will live on in my vehicle… that’s for sure! Other than all that, the usual Papadosio, Jimkata, DJ Shadow and some Down filled in the time. Time fills well with music. Enjoy your week, all and listen to good music please.

03-26-09 | The Official ‘Leaked’ New Album Announcement

BUT FIRST, LETS TALK ABOUT SPRING

I’ll be all around this Spring playing northeast shows with Perpetual Groove, Lotus, EOTO, Papadosio, The Breakfast, Boombox, The Muve… to tons of solo evenings… to the first festies of the year … to my 30th birthday / official album release show in Northampton, MA on June 5th… to touring to Tennessee for 3 late night performances at Bonnoroooo… to trekking to Ohio for a late night festy set at the beautiful Nelson Ledges Quarry… to a new album (in case you haven’t heard), new markets, new fans and new friends (the most important!). ***This past weekend already, I could see that post-winter brain thaw thing on people’s faces. Spring.

LIKE SAND THROUGH THE HOURGLASS, SO ARE THE TRACKS OF MY SPINE

Okay (deep breath). I’m bringing it up… for some reason the word “leakage” got a bad rap (… and thank you to Astra-Zeneca). For some reason along the lines and sands of time, the verb “leak” got the negative definition for an unwanted loss of substance when the initial plan was to contain it. Gas pipes should NOT leak; government officials should NOT leak unwarranted information; humans should not leak new albums before the release date. Well, guess what? I don’t care to contain my music, because my music is not created to be contained. I will not contain them Sam I am. With about 7 leaks… I mean weeks, until the release of ‘Alive Like the Spine,’ I noticed a similarity in numbers. 7 unheard tracks (with 1 already leaked track) and 7 weeks; why not release one of the 7 unheard tracks off the album every week online… for free? Why not indeed. Starting today and every Thursday, I will be featuring a different track to listen to off the new album on the Spine hub site http://www.jeffbujak.com/spine. It will only be available for one day and maybe for a day after that to let some of my more forgetful fans catch-up a little. I know for me that it takes about a day to remember things I should have done the day before. We’re only human after all. And since we’re human, we all deserve new music… on Thursdays!

U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B…

…START to think in code if you’re a member of any message boards / forums or social networking sites online. On message boards / forums, I’d like you to place my Dr. Seuss themed ‘Spine Banner’ in your signature for the next couple months. It will also add some Seussy-color to those relatively bland message board color schemes. Consider it as renting space in your signature block and for rent payment, I will give you free music. Deal? Let me know that you placed the banner, and I will send you a link to download a LiveBUJ Winter Sampler disc. Since I literally just came up with the idea, I haven’t created it yet but I will go through all my winter shows this coming week and hand pick my favorite tracks from the season. Same with MySpace and other social networking sites that allow the posting of images. Truthfully, you can paste this banner anywhere online and let me know where. I’d be happy to barter. Go to http://s74.photobucket.com/albums/i264/jeffbujak/?action=view&current=bujakbanner.gif for the codes for the banner. My team thanks you! See you out there.

*** - Intended for northeastern US residents

02-23-09 | Back from the BUJ-Cave... and boy are my fingers tired

ABOUT 40 MILES BELOW THE EARTH’S CRUST…

… is a tiny office with one busted old desk, one crickety chair and one flickering light. For some reason the light swings from side to side so when I’m Facebooking, it sometimes feels like an interrogation… “Mr. Bujak... where were you the night of Friday, February 20th?!” “Why detective, I was slamming down a set before the New Deal in Massachusetts.” In between flickers, I try to book shows, promote my runs, attempt not to hum the bassline intro to the “5-Dollar Footlong” uber-jingle (which is a genius masterpiece of bass-dom, btw), mix down my live shows and just attempt to catch up on day-to-day emails and phone calls. Well, the great news is that I’m back to the crusty bright surface from my 2-year journey underground and I’ve managed to pick up a record label, booking support, publicity assistance and artist management to join my one-man wrecking crew. Everyone welcome Harmonized Records, Macro-Management, Mr. Bugsley Productions and Breaking Booking (along with my already good friends at Home Grown Music Network) to our team. They will all be working day and night for me, so if you any issues with my appearance, my performance or my attitude, please contact them (including if you don’t like this BUJ-letter). Let me know if they use the standard pre-sentence phrase “Buj says…” that I’ve instructed them all to use. Pretty pro, huh? Anyone need an oil change? I think they do that for my street teamers…

SHE’S ALIVE!!

The brand new Harmonized Records release “Alive like the Spine” has completed her 3-month journey from Milan to Minsk. With the audio and artwork officially complete, I can now relax and concentrate on my live shows for a bit (new lights, new equipment, new ideas). Unfortunately, the album release has been pushed back from March 3 to May 12, but that just means that there is more time to get excited for it… and more time for you to tell people about it! I feel that this product is FAR superior to anything I’ve ever recorded, so I am ecstatic to hear what you all think of it. As you probably know, you can stream the first track in its entirety right now at www.jeffbujak.com/spine. In the coming months, there will be new additions to this page including other song samples, artwork and tidbits of info about the 78-minute recording. I will also be mixing and releasing an unreleased remix (does that make sense?) of one of the new tracks for free download at some point between now and May 12. Keep checking the page weekly for updates.

TRANCE MARCHING

Alas, March Madness is right around the corner and I’m welcoming the 32+ degree temps to tour in with open thawing arms. Currently, I can hear my landlord shoveling the outside walkway for the 100th time this year and that tells me that: 1- He’s a good landlord and 2- I need to travel south more next year. But for now, the Northeast weather isn’t getting rid of me easily. I’m starting March out with a UMass radio interview on WMUA... in promo for my first full-night hometown Northampton show in quite sometime. Being a free show and a small room, it’s sure to be a hot-rager, plus with my new lights, it will most likely be complete and udder madness! Then, I travel back to New York for a return to the ‘Shire in my OG hometown of Syracuse, NY proceeded by a Rochester Bug Jar appearance the following night (with my good friends The Magnetic Pull supporting). A couple nights off will bring me to Binghamton for a primetime free listening room performance. For the next night, on to Albany for a night of interchanging sets between 3 different local drum ‘n bass DJ’s and me. Aaaaaand… back to Syracuse for some pre-game and late night sets for Israel’s Infected Mushroom at the Westcott. The first half of the month will end with an evening of BUJ in beautiful Ithaca, NY where my favorite progressive-seitan sandwich is crafted. Then, New England will get their share of prog-piano with a two-set night at the famous Sully’s in Hartford, CT and on to Rhode Island for a night of Perpetual Groove and BUJ (Perpetual BUJ?... sounds like a problem…). I’ll be finishing out the month in western mass at Flavours and then Long Island at the Redline Lounge. I’ll see you out there.

THE FIGHT TO BE COOL

So, since I began this project 2 years ago, I’ve striven to remain as friendly to the Earth as possible. I use 100% recycled paper for posters and flyers, I travel in a gas-friendly compact SUV, my new album will be printed on 100% recycled materials including no plastic tray and I’m using all low-power LED lights for stage lighting. I am also trying to promote shows digitally as much as possible (as opposed to handbills and wasted paper), which brings me to how YOU can help promote shows (in under 2 minutes) and barely leave any footprints behind (carbon or in the snow). Thanks to Jambase, you can click on EMAIL under a show listing at www.jeffbujak.com/live and just enter people’s email addresses that might enjoy a notification of the show. Then, click to send and it’s done. You can also click on FACEBOOK under the show and easily post a show notification on your Facebook page. How cool is that? Very cool and it should help keep the Earth cool at the same time, plus make yourself look cool for introducing a friend to cool new music. Let’s raise the standard for eco-friendly music together. I am in no way the first to do any of this, but I am proud to pass the word on and get more people involved. Cool, indeed.

-Jeff Bujak

Music that I’m currently enjoying and that you should too: Umphrey’s McGee, Perpetual Groove, Huey Lewis (and his old News), Ozric Tentacles (always on my list) and The Indobox.

01-29-09 | Jeff Bujak signs with Harmonized Records!

As of today, the contracts are signed and we're on our way to releasing the new album "Alive like the Spine." It's fun to say "we." The new record release will be pushed back to May 12.

01-03-09 | EXCLUSIVE! 10 Questions with Jeff Bujak, by Aaron Z. Lee

"I recently had the opportunity to correspond with Jeff Bujak, a composer and instrumentalist who specializes in progressive electronica who is originally from Syracuse, but now resides in Northampton, Massachusetts." - Aaron Z Lee... read more!

http://azltron.blogspot.com/

01-01-09 | New York by storm; New album has form; New year for...

NEW YORK BY STORM

Growing up a small Syracuse, New Yorkan lad, winter was just a day-to-day wonderland of gleaming icicles and moon boots. But these days, it seems more like a week-to-week steaming pain in my arsenal. The winter has only started and the sky already opened up and dumped a bucket of whirly-wintry goodness upon a lot of the country including the entire northeast. Traveling on the road was interrupted a couple times for me and yada, yada, yada… I’m ready for Spring! But before that can happen, I have to play shows and just hope that Mother Nature is on my side (we have a deal). In fact, I’m going to be starting off the New Year with 9 shows in the first 11 days and 8 of them are in the great snow ridden state of New York. And coincidentally, if you connect the dots of these shows on a New York map, it seems to form an oversized lake-effect snowflake. Go figure.

NEW ALBUM HAS FORM

I’ve finally finalized the final track listing for the new disc and it’s finally starting to become a reality. The songs will be Sea, Nomadd, Mutator, Yogoque, Kicker, Prodigium, Hepsira and Utopia in that very order. Live recorded versions of all these songs can be found at www.livebuj.com, but the new album versions will be (and some already have been) recorded very precise and complex and layered heavily with multiple pianos, low dub-stepping bass and towering distorted electric piano tracks. Check out a sample track at www.jeffbujak.com/spine. As of now, we’re pushing 77 minutes so the collection of just 8 songs will still be a full-bodied disc, but will fall short of the 12 tracks that has become the Bujak norm. One little tidbit that I will leak is that Justin and Christine Eck from the band Somebody’s Closet will be writing lyrics and laying down harmonious vocals atop one of my compositions for this album. Also, the cd packaging will be printed with vegetable inks, use recycled plastic for the CD tray and use all recycled paper for the cardboard case. So in all, the album is coming together along with all recycled material (songs and packaging) to form a bond that will be my best released material yet. Stay tooned and make sure to check out that aforementioned track.

NEW YEAR FOR...

… Tony Danza. I’m calling it right now that this will be HIS year. But if it isn’t, I know that at least I’ll be covering some ground. This new year should include a coast-to-coast BUJ tour as well as a full Atlantic coast tour. So, sit tight my mid-west cronies, it won’t be long. I’m sure a return to Nelson Ledges will be had, as well as many more late night festival appearances. Oh yeah… I have a new album coming out this year!!! Umm… what else… well, with a new year comes new ventures. I’m sure I’ll be up to no good with other musicians this year, perhaps throwing together some live duo performances. I’ll be adding new markets for touring as well so as always, if you want me to perform closer to you, let me know. Bedside might be a little awkward, but if it’s a rager, I’m in! See you out there and let’s have a great year!

-Jeff Bujak

12-20-08 | Lake Grove, NY show postponed due to crappy weather.

After about 2 hours of driving equaling about 30 miles on the I-91, I decided to throw in the towel and cancel the show tonight at the Red Line Lounge in Lake Grove, NY. Canceling shows is not something I like to do, even though I've had 3 show cancellations in the last 2 weeks (God, that sucks to say). My vehicle is actually made to defeat inclement weather and poor driving conditions, but other people's vehicles are not. The traffic on the highway was so slow that it would have taken me about 8 hours to do a normally 3 1/2 hour drive, putting me at the club at midnight. So, that's my excuse. I'm sorry for the cancel, but summer is right around the corner, right? Blah.  I will be rescheduling for January.

11-25-08 | Two shows away; New songs at play; Scott Baio?

98% ROUNDED UP

I am, as I type, 98 live shows in to this ‘new’ venture. Though, the word ‘new’ will no longer be used after this week of shows when describing my ‘side-project’ (note to self), whilst the term ‘side-project’ will now be known as ‘my living’ (note to financial institutions). I feel extremely fortunate that in just my first 100 shows, I was able to build my own self-sustaining small business (my dream job) from the ground up using the strategy of examining down from above. Since I choose to manage and book shows all myself, there are many hard working bands and management that I look to and stalk for their silent advise. Lotus, EOTO, U-Melt, The Breakfast, Telepath, The Brew, Lymbyc Systym and The Indobox are just some of those bands, but that also were supportive enough to share a small section of their main stage with little unknown me over my freshman 100-show period. I thank them for their support (my official Thanksgiving thanks giving). If you don’t about some of those bands, please Google them. Let’s grow together. All of us.

THE BORN AGAIN ALBUM

OK, enough soppy stuff, let’s get to business. I’m officially changing my mind. Why? Because I can, and I have no one to answer to (I ended that sentence in a preposition… it’s bothering me, but I’ll get over it). The theme of “Alive like the Spine,” the forthcoming, mentally fabulous LP has changed drastically. First, the track count has changed from the previous Bujak album standard of 12 songs to a new and profound 8. Second, instead of writing all brand new songs, I’m using the live performance tested, already existing songs that were written since the last album. Thirdly, I’m including guest musicians on 7 of the 8 tracks and even some tracks will include multiple cameos. The theme of this album will be about experiencing what these older unreleased songs would sound like if I were called “Multiple Buj and the Fabulous Sit Ins.” The name might not be catchy (and will never be spoken about again), but just wait until you hear the upright bowed bass, the trumpet, the flute, the array of guitars, pianos, electronic drums, keyboards and other people’s vocals (OPV, yeah you know me!). You will like. I promise. Fabulous.

A LONG DECEMBER AND THERE’S REASON TO BELIEVE...

… that maybe this year’s will be better than the last. That reason is because I’ve got some final-month shows coming up that I can’t wait for! Even before December comes barreling in, on Thanksgiving Day weekend in Northern NJ, I will be performing my milestone 100.00th live show. This night will be a benefit for a festival that I played over the summer that was rudely interrupted by hurricane Hannah shortly after my 3am Saturday morning set. You see, Hannah was not invited, but she crashed the party anyways. This benefit show will help the BUJ-supporting festival organizers recoup and re-gear for next year’s fest. Then on DEC 06, my other entity Somebody’s Closet, will be playing a rare private show located in a palace/house in Amsterdam… New York, that is. I’ll also be playing some solo material throughout the night. Contact me for details; most people/wookies welcome. Then the following week on the 10th, I’m sharing a bit of the night with the uber-dance inducing outfit The New Deal in my O.G. birthplace of Syracuse, NY. Two nights later in the same city, I’ll be hosting a full evening of BUJ at the Shire before carriaging to Reading, PA for another full evening of prog madness including 2 special guests running a body powered light show. I’m Long Island bound for the weekend before Christmas at a new lounge in Lake Grove, NY, before ending the year with a two show tweener run (but, not wiener run) with CT’s power anthem rockers, The Breakfast. In fact, my second show ever was a tweener (between sets) slot for the Breakfast (YouTube has a clip of my set from this show; ask him). Good way to end the year, indeed.

BUJ-TUBE I COIN THEE

Oh, really quick for an unfounded 4th paragraph… I had some free time this past week (so I decided to work more), so I uploaded a bunch of live video including footage from some very early shows to a bunch of video hosting sites including YouTube, Facebook and a little company called MySpace. It gave me an idea: I’m going to begin video taping my shows way more often and adding them to my LIVE BUJ online catalog. Expect more, way more! But, isn’t that my slogan? It should be. Peace.

-Jeff Bujak