On January 17, 2014, Top Shelf Reggae got to visit Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad at the Belly Up in San Diego, California. Yeah, there name is a mouthful, and so is their music! Mixing ska-reggae with psychedelic rock, this New York band from Rochester brought their East Coast accent to their West Coast tour. Having waited two years since their last time in the West, GPGDS made a Mixtape album released earlier this month, to go along with their current In Roots We Trust Tour – which features The Expanders and The Simpkin Project, two reggae-roots bands from California. Starting January 16th and going until January 25th, these three bands will be touring the Western part of the U.S. and bringing rich-sounding reggae music all around!
full of energy from beginning to end in performance
GPGDS has a large following in the Eastern Part of the U.S., and their high-energy may explain it all! The band played such songs as “Far Away”,” “Love You More,” and “Healing” among other rich, bluesy, and psychedelic-guitar playing songs-not to mention how they just jammed instrumentals too on stage. James Searl – bass man, singer, and full of energy from beginning to end in performance, carries the band into rich guitar solos which bring bluesy and classic-rock melodies to the stage! The guitar players also back Searl in vocals, which then turn the music into a well-crafted, deep-sounding production of bass-led reggae rock! Did we mention how high the band’s energy is in performance? Practically non-stop!
GPGDS released two albums in 2012 titled, In These Times, and Country after touring and releasing their debut album in 2006 called Slow Down. Their current “mixtape” of the bands on tour was played 10,000 times in 24 hours, and they are planning to release a new studio album this summer.
For more information, check out their current tour, or visit their website.
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