SOUR MASH was formed by a combination of lacrosse, parties, open mic nights,
connections, good luck and of course a bottle of whiskey . In high school
Tony Adamo and Larry Giglio played lacrosse together and became good friends. While away at different colleges (Tony in New York and Larry in California) they slowly
started to become more involved in their local music scenes. They started jamming with different musicians at various clubs, bars and open mic nights.
During the summer, when they were both home from college they would jam together, usually covering modern rock songs. When Larry was away in LA, he started to develop a strong interest in the blues. After college he moved back to New York and joined the Mohawk Valley Blues Society. It was there that he met harmonica player, Adam Bishton. Adam was brought up on the blues and had played harmonica off and on since he was eight. Larry became very involved in the blues society and began to dig deep into the history of all the blues guitar greats. Larry began to turn Tony onto the blues. They found their style and taste of music began evolving.
One night Larry had a party at his house and he introduced Adam to Tony. Adam was blowin’ some harp and Larry grabbed his guitar started jammin’ with Bish. Larry told Tony to get his kit from the car and set it up. Although they lacked a bass player, that didn't stop them from jamming ‘til the sun came up...literally. The people at the party liked what they heard. Many thought that they had been playing together for a while.
Larry, Tony and Adam continued to get together regularly and introduce new songs to each other and they worked on them as much as possible...they felt like they were onto something, they just needed a bass player. They found a bass player, and soon after became regulars at open mic nights at The Snubbing Post on Thursday nights and "Blues Jams" at the Ramada put on by the blues society. They worked hard and would add three to five songs a week to the song list and fast became one of the favorite bands of the Thursday night open mic.
One night Adam and Larry were polishing off a bottle of Jack Daniels and thought it was time to give the band a name. What better name than the one inscribed on the bottle they just killed... SOUR MASH! It wasn’t too long after they added bass player, Mike DePalma. They met Mike through the blues society and he was often at the open mic nights at the Snubbing Post.
A few weeks later, the bartender at the Post asked if they had the next Friday open because the band originally scheduled to perform had to cancel. SOUR MASH gladly accepted the open date.
After the first show, word spread pretty quickly and SOUR MASH was getting booked weekly. They continue to perform mainly in the Utica, NY area and are slowly starting to spread out. Their unique blues sound has obviously evolved from their "rock roots" and
anyone who might think that the blues isn't for them, hasn't been to a SOUR
MASH show yet, because as Muddy Waters said "the blues had a baby, and they
named the baby rock 'n' roll".
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