Doc Green and the Founders
Doc Green and the Founders
Genres: country, rock, punk, folk, funk
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Leroy Miller
About Doc Green and the Founders
Doc Green and the Founders was a band from Wilmette, Illinois, active primarily during the mid-late 2000s and consisting of vocalist Ari Conterato, multi-instrumentalist Taylor Cole, guitarist Spencer Kingman Graham and percussionist Wesley Schaff. The group functioned as more of a musical collective than a traditional, self-contained band; various combinations of members from the group came together at different times to record their four studio albums: Mishawaka Favorites, Doc Green and the Founders v. Taylor Cole, Tips, Tricks and Other Friendly Reminders From Spencer Kingman Graham and Hard Talkin'. The group frequently collaborated with musicians such as Nathan Venechuk, Andrew Cole, Julia Bobo and Colin MacGregor. Doc Green functioned almost exclusively as a recording group. Though the band would, in its early years, occasionally make unannounced live appearances in small, private settings, these appearances were infrequent and became increasingly so as the group developed and refined its studio recording process. While recording their final album, Hard Talkin', the Founders attempted to respond to an increasing demand for live performance without compromising the integrity of their studio sound by collaborating with director Rachel Korhumel to make the documentary film, Doc Green and the Founders: Hard Talkin': The Session They Didn't Want You to See. Few copies of the film were actually produced, however, and today, it remains quite difficult to find. The group began as a recording side project for Taylor Cole, Ari Conterato, Spencer Kingman Graham and Wesley Schaff. The four musicians had all grown up in the same neighborhood and had been friends since early childhood. But the unexpected widespread popular success of their first studio album, Mishawaka Favorites, which was traded, hyped and heavily circulated on the internet, particularly through social networking websites and the blogosphere, catapulted the group into the spotlight and turned Doc Green and the Founders into the primary focus of each of the young musicians. In the years that followed, Doc Green and the Founders would go on to make three more studio albums together. In the group's later years, pressure being placed on the group, as well as creative tension within the group, became increasingly difficult for its members to endure. Unfounded allegations of racist sentiments at the core of some of the group's albums, particularly Mishawaka Favorites and Hard Talkin', were being leveled on the group with increasing force. And though Hard Talkin' had been the group's greatest commercial success in years, and by far the greatest critical success of the band's career, its popular acceptance still lingered far behind that of their debut, Mishawaka Favorites. Ultimately, the intense strain of this period proved too much to bear, and the group officially disbanded in the summer of 2009.
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