home | Cicada Omega

Websites
Offical Website
Myspace
Email
events@cicadaomega.com
Booking
Candide Entertainment Group
Howard Libes
libes@candide-ent.com

Afro-Punk, Southern Gothic, Folkadelic Soul, or Transcendental Junkyard Blues Music from Beatnik Kentucky Voodoo Renegades. This is the band Cicada Omega.

You’d have a hard time defining the band’s music in one word. Often misjudged and miscategorized, Cicada Omega is an other-worldly blend of juke-joint music deeply rooted in blues & gospel and trance-like southern soul: The music is conveyed by two drummers, a home-made upright bass, and an electric banjo mixed with the chants, hollers, and the singing of an evangelical front man. Most of the instruments are homemade or found objects. But take heed, this is not your grandfathers jug band.

If asked for influences you would find a long and varied list: John Lee Hooker, the Staples Singers, Captain Beefheart, Doc Bogs, Nusrat, Black Sabbath, Prince, and Hank Williams just to name a few.

Cicada Omega consists of four Kentuckians, who write songs that are guaranteed to get you moving, while telling stories about the mysterious South. The group is fronted by a howling guitarist soothsayer and harmonica man Reverend B.D. Winfield. Picture a hillbilly version of James Brown with an electric banjo. The drums are split and doubled: Dave Rue plays a traditional kit that keeps everything in line; Salim Sundiata Sanchez mixes it up with latin percussion and found objects. The two combine to produce hypnotic voodoo rhythms with an abundant energy. The bass is played by Shawn “Skeeter” Davis. Well, that is, if you can call it a "bass." He plays an upright bass which is actually an electrified oil drum with strings. (You just have to see it to believe it.) He likes loud, low dirty tones that lay down a solid rhythm for the pounding drums. The vocals are split between Sanchez, Davis, and Winfield which often comes down to a call-and-response with stomping and yelling, each member displaying his own style. Each song and each show come alive with improvisation and spontaneity.

The band’s name comes from the insect, the cicada: A loud, flying insect that lives in the South, a cousin to the locust mentioned in Revelations. Cicada Omega stands for that last unruly plague.

As a whole, the group gives a refreshing sound to the music of the Deep South. And when you see them live, you take away a new experience that you'll never forget. So come prepared to be intoxicated, to dance, shake, scream, and laugh. "…Cicada Omega…bring new age, old age, space age transcendental junkyard blues from the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky."

Cicada Omega is currently located in Portland, Oregon and tour the Northwest, up-and-down the West Coast and across the United States. They’ve shared the stage with local and national acts such as The' Legendary Shack Shakers, Hillstomp, Bob Log III, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Oh' Death, John Lee Hooker Jr. , and Scott H. Biram.